Is this pronunciation accurate?

 

cinefactus

Censor

  • Censor

  • Patronus

Location:
litore aureo
The ones I listened to sound good to me, although Godmy is the real expert.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Why, thanks for tagging!

I rarely say this but the few words I've heard persuaded me the guy is really good. The pronunciation is restored and he does both the vowel lengths and the accent placing correctly, the vowel quality is supreme too, the consonant doubling is good. One quirk he does is that if there is a long vowel a the end, he makes it kind of super-long... but that could be simply his "style", it's done consistently, I suppose it's just for the effect of the word resounding well in isolation.

But a good choice, I think!

If you want a review of your pronunciation skills, there is a how-to in a thread in this section of the forum (the stickied thread where we analyze pronunciations).
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

Why, thanks for tagging!

I rarely say this but the few words I've heard persuaded me the guy is really good. The pronunciation is restored and he does both the vowel lengths and the accent placing correctly, the vowel quality is supreme too, the consonant doubling is good. One quirk he does is that if there is a long vowel a the end, he makes it kind of super-long... but that could be simply his "style", it's done consistently, I suppose it's just for the effect of the word resounding well in isolation.

But a good choice, I think!

If you want a review of your pronunciation skills, there is a how-to in a thread in this section of the forum (the stickied thread where we analyze pronunciations).

I think it sounds very good
What he doesn't do is the nasalisation of vowels before -ns or -nf (as in consul or in conferre) or at the of a word (volutabrum)
I've always wondered what that sounded like ... I suppose a native speaker of French might get closest to that?!
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
What he doesn't do is the nasalisation of vowels before -ns or -nf (as in consul or in conferre) or at the of a word (volutabrum)
Myself, I'm not very concerned about nasalization, since, as far as I remember, all we know for sure is that at some point "n" before "f" and "s" simply disappeared by the language evolution... like completely (in the natural spoken dialects), no nasalization, nothing (just like we observe in Greek with some nouns or participles, e.g.: gigas, gigantos), the only leftover there was was a compensatory vowel lengthening (if I remember correctly). Then, maybe, supposedly in the classical age and maybe just in the literary dialect the "n" before "s" and "f" was perhaps restored again (probably with an antiquated orthography as a guide), now the question is: restored as a nasalization or maybe for a literary effect as a full consonant? Plus, had the before-gained long vowel been retained while this was done? Probably so...

So, nasalization or altogether omission of "n" or "m" at some positions is for me a ... fact (when it comes to the evolution of Latin as speech)... but a slightly controversial issue when it comes to the "literary" dialect (Romans reciting, reading aloud, etc. etc.) - the dialect we use. So, I don't care so much whether people do it or not, I sometimes nasalize, sometimes I read it fully. I more focus whether people get the vowels correctly, at least the qualities, the quantities are important for me too, but if even the quality is wrong... then it's a lost case :-/

I've always wondered what that sounded like ... I suppose a native speaker of French might get closest to that?!
Well, phonetically there aren't many ways to do a nasalization, it's just... one simple process :) But it may be stronger or weaker, yes... But any real nasalization you do, should work.
 
 

Dantius

Homo Sapiens

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
in orbe lacteo
Interestingly, the Appendix Probi tells us that Hercules was often misspelled Herculens in the 3rd/4th century. Not sure if that's relevant.
 

pmp000

New Member

Unfortunatly there are some mistakes. He mispronounces satísdedī —> satisdḗdī


I've always wondered what that sounded like ... I suppose a native speaker of French might get closest to that?!
I am not sure about the other nasal vowels of latin, but if we say that am (as in rosam) should be pronounced ã (a with a tilde, in a small font, it could look like a macron), then it should sound like "an" from Canadian French.

Example: https://forvo.com/word/avant/#fr
(Look for the Canadian female)
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
You see, I think that at the end everyone should do what you're (or some us) are doing when it comes to Latin pronunciation.

1) People should get basic training in phonetics

2) People should train pronouncing novel sounds, novel vowels and novel consonants BASED solely on a phonetic description without any prior example, just by moving the articulators the way it is described on the PAPER

3) people should follow external examples, learn pronunciations of other modern languages (or follow them) only as a source of "potential" inspiration

4) at the end, use your best judgement to produce the most accurate restored Latin pronunciation based on everything above, don't parrot a single speaker like this guy on forvo even if they get things right in 90-95% of time :)

5) external evaluation may still be helpful, because there may be things in your pronunciation you may not realize due to your native language bias (and that is natural!)
 
Top