Things I hate (pronunciation and spelling)

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Argeiaces dixit:
But it seems the focus of spoken Latin is maintaining correct vowel length over rapidity of speech. After living in Rome for about 10 months, I can't stand but to get a little irritated at the slow pace at which Latin is read/spoken, because all of its surviving descendants' speakers speak fast as heck. Perhaps I'm just ranting a little bit, but does anyone agree?
No. The pace of speech is not a characteristic of a language per se, but of the individual speaking the language. I've heard English speakers pumping out like 20 words per second, too. Still, I wouldn't recite Shakespeare that way.

This is what kinda set me off a little bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehW7f2sg8ro.
... on the other hand, this is just ridiculous. Is this guy on drugs?
 
 

cinefactus

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Bitmap dixit:
... on the other hand, this is just ridiculous. Is this guy on drugs?
Caffeine withdrawal maybe?
 

Argeiaces

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Bitmap dixit:
The pace of speech is not a characteristic of a language per se, but of the individual speaking the language. I've heard English speakers pumping out like 20 words per second, too. Still, I wouldn't recite Shakespeare that way.
Oh yea, that's a good point. I didn't mean to imply that, but I guess I did. In the US, the fastest speakers tend to be those who are in the NE, such as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The more west one goes, the slower people tend to speak. The pace at which English is spoken is separate from the language on a more general level, but if you speak slowly to a New Yorker, or quickly to someone from Utah, they might not think you're speaking English correctly.

Certainly not all Italians speak very fast, but the ones who don't are certainly in the minority. What I meant was that, although it's wrong-headed to simply retroactively apply modern speech styles/habits of a language to the older forms of that language, the fact that the majority of speakers of Romance languages speak quite rapidly makes it rather odd to speak or read aloud Latin much more slowly. When, say, scholars do so, it implies that they understand Latin to have been spoken at a much slower pace than all of it's modern descendents, particularly because much of their effort appears to be focused on getting the vowel quantities and pronunciation of consonants right. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but that by mostly speaking/hearing Latin at a slow pace doesn't allow one to get a feel for how it might have sounded in real life. It's like practicing speaking Italian really slowly--it might be correct pronunciation, but one might miss the more musical elements that can only be fully appreciated at normal, conversational pace.
 
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As far as I know, we don't have any real clues as to the pace at which Latin was actually spoken. However, I believe it's a common trait of all languages to be spoken rather quickly in colloquial everyday situations while being restricted in their pace for higher purposes. I'm pretty sure that a poem or a speech was not recited as fast as your everyday chat in the streets of Rome.

Many people (like the guy in the youtube video) really overdo it, though. It shouldn't take you 4 weeks to say "undas". I usually do it at the speed I would recite German/English poems, too.
 

Nooj

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plaudere ['plaudere]
plodere ['plo:dere]

Plaudere is a hypercorrection by the elites, since they noticed that the diphthong au was pronounced by some lower class denizens as o. But plodere must have been the original pronounciation, because it exists in explodere.
 

Nooj

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Quasus dixit:
Which one enrages you? :roll:
I prefer plodere since it's the original. I also prefer arena over harena for the same reason.
 

Nikolaos

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Nooj dixit:
plaudere ['plaudere]
plodere ['plo:dere]

Plaudere is a hypercorrection by the elites, since they noticed that the diphthong au was pronounced by some lower class denizens as o. But plodere must have been the original pronounciation, because it exists in explodere.
But, then, what protected explodere from this same hypercorrection? I would think it plausible that the pronunciation of explodere may have simply drifted away from the original.
 
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In case you haven't noticed, the point of this thread was originally

I'm trying to put together a list of commonly made mistakes by the people around me that really annoy me
Thanks for showing off your outstanding knowledge of linguistics though :roll:
 
 

Matthaeus

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yep, that's a threat :p
 
 

Bestiola

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Decimvs dixit:
Bitmap dixit:
... on the other hand, this is just ridiculous. Is this guy on drugs?
When I watched that clip, I felt like I was on drugs. That is awful.
If he's a postgraduate student of Greek and Latin one would think he heard about hexameter till now??? I listened and tried to figure the meter (if there is one) but it's like he's reading it after being exposed to the holly fumes of Pythian oracle.
 
 

cinefactus

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Brunhilda dixit:
it's like he's reading it after being exposed to the holly fumes of Pythian oracle.
:hysteric:
 

Nooj

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Nikolaos dixit:
But, then, what protected explodere from this same hypercorrection? I would think it plausible that the pronunciation of explodere may have simply drifted away from the original.
Allen (Vox Latina) says:

Similarly plaudo for plodo; au cannot here be original, since otherwise the compounds would not be explodo, but expl[u-long:3345zjc0][/u-long:3345zjc0]do, etc (as concl[u-long:3345zjc0][/u-long:3345zjc0]do from con-claudo). Quintilian (vi, I, 52) specifically mentions that the old comedies used to end with an actor inviting applause with the word 'pl[o-long:3345zjc0][/o-long:3345zjc0]dite' (though this has been edited to plaudite in the MSS of Plautus and Terence).
Bitmap dixit:
In case you haven't noticed, the point of this thread was originally

I'm trying to put together a list of commonly made mistakes by the people around me that really annoy me
Thanks for showing off your outstanding knowledge of linguistics though :roll:
Sorry for messing up your thread.

Quasus dixit:
Nooj dixit:
I also prefer arena over harena for the same reason.
Isn’t H in harēna etymological? Cf. Sabine fasena.
I had no idea about that. So it seems harena would be the original pronounciation. But I think it might have been a little affected for a Roman in the classical period to pronounce it when the 'h' sound seems to have been commonly dropped.
 

Quasus

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Nooj dixit:
But I think it might have been a little affected for a Roman in the classical period to pronounce it when the 'h' sound seems to have been commonly dropped.
Exactly. And so with all the words with H.
 

metrodorus

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Here is another reading from Ovid, by myself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_aScn6nSB4
I am not really reading for expression, this is a learning recording, but I find it almost impossible to read without expression....but here i was deliberately toning it down.

Evan.
 

metrodorus

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Bitmap dixit:
As far as I know, we don't have any real clues as to the pace at which Latin was actually spoken.
Recent research throws some light on relative language speeds - it appears there is a universal constant of units of information per unit time. A more inflected, dense language, then, would be spoken more slowly. Makes some modicum of sense,what with Latin having its articulated vowel lengths, which would disappear if rattled off at a high speed.
http://www.lsadc.org/info/documents/201 ... nguage.pdf
 

sinalefa

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Hi,
Bitmap dixit:
tálibus ággrĕditúr Vĕnerém Satúrnia díctīs
Shouldn't the accent here (aggrĕditur) fall in -grĕ- nonetheless, since it is already the antepenultimate?
And vĕnerem should be accented on vĕ- or -ne-? What do you represent with ´?

Thanks
 
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