Rome

They'd be just as we are today, Gareth: there'd be the gorblimius school of Latin from the lower classes, some dreadfully-mangled Latin from non Latin-speaking slaves trying to get by (rather like the English trying to learn Italian today), and the upper-class pronunciation of the aristos.

I'm sure that Caesar said 'in veeno veritas' very nicely, his slaves muttered 'en vinner verritas' and the average bloke in the market murmured 'inv'no ver'tas' in the way some English speakers say 'innit' and 'wha'evvah'!

The idea that every Roman spoke fraffly good Latin is as flawed a notion as all English people speaking standard English today. The senators all spoke well, as you'd rather expect the House of Lords to today, and I think the film clearly meant to delineate social class by a variation of accents and phrases, as one would attempt to show today's society in a couple of thousand years' time. Innit?
 
Tout, I always believed that well written as Graves books are (SL - just read them and you'll know what Lord H means) they are really just an translation and humanisation of Tacitus, who had a partcular point of view.
 
I'm planning to read them, AC - payday's not till the 15th though! I've already got a Graves book - one on Ancient Greek myths and legends.
 
Originally posted by Gareth Flynn@Jan 7 2006, 12:46 AM
What kind of accent should they be putting on?
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I've always wondered about that and I'm not sure how a director might otherwise put across the social class differences, but it still puts me off.

Is there any evidence that there were strong differences in accent among the Romans? None of my Latin books ever mentioned characters speaking in accents :lol:

Also, given the strictness of all things Roman (when it suited the b@stards) isn't there a case for arguing that the educated classes would have spoken in an equivalent of received pronunciation?

I'd rather have the actors speaking in fake Italian accents à la Franciscus Dettorius.
 
Well, DO, Latin's just a language - just as there are huge regional differences in English and Arabic, for example, in both the word used to describe something, and the inflexion, there must surely have been regional differences, just as a Milanese does not have the same accent as a Neapolitan today. There are plenty of jokes (by Italians) about regional Italian accents, just as the English have about English ones. Romans are like Londoners, and say they speak the 'best' Italian, while the further south you go, they say the worse the accent gets - harsher, more guttural, sloppier pronunciation. So why would the lowliest serf speak like the Emperor? It would be like assuming a Norfolk turkey farmer's wife spoke like the Queen.

I was making the point that the senators and aristos WOULD speak with the equivalent of received pronunciation, and the plebeians would not. Did I not make that clear? Put it down to the fact that you speak Scottish English, then, and are regionally de trop!
 
I saw your point quite clearly but you are speculating about accents. You're probably right but it's still speculation.

My point is that it just doesn't work for me when a dramatisation of the period relies upon modern regional English accents. Were there any Scottish accents in the programme and what do you have against Scottish accents anyway?
 
Originally posted by krizon@Jan 7 2006, 08:18 PM
Put it down to the fact that you speak Scottish English, then, and are regionally de trop!
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And if I spoke Irish English? West Indian English?

It's nice to see racism is still alive and well.
 
Oh dear, dear, dear, DO, you really have got your dreary hat back on again. Why is it speculation if I say it's most likely they had regional pronunciations of Latin, and not speculation on YOUR part to hazard that they didn't? Quite honestly, I don't see where your notion stands up to logic. Latin was spoken right across what is now modern Italy. Modern Italians do not speak Italian with one accent, as I've just described, so why would it be reasonable to expect the ancient Latin-speakers to speak their one language with only one pronunciation?

What is your basis for rejecting my supposition? Every country which has a single 'mother' tongue (as against, say, Zambia, which has dozens of languages based on regional tribalism) speaks it with regional differences. You surely aren't going to tell me that the English-speaking Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish pronounce English as per the Queen, and don't have any variations on its words? You'll be telling me next that the natives of Norfolks don't pronounce 'beautiful' as 'bootiful', that the Cornish don't have tatty oggies, and that little alleyways in Sussex aren't called twittens. It's all supposedly English, but it sounds a lot different from county to county, and the word for one thing is incomprehensible to a native of, say Co. Durham, but everyday to a native of Kent.

It's got nothing to do with 'racism' in the derogatory sense you always seem to be acutely keen to haul out if the Scots are ever mentioned, but certainly to do with the races of the people involved. Of course, different races lived in ancient Britain, as any first year student of history knows. They didn't speak with the same tongue in what's now Invernesshire as they did down in old Iceni-land, did they? Therefore, it stands to reason that just as they were eventually 'globalised' by English, they twiddled with it to suit their regions and maintain some degree of racial differentiation. Being 'proud to be Scots' or 'proud to be Welsh' is being proud of one's race, one's difference from others, one's language and one's homeland, isn't it? Therefore, yes, it's 'racist', but not in the sense in which you misconstrue it. It's pretty obvious from football club allegiances that it's still very much alive today.

I'm sure that every country of the ancient world had its varying pronunciations of its ancient languages - Jesus's Aramaic, as a simple carpenter chap, was probably far more colloquial than those of the higher classes.

I am, to be honest, amazed that as a languages pundit you've never considered this.
 
Ok - now please watch the blockbuster movie Alexander, if you may. Why in the name of God do all the Macedonians speak in an Irish accent??? Worse still, the majority are Americans-affecting-an-Irish-accent!!!!!!! Even funnier is that one of them, Craterus, has a Glaswegian accent & Cleitus the Black has a pretending-to-be-Irish-most-of-the-time-but-more-often-than-not-lapsing-into-a Lancashire-accent! Saw the film today and as a film it's not too bad I guess, but historically it's dreadful - missing out great chunks entirely, getting things wrong - a shambles! As for the continuity - at the battle of Guagamela the stuntman used for Colin Farrell has far, far longer & more slender legs than he does!!!!! :lol: :lol: Oh, and you can see the shape of the saddle they've put underneath the blanket! The horse is wrong too - he calle dhim bucephalus (Greek for ox-head) as he had an ox-head shaped white mark on his head - yet where was it in the film??? PLain black head???? It's not hard - they could've used paint! Bucephalus also died before India, and died of old age - not as per the film. There were other anomalies too - many in fact.
 
Originally posted by krizon@Jan 8 2006, 12:37 AM
I am, to be honest, amazed that as a languages pundit you've never considered this.
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You misinterpret me. I'd have thought it was obvious that I had considered it. I went as far as to say you were probably right.

Not only that, but I often point out to disinterested students the importance of the impact of regional native pronunciation on imported languages in their evolution into the modern language.

Yet any time accents are discussed you always seem to end up having a go at the Scottish accent. I happen to see that as no different from having a go at any other accent from outwith England. If anyone came on here and suggested someone didn't appreciate something because they spoke with an Asian or African-Caribbean accent it would be regarded as a racist comment.

You disappoint me.
 
Really, DO, you have such a bee in your tartan bonnet about Scottishness - if I'm talking to a Scotsman, I relate to him AS a Scot, not an Afro-Caribbean or a native of Kent or Devon. That's because the Scots are forever ramming down our throats how SCOTTISH they are - Scotch whisky, Scottish songs, Scottish reels, Scottish cattle, Scottish salmon, Scottish poets, Scottish landscape painters, Scottish music, Scottish music groups, Scots porage, Scots' crofts, Scots wa-hey and on and on! The Scots are forever differentiating themselves from being British in every possible way, their heritage, their castles, their battles, their heroes, their traditions - all of which they are constantly reinforcing to themselves and to the rest of the world as separate from any other 'race' in the British Isles, let alone the globe. Now that IS racial division in my book, if not in yours.

I don't have a 'pop' at Scottish people per se - but I find the national obsession with their own race excluding, as if non-Scots are to be viewed as foreign. Maybe way up there over the border, you've all got so used to promoting yourselves as Scottish, you've forgotten that there's a broader remit southwards, somewhat more outward-looking, considerably more inclusive, and considerably more in touch with and welcoming to incoming races, cultures, and permitting their integration and due influence, than back in Bonnie Scotland.

When I hear bollocks like 'Wales for the Welsh', 'Cornwall for the Cornish' and other nonsensically-outdated racial rallying cries, I'd be scathing about them, too. Yes, every race in the British Isles brings something historic to the table of a common heritage, but it's hardly a 'united' kingdom when various factions are intent upon drawing up what are, in fact, separatist agendae in what is supposedly a modern 21st Century.
 
This is the reverse side of a posting I made a while ago on the Other Sports board, which is the dark continent to some on here. But I think it explains how Lucius Vorenus allowed things such as his marriage and friendship with Titus Pullo to get into a mess. He has been burning the candle at both ends by moonlighting as manager of Everton Football Club under the pseudonym of David Moyes.

MoyesDavid050720PortraitGbg.jpg
 
Originally posted by krizon@Jan 9 2006, 12:37 AM
as if non-Scots are to be viewed as foreign.
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When compared with Scots, non-Scots are foreign.

EDIT:
for·eign ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fôrn, fr-)
adj.
Located away from one's native country: on business in a foreign city.
Of, characteristic of, or from a place or country other than the one being considered: a foreign custom
 
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