Last night, I saw Mel Gibson’s The Passion, and I noticed something that I thought was peculiar about the Latin pronunciation.
It has been my understanding that "Italianized" or "Middle Ages" pronunciation was a rather late phenomenon. During classical times, V was pronounced like English W (eg. veritas was pronounced "weritas") and C always had a hard K sound, not a softer S or CH (eg. pacem was pronounced "pakem" not "pachem"). Therefore, to be a stickler, Caesar actually proclaimed "Weni, widi, wiki."
Am I wrong about the time course of the pronunciation?
David
P.S. I really liked the movie. It was awfully graphic, though. And, I’m sorry, it’s NOT anti-Semitic.
You are indeed correct about the Latin pronunciation. The Passion uses church-style Latin pronunciation, which for obvious reasons did not exist with respect to the movie’s setting. I haven’t seen the movie, but I saw a clip where the words "Ecce homo" are proclaimed, meaning Look/Behold the man. However, it was pronounced "Echay" instead of the correct "Ekay".
Thanks for the reply, Robby. It seems to me that if you’re going to spend all that money to do an entire movie in two ancient languages, you might as well be accurate. I mean, it’s not like that information is so abstruce that professional latin consultants wouldn’t know it. I wonder why they made that mistake.
I’d love to hear from anyone with more to say on this topic. Also, I was very excited to listen to Aramaic. Once people have seen the movie, I’d love to hear people’s opinions on the authenticity of that.
Latin was a living language whose pronunciation changed over time. Centum (100) was originally pronounced ken-tum. By the 2nd century A.D. it had become chen-tu and by the 5th century A.D. sent-to which is the parent of modern Spanish ciento and French cent. Church Latin used the intermediate pronunciation also found in Italian & Romanian. Thus, Chichero for Cicero vs. Classical Latin Kikero.
One criticism of the Passion I’ve heard is that it uses Latin as well as Aramaic even though the lingua franca of the eastern Roman Empire was Greek and not Latin .
This is correct. There are still pockets of Armaic speakers in Israel, Jordan and Georgia (southern Russia) but I understand they are Christian Arabs and not descendents of the original Semitic tribe that spoke this language.
Interesting topic! I was speaking with that Turkish friend of mine. He says that an abandoned monastary of the Old Syriac Church has (recently?) started to be restored. The Turkish government has asked the Syriac Christians to re-establish their ancient community there!
I wonder if for the Aramaic of "The Passion" they used the speech patterns of these remaining descendents.
One criticism of the Passion I’ve heard is that it uses Latin as well as Aramaic even though the lingua franca of the eastern Roman Empire was Greek and not Latin.
I did make a mental note of the lack of Greek because of the above-mentioned reason. And I made an audible "Hmf" when the INRI sign at the top of the cross displayed Latin and Aramaic but no Greek. I know that governmental decrees went up in both state languages (and probably the local tongue). But I’d like a better explanation about the extent of the Greek vs. Latin preference in the eastern Roman Empire. Can anyone provide it?
:)
Latin was used as an administrative language by the Romans in the eastern Mediterranean to some extent and by the Roman Army (Most Latin inscriptions found in Turkey and Syria are of a military nature) but the civilian populations always used Greek as their first language or their second language after Thracian, Phrygian, Lydian, Galatian (Celtic), Aramaic or Coptic etc.
Latin usually could not compete with Greek in the Roman Empire and it was actually in the more barbaric parts of the empire that Latin took root like Spain, Gaul (Modern France & Switzerland) , and Dacia (Modern Romania).
i slightly disagree with you, brian, based on the following passage that i got here:
LANGUAGE
How do we know what languages people actually spoke in Roman Judaea? We have a lot
of written evidence from the region that is contemporary with the era of Jesus: papyri, inscriptions,
grafitti, and historical texts. From hundreds of examples surviving from Roman
Judaea, we can easily document which languages people understood and used both in official
transactions and in their daily lives. The ancient evidence is very clear on this point: the everyday
language spoken by the Jewish and Samaritan populations of Palestine in the time of
Jesus was Aramaic, while the official language for administrative communication was Greek.
Thus one of the film’s major historical inaccuracies is the use of Latin instead of Greek. In
the context of the movie, it may seem logical to hear Roman soldiers and officials speak
Latin. After all, by the time of Jesus, Latin had long been the living language of the population
of Rome as well as of most of Italy. In Judaea, however, nobody grew up speaking or
even learning Latin. While Roman soldiers and officials from Rome probably did speak Latin
among themselves, they would have used Greek to communicate with members of the local
ruling class, such as Herod’s family and the Jewish high priests. As a poor Jew, Jesus presumably
did not know Greek at all, and he certainly would not have known Latin (in one scene
in the movie, he speaks with Pontius Pilate in Latin!).
oh those archaeologists—they think they know everything! ;)
I missed this thread the first time through! Thanks for resurrecting it, David!
I would love to waste my time studying all the ways linguists think they have learned how ancient peoples pronounce their written languages.
This particular statement (in the document you provided the link to in your previous post) caught my attention:
... A stone inscription found in the modern Italian town of Pozzuoli (ancient Puteoli), dating to the first century C.E. ...
Notice how the pronunciation of the ancient name of the town changed slightly over time… But even moreso, notice how some simple pronunciation guidelines may explain that the pronunciation may not have changed as much as superficially it appears to have!
The vowel e following the t in Puteoli, for example, could have had the softening effect on the preceding consonant even back in those days. How will we know? A pronunciation of the ancient Latin name as "Poo-tzYOH-lee" could very easily become modified into Pozzuoli ("Poh-dzWOH-lee")...
I don’t think anybody really knows how Latin was actually pronounced (did they leave any spoken record behind?) Those sounds have changed quite radically in modern Romance languages, so which one could be used as a meter? I myself know three different ways of pronouncing Latin words: the Roman way, where ce and ci would be pronounced as they are in Italian or English cheh and chee; the Restored Version, where they would be pronounced as keh and kee in English; and the Portuguese way, where they would be pronounced as seh and see. Pronouncing them one way or the other seems to be a matter of personal taste or a particular teacher’s indoctrination.
And regarding the movie, the Latin was impeccable and the only thing that diverted my mind, albeit briefly, away from those violence-laden scenes, whose veracity I’m not contesting!
Brazilian dude
Actually, literary scholars and grammarians of the Latin-speaking, Roman empire era did leave some clear written records on how to pronounce Latin and teach its pronunciation to students.
contemporary Italian is considered the closest relative to original Latin, as far as grammar and pronunciation is concerned. Afterall, Italian is called "vulgar Latin"!
Spoken Italian should give a good idea how Latin "is meant to be" spoken.
No, I am not Italian, but I love the language. Maybe, it’s because one of my strongest passions is music, and Italian is very well represented there (through many famous operas, operettas, chorals, etc.)
I think Italian is one of the most beautiful languages in the world!
[quote author=amalingua link=board=translate;num=1077987259;start=0#11 date=04/01/04 at 12:55:46]contemporary Italian is considered the closest relative to original Latin, as far as grammar and pronunciation is concerned. Afterall, Italian is called "vulgar Latin"!
Spoken Italian should give a good idea how Latin "is meant to be" spoken.
Shouldn’t that be "contemporary Italian is considered the closest relative to Late Latin..."?
"Original Latin" is probably closest to that spoken as the Germans pronounce it.
