Rome fell in the year 476. The microphone wasn’t invented until the 1870’s. That’s quite a gap. And yet we still know how the old Romans pronounced
their Latin. Prove it? Okay! Catholic school. Literature class. My teacher is Father, uh… let’s call him
Father F. A fellow language-head himself, Father F has a much fuller experience bar
than me. Respect. It’s first thing in the morning, and that
schoolroom sunlight is barely starting to flip the activation switches in my brain. Languagey words drift in from across the class. “Consonants”, “Italian”, “pronunciation”…
up goes my sensor. One kid’s over there talking with the father. Best I can recall, it went like this. “So, uhm, how do we know what Latin sounded
like? I always thought Caesar’s quote was vennee
veedee veechee, but some Latin student told me v’s were w’s and c’s were k’s.” “Hah, no. Cmon, can you imagine any good Italian saying
wennee, weedee, weekee?” I’m sitting there, sure this is wrong somehow. See, my first linguistic obsession was reading
up on how Latin became the Romance languages. So why was I suddenly speechlessly tongue-tied? Well, young self, it took years, but I’m back
to help. We think we know what Caesar’s Latin sounded
like, and that wasn’t it. We know because, well, sometimes they told
us. Quintilian was a smart guy from Roman Spain
who moved to Rome, managed to survive the off-the-wall Year of the Four Emperors and
then founded a school of rhetoric. Also, he hated the letter k. “So k, I think shouldn’t be used at all…
the letter c keeps its strength before all the vowels.” If he’s saying c always made a k sound, that means it didn’t have that second soft pronunciation it does in English or Italian. But that’s one grammarian’s say-so. Things
could look different when all the evidence comes in. Which is exactly what one Czech
linguist claims about the letter “r”. Your Latin textbook says it’s a trill. She argues
it’s a tap (“eddeh”, “re”). We’re just going to have to piece the evidence
together ourselves, starting with ancient authors writing in “good” Latin. The first
clue they give us is the alphabet, which was meant to fit Latin sounds. You hear that,
English?!? So when they wrote words differently, like
ÁNVS, ANVS and ANNVS, it’s a face-value hint that they they said them differently. Meaning
that long “aah”, which sometimes has this little “apex”, doesn’t sound the same as short
“ah”. And double consonants don’t sound like single consonants. In the hands of Virgil the epic poet, that
see-‘n-say alphabet is jammed into a precise structure: poetic meter. From that meter we
can figure out which syllables are long and which are short, which helps confirm which
vowels are long and which ones are short. So some i’s, sorry, “ee”‘s, are longer than
other “ee”‘s. But go look for short “ee” on inscriptions
and you’ll find something interesting. Or won’t find. Because right where it’s supposed
to be, there could be an “É” instead. Why? Well, it makes sense IF short “ee” wasn’t
only shorter than long “eeee” but it also had a different sound, a sound closer to “é”,
kind of “ihh”. Romans left even more clues when they marched
right into foreign language territory and got raided by Germanic tribes. Linguistic
raids. “We’re all taking words, guys! What do you want?” “Oy! Bring me back some wine!”
“I want a wall!” Yep, those are Latin words. And bad accents. And they make it look like
v’s were w’s at the time, something we’d already be suspicious of from poetry and word pairs. So yes, good Latin was spreading, but back
home the Roman rabble was busy turning it bad! Good Latin writers noticed though, and
even included characters speaking the bad Latin, the sermo vulgaris, especially for
a good laugh. But bad Latin can still be good evidence.
Down in Pompeii, before the tragedy, a random guy comes along and graffitis the place to
make sure we’d forever know that he stopped here with his brother. He does something vulgar
though. He drops the h in the word “here”. Ah, just a little mistake, right? Later you find a very dusty, very old book
full of cranky corrections, telling you that the word for old is “vetulus” not “veclus”,
to say “hostiae” not “ostiae”, and “hermeneumata” not “erminomata”. Come on, people! Get it
together! Looks like the Pompeii bros weren’t the only ones dropping their aitches. These mistakes are an interesting kind of
proof. I mean you probably wouldn’t beg me to stop dropping my h’s unless people were
indeed dropping their h’s. But what was once linguistic heresy eventually
turned into Romance… languages. These all have something to teach us about Latin. Wait, how can new languages be evidence for
a dead one? Take Spanish or Italian e. It comes from Latin “e”, but it also comes from
short “i” and not long “i”. Kind of like those inscriptions! It’s even more evidence for
short “ih” versus long “eeee”. Also, sí. Not… no, the LETTER c. The Romance
languages still love it, but before e’s and i’s it makes a soft sound. Except in Sardinian.
So while good Italians say vincere, in Sardinian, conquering is vìnchere. Now Romance palatalization
is another story, but historical linguistics says these languages are whispering at us,
“Latin c always sounded like k, but most of us changed.” They’re thumbs-upping Quintilian. See, younger self, all of this is why when
Romans talked about conquering, they said [‘wɪnkærɛ], and why Caesar’s phrase was
/we:ni:/, /wi:di:/, /wi:ki:/. Now before you go around enforcing reconstructed
pronunciation on us, getting the pope to speak like a real Caesar, think about Latin’s living
history. This was but one part of the story. A pretty amazing one though. Stick around and subscribe for language.
amazing video.
the reflex of this is that all people with latin source language as native one have some skills with all other latin languages.
You focused too much on animation.
Christ, if I hear another The Graduate hotels commercial I'm going to freak the funk out!
I hated latin in school. I still hate it. As a romanian it should be easy to learn it but I find it very hard, just like french.
..Dropping their "H"s?? Maybe he was a Brit. They LOVE to drop their "H"s.
So you got an explanation on why those words sound like with actual examples, a high quality educational video with humour but you bash on a guy cause he didn't time travel 2000 years to record dudes talking.
Just so everyone knows, the Pope has a Twitter completely in Latin that is kept up to date with each new post
But… what do you do in Latin class sorry? Ahahah. We studied this things as first lessons (I'm italian so it obviously helps the pronunciation, but you should follow most of Italian accents to know the basics and then there are a few that even academics don't know so that no-one can really get them)
Deus Vult.
This is some bull shit-us, either say some sentenc-us in Latin-us or change the title-us of the video-us. JEEEEZ-US
You are a dork-us melork-us fooling us with this click-us baite-us.
So anus has three meanings.
Wrong this language today has nothing to do with Latin idiot
Top 1 in our class in Latin Grammar
Pretty interesting but hard to get past that awful animation
I'm quiet sure people came here to hear it not having it explained in such a way
I'm Italian and I found this frightening 🙂 Weeney Weedee Weekeeeeee!
Awesome video, keep up the good work.
ANUS
ANUS
and
ANNUS!!!
… Latin with an US accent : good job, man !!!… and LOL !
Interesting
Absolutely nooo the facts are not wrong they are just not applied in the correct situations wenee widee winci nooo
Anus means old lady? Who came up with that?
Title is NOT MISLEADING. You are all just dumb and do not know how to even interpret english let alone another language…
Anus aaaanus aaanal
2:09 mmmh Sappho was Greek, non Latin
Anvs in modern American English
You sir have successfully created a video with sufficiently interesting content.
Didn't think I would even be interested in it but you kept me from wanting to skip the video.
Bravo!
Liked and subbed!
Or fucking ANUS 🔥🔥
this video sucks
If this is true, why did the pronunciations in liturgical latin, used in Catholicism, change?
Every language has regional accents and dialects, why would Latin be different?
I don’t know how I got to this video but I have my two sons over my shoulder watching too.
You wanna know what Latin sounds like, go to a Tridentine Mass
weenie weenie shrimp on tha bobee
I was expecting to hear real Latin like your title says 🙄
In England they teach it how they actually said it so we’re fine lol
So Caesar used to speak latin in the wrong way? Like an ignorant roman citizen?
So… What does is actually sound like?
Maybe have a look at the arabic written language? They have similar signs above and under letters that change the sound in a somewhat similar way.
I didn't come here for a Latin history lesson .
VICIPEDIA
Father F? Does the F stand for Fiddler?
>good priest makes a joke at the expense of idiots, thinking that any Italian from any era would speak like a complete retard
>me, an intellectual: I WAS SITTING THERE LITERALLY SHAKING HE HAS TO BE WRONG AND I WILL PROVE IT IN A YOUTUBE VIDEO
shocked you haven't kys'd yourself yet, brb going to BASED Langfocus
Anus in portuguese is ass #themoreyouknow
This didnt help at all
NO Latin sentences here 5:58…. Thank me later
Studied Latin for 2 years, so boring.
I wish you could have been my teacher.
Father "F" Aye? I bet there were a lot of jokes of that.
Huh. My brain hurts
So, Julius Caesar was actually pronounced Oolioos Kaiser?
C SUX!
For those wanting to hear Latin being spoken, watch Robin in stranger things 3
E and I is basically how we prounce it in Scandinavia
So, 6 minutes later we still don't know what real latin sounded like.
listen the news in Latin, Nuntii Latini
it is spoken like it is written
日本語は読めるのに難しすぎて内容が入ってこない
I am Italian, and the Latin it's a difficult language and subject also for us.
I’m Italian and , since I study Latin at school, I can say that in this video there are many pronunciation mistakes
To my knowlidge, the letter C in Latin is usually pornounced with a "kuh" sound but if it's in front of the letters E, AE, OE, I, Y then it's pronounced with a "cuh" sound and if it's in front of an H, it's scilent.
And they all come from Greek
As a Latin student at University I must unfortunately say… this is not fully correct.
For example with the 'h'. They did not forget it, just stopped to write it in colloquial latin, because 'h' is actually an ancient greek aspirate and not even considered as consonant, what you can easily see by looking at Roman Metrics.
Why is the English language still known as 'English' when it doesn't sound anything like it's much younger form of Anglo-Saxon whereas the language of Latin isn't continued being called Latin in its descendant languages, e.g. French, Italian, etc?
If Italian is the closest living language to Vulgar Latin then why isn't Italian simply called Vulgar Latin or just Latin as its continued form?
Like modern English is the continuation of Anglo-Saxon with outside influences yet we still call it The English language; why not the same for Latin with its descendant languages?
I speak a Portuguese Dialect that is a type of old Portuguese that is more close to Latin than the modern portuguese and we have 3 sounds for "i" one is like i (short and sounds like "ei"), other is a "i" better pronounced that sounds like "ee" in english and the other is a longer "i" said in double like "ii". In other to say the last one we just change the tonality of the voice. Ex: the first "i" is low pitched while the second is high pitched
Anvs = Anus
As for vowel sounds, i dont know, but It seemed that diphthongs were not pronounced as a different sound and I was expecting this kind of information. But for consonant "c" i knew it: Caesar became Kaiser in german and kaisar (i think) in greek. Plus, in italian the cock goes "chicchirichì" pronounced keek kee ree keeh. And the cock in latin was "cicirrum" . If you put a k in place of c you'll get kikirrum, pronounced "kee keer room". That's an evidence of how C sounded like K. Plus, you didnt explained why V Is pronounced U or W. In latin letter U was added later on. So they only had V. For example VVA was pronounced ooh-wah. In italian It Is now UVA pronounced ooh-vah. I think that we can logically suppose that the further you go back in time, the more alphabets had Sense. One letter, One sound. One sound One letter. This characteristic Is now considered archaic , since the languages of nowadays have big differences between writing and pronunciation. So many people are obviously brought to think: how do you read this? Well a latin would probably answer: as It Is written. This kind of answer Is now possible only for very few languages like finnish for example, where One letter one sound One sound One letter Is practically a rule. In italian and in spanish It Is almost like that because we have very few rules and letters are almost never ignored in pronunciation. Plus both languages dont know vowel diphthongs (except for "gue que" in spanish where U Is used to create new sounds before E and I). But the funniest thing Is that in italian we continue using the church pronunciation of latin which was influenced buy different vulgar languages in Italy, while in the rest of the world they study latin with the most correct pronunciation! And latin people built everything in Italy first… Go figure…
As for lettera R, I think that the pronunciation was like in italian. Maybe english or french can be impressed buy Rolling the RRRRR. But there are different intensities of rolling. Mono-vibrant Is the one that showed the video (in italian we find It before vowels), less intense. Then we have the rolling R, spanish or italian i think its quite the same. And finally double RR where you roll your tongue for a bit longer, and spanish people roll a single R as double many times. I think latin was similar. Interesting video really anyway!
sardinian shamrdignian…they're more likely to have spoken a vulgar tongue due to island isolationism… Romanian c is vincere, and we are very close to latin as well
im not sure this is 100% correct
aflnhksafus a,dfansmus a,fmnasdus asf,us alflafus flkhslfhus flkhsfus
The Latin mass has to be lived not understood!!!
basically: english is the only european language which doesnt sound the same as latin
Well, your childhood education was about a thousand times better than mine if latin was even covered.
I enjoyed the ending lol
"Italian" language actually didn't exist as the Italian language as we know today is the florentine variant of the Tuscan language. Tthen "Italian" has been imposed over Italy, when in reality it was from Florence and Tuscany only.
Although I like your videos, this one is a miss.
You throw away pronounciation rules just because you assume something should be pronounced differently, based on a language's descendants?
Not educational…
Bibidi babidi boobidi babidi
Quick question: I live in York (UK) which is built on an old Roman city-fort called Eboracum. There are still streets and businesses with that name. But I've heard it pronounced two different ways:
ee-bore-ah-cum
or
eb-OH-ARE-cum
Which, if either, is right? Or if you prefer, how would the Roman's have pronounced it?
ANVS
Salut je suis français
IULIUS C(K)AESAR EST DUX ROMANI
Interesting! Video liked.
v was pronounced as bv not a w, and Spanish adopted b and Italian v for v.
It's pretty easy to figure out the C in Latin was a K.
In German there is a word that is directly taken from Latin. Kaiser.
The usage of Kaiser for leader came originally from the Holy Roman Empire that copied it from Caesar. Even now in Dutch the word is still Keizer which is also pronounced with a pretty hard K instead of a C.
That alone already made me understand it was pronounced Caesar instead of Seasar.
In Italy in the churches spoke latin until 5 march 1965.
Roma capvt mvndi
You have pronounced "Vincere" very good. My compliments; you're the first english guy that has pronounced an italian word in the correct way.😂😂😂
In my latin class we learned that the words are spelled differently because it tells you how long you say the syllable for and is especially helpful in poetry.
This video is horrible. It says nothing
If my 9th grade Latin Class taught me anything its that Latin is just a pain in the ass…
I'm learning latin at my school –_–
Father F. The F is for fellatio.
Hostiae is pronounced Hostie
Anus = Old lady
got it!
So practically spoken all my Latin teachers didn't spell it correctly and neither does the Vatican….sed adeo prope lutum!
in italy we don't make this problems
we just read cause the 99% of the words are the same
My parents both graduated from high schools in Gary, Indiana during the 50s, (Lew Wallace and Horace Mann), before Gary turned to shit. They were required to take Latin class. They both said that during the time they hated it, but later in life it helped them to understand unfamiliar words.
I am born in Romania, therefore I have some insight into this
My belief is that it sounded more like:
Weniiii Weidziii Wikiii
In Romanian all C is K. There are still local dialects in S-V Romania where we say:
"Venii" which is simple tense and means an action that happen in the past but just before this one so not a very long time ago (V is not as strong as in Vlad but softer, a little closer to W) and the two ii at at back means that it meant to be accentuated and long
The entire thing in Romanian would sound like:
Venii, vazui, învinsei!
I just came, I just saw, I just won!
Vwēnii, Vwëidzuii, învwinséi!
@2:18 All I heard was "ANUS," "ANUS" and "ANNNUS."
Why is there a demon in my room?
Why the ridiculing of Christian clergy? Are you Jewish perhaps?