[Ancients] How do I pronounce...

Yes, start a new thread. Maybe include Greek words as well? I don't know how to pronounce Greek correctly, but I do know how to say it well enough to be understood at a coin show.

 

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I will continue to maintain that you can not pronounce any language, let alone a 'dead' one, without details as to where and when you define as the standard. Do you really think the Greek of Athens in the time of Pericles matched the Greek of Alexandria under Diocletian? Today on Earth we have examples of English and other languages with enough variations that the speakers have trouble understanding each other. How many dialectic variances do you think a world without electronic communications developed over a couple thousand years?

I recall somewhere there is a mention that Septimius Severus spoke Latin with a serious accent and Julia Domna did not speak it at all (preferring Greek). The concept of 'correct' pronunciation and spelling is somewhat new to English. I'll need to see evidence that it existed in the distant past beyond local populations and for time beyond a few generations. You might prove how Cicero would have said it but take care not to force that on Constantine or Romulus.

Finally, on what evidence do you base the accepted rules? In some cases I see good hints in transliterations between Greek and Latin like the use of OY (ooweh) to start names starting with V in Latin. How has a reference that does not just give the rules but that explains how the rules were formulated?

 

An interesting bit on his accent from Anthony R Birley's Septimius Severus: The African Emperor :

"The Africans dropped their aitches and mispronounced the letter L. They tended to lengthen short syllables at the beginning of words, and made a whistling sound over certain letters. Above all, they had difficulty in adapting sibilants to the restricted sounds of Latin. There is a chance that Septimius pronounced his own names in a manner resembling 'Sheptimiush Sheverush'. His sister Octavilla was later supposed to have been scarcely able to speak Latin. But there is no doubt that Septimius himself, accent or not, was completely fluent. The 'African accent' was a provincial Roman accent, not a foreign accent."

I read elsewhere that the accent was slight. Whatever the case may be, I'm personally considering using only the Sheptimiush Sheverush pronounciation from now.

 

of corth it's pronounthed "Sheptimiush Sheverush", how elsh would you shay it?

 

SHEP-SHEV!!

 

Everyone knows Claudius and we ancient folk know Clodius Albinus. Deep within Suetonius is a paragraph about Claudius's "rural"accent. Senators would make fun of him by stressing the o in Clodius for Cla U dius. (glide that a U) . So, if you want to be completely misunderstood, just speak real Latin at a coin show.

 

I thought the drock-muh pronunciation was the plural form of drachm (drock-uhm)