Messy Interior

Thanks for the video, Aidan!

Like others, I've fretted about pronunciations and even though what @Valentinian said about it is true, I'm still feel uncomfortable speaking many of these words aloud. Kudos to you for being brave .

I don't have much experience in discussing coins with others (other than by typing) but my two coin show experiences bore out what Warren said. Despite that, I can't overcome my shyness in saying some of these names and places. I hope I can get over it though because I'd love to make some narrated videos.

To give you an idea of variation, check out these eighteen people pronouncing Moesia Superior: http://www.pronouncekiwi.com/Moesia Superior. MEE-shee-ah, Mo-EE-see-ah, MOY-sha, etc. Throw a dart and pick one? In my head I've been saying Mo-EE-sha. I didn't listen to all eighteen to see if anyone else says it that way.

 

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When I took Greek in college we learned two things about pronunciation. 1. It helps a lot to know the pronunciation when reading poetry. 2. Greek has been spoken in many different places for going on 3000 years. Just what do you expect? Consistency?

The last word to worry about IMHO is "Aurelianianus". It was a word made up to replace/augment another completely made up word "antoninianus". We have no idea what the people who spent the things called them. Scholars and collectors love to make up terms to distinguish those in the 'know' from the rest of the ignorant world. That this attitude existed 200 years ago is sad. I was hoping we might get over it.

 

I think it was Bill from Nilus who said that there's a bunch of ways to same something. So I really didn't worry about it. Everyone knows what I'm talking about anyways.

 

On the give-each-vowel-its-due principle, I say mo-EE-si-ah for Moesia. A few on that pronunciation site did, most didn't.
http://www.pronouncekiwi.com/Moesia Superior
I do not claim that way is right and it may well be wrong, but it hard to know when you are wrong if all you have experienced is the written word. You have heard it your own way in your head for years. You don't get much chance to use the word in conversation, and when you do, the person you are talking to probably doesn't know how to pronounce it either!

Here is a coin of the city of Viminacium (vim in ah key um?) in Moesia Superior:


Gordian III, 238-244.
28 mm. 21.24 grams.
IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG in Latin
PMS COL VIM
female standing left holding vexilla inscribed VII and IIII for legions
IIII Flavia and VII Claudia Pia Fidelis
with their symbols, the bull on the left and a lion on the right

Sear Greek Imperial -- but 3642 is from the city.
Lindgren and Kovacs --, Lindgren III --, Weber --

 

Is there like an "ancient greek for dummies" book?

 

And what a fantastic example of the type! (I've been pronouncing Viminacium with a soft c.)

 

(Me too)

 

I pronounce Julius Caesar with a soft C (like "see" or "sea") which is how we do it in American. However, I have been told that it was more like the German "Kaiser" because Latin used hard "K"-sounding C's. (Constantine, Caracalla). For example, just now on the web I searched under "Latin pronunciation" and found lots of rules including "c was always hard." So, if there is any tradition of using a soft C for a name or word, we do that. "Caesar salad" is not "Kaiser salad." If the word or name is uncommon, we can use a soft C it anyway, but the "rule" suggests using a hard C, like a K.

 

I have the same problem. Ancient coin collecting can be a (other than in forums such as these) a solitary hobby. Terms and names that I’ve read thousands of times, I may have actually never tried to pronounce... so when I went to my first coin shows... I was a little shy to open my mouth.

Anyway, one thing that somewhat helped me was listening to Mike Duncan’s fantastic podcast “The History of Rome.” At 179 (freely available) or so episodes long, he covers about anything you’d want to hear pronounced. He admits himself that his pronunciations are not perfect but it’s a place to start!

 

If you find one, let me know I could use an Ancient Aramaic Edition also

 

There's nothing that makes it easy, but these are the books I'd recommend for the autodidact:

For Homeric Greek -- Reading Course in Homeric Greek, by R. V. Schoder and V. C. Horrigan:



For classical Greek -- Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek, by Maurice Balme, Gilbert Lawall, and James Morwood:



For Biblical Greek -- Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar by William Mounce:

 

Latin was spoken over a very broad area, over a great time span, and by people with many different dialects and accents. If you imagine how much variation there is in the pronunciation of a simple word like, say, "fire" in the U.S., I think you can get a feel for the many ways there are to pronounce different words and letters in Latin.

As far as the "one vowel, one sound" rule, that might work as long as you don't have any coins of the usurper Carausius.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology

Those interested in but new to the topic might enjoy the above link if it does nothing other than point out that there is a subject here that some people study to levels you might have trouble accepting and feel a need to produce terms that serve little purpose other than separating those who know from those who don't care. You are authorized to use a dictionary reading this article but it becomes reasonably clear if you stop and try out the various classes of letters and how to make them. Most of us were using the letter 'F' long before we knew it was a 'fricative'. You also will develop a new respect for ventriloquists who can make lip moving sounds without moving lips.

The other point that I consider major here is that purists likely to correct your pronunciation worship the Attic dialect of the 5th century but conveniently ignore the fact that what they are reading may have been from Syracuse in the third. I liked this map from the above link.


It shows that people in the purple patch near the center might agree with what we term 'Ancient Greek' but the others might think you sound funny in some way. In the twenty years I spent in the US Army, I met quite a few Americans that sure sounded funny to my Indiana ears but those people from Maine (not to be called Maniacs?) took the prize. I suspect attending the Olympics in Classical times was quite interesting in variety but every one of them thought they were speaking Greek.

For Deacon Ray and others who study the Bible (Judges 12, 5-6) or those who doubt that dialect is a documented matter of life and death:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

 

I didn't know you were a Hoosier, Doug. So then maybe you can explain what that guy was saying to me when he said: "I'm searce, man, yer ignernt"

 

Those from Indiana do not talk 'funny'. The rest of the world? That is quite another matter! I am not a radical in this regard. My 104 year old mother in law was not at all happy when her church got a new pastor with a Kentucky accent. It did no good to remind her that she was born in Kentucky because she moved to Indiana when she was 13 (must have been healed when crossing the river?). I am afraid to return to the state now for fear someone will discover I am not a basketball fan and might consider me expendable.

 

In Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the (Athenian) playwright tries to mimic the Spartan women's Laconian dialect. There are 70 lines of Laconian (excluding lyric) in Lysistrata. The text of these plays, though, is problematic. The plays that have come down to us are generally textually corrupt and post-Aristophanic alterations are especially to be expected in passages with non-standard Greek since some scholars and copyists might have tried to get rid of non-Attic forms.

For those who are interested, Stephen Colvin's Dialect in Aristophanes and the Politics of Language in Ancient Greek Literature is a fascinating exploration of how Aristophanes renders Megarian, Boeotian, and Laconian.

Colvin stresses that Aristophanes, quite unlike in much English literature, doesn't stereotype characters on the basis of dialect. He notes "their moral character or any other personal characteristics ... cannot be identified by their accent."

 

Might? Today, in many fields, we deal not only with the ravages of time but the damage done by scholars intent on restoration. My first exposure to this was the discussion while I was in school of what was to be done to Laocoön.

The group above is as it was between c. 1540 and 1957. Laocoön's extended arm & the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

 

Interesting topic. I have often asked myself how the romans pronounced words in latin. How did the roman pronounce words like Cesar, Cicero Italia, Centurio, Aelius, Aemilia, Agrippa, Gallia, Germania....?
I did not take latin in school, but listened to enough of it during my boarding school years (suppertime prayers were said in latin in my boarding school) to get a feel how it may have been pronounced.
Having lived in Latin America before and able to speak Spanish fairly fluently , it seemed to me the pronunciation was very similar to the way Spanish is pronounced. I even tried it once with my schoolmates taking latin, and they were quite surprised. Of course I did not understand what on earth I was reading....

 

You nailed it! I grew up in Evansville, IN, which is directly across the Ohio from Dixie Land. So, my accent may not be as pure due to moderate exposure. But it was always amazing that driving a few miles across a bridge would put you in a place where people spoke so drastically differently (not for the better! ).

When people point out my "accent", I'm always quick to remind them that Indiana speak is typically considered to be the most neutral American English. That's why so many talking heads on major network shows are from Indiana. Like Doug said, we do not have an accent, everyone else does!

Edit: By the way, I also have never been much of a basketball fan. I used to have fun at social functions going on about how Bobby Knight was a tyrannical, blabbermouth, child in a man's body (I now get to use all of the polished ammunition on our current President! ). You can only imagine how that went over haha!