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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;zumbly, post: 1899418, member: 57495&quot;]An interesting bit on his accent from Anthony R Birley&#039;s <b>Septimius Severus: The African Emperor</b> :</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The Africans dropped their aitches and mispronounced the letter L.&nbsp; They tended to lengthen short syllables at the beginning of words, and made a whistling sound over certain letters.&nbsp; Above all, they had difficulty in adapting sibilants to the restricted sounds of Latin.&nbsp; There is a chance that Septimius pronounced his own names in a manner resembling &#039;Sheptimiush Sheverush&#039;.&nbsp; His sister Octavilla was later supposed to have been scarcely able to speak Latin.&nbsp; But there is no doubt that Septimius himself, accent or not, was completely fluent.&nbsp; The &#039;African accent&#039; was a provincial Roman accent, not a foreign accent.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>I read elsewhere that the accent was slight.&nbsp; Whatever the case may be, I&#039;m personally considering using only the Sheptimiush Sheverush pronounciation from now.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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