Proto-Latin in ROMULUS ?! Is the "Old Latin" any good? (Sky Italia TV show)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- ROMULUS is a new TV show aired on Sky Italia which chronicles the legendary events leading up to the founding of the city of Rome, a spin-off of the movie Il Primo Re (The First King) which depicts the lives of Romulus and Remus. This historical TV show also includes an attempt at reconstructing Old Latin of the 8th century BC. Did the filmmakers succeed? Watch to find out!
This was intended to be released on April 21st, Rome's Birthday, for which see my short documentary in Latin on the founding of Rome by Romulus: • How did Rome begin? | ... 🐺
#Romulus #RomeBirthday #Rome
Latin Pronunciation videos:
Hard C and G • Latin C & G: Are they ...
V as W • Latin letter V pronunc...
My reviews on the Latin in the Netflix show Barbarians: • Barbarians EPISODE 2 -...
Consider joining this channel:
/ @polymathy_luke
🦂 Support my work on Patreon:
/ lukeranieri
☕️ Support my work with PayPal:
paypal.me/lukeranieri
📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks:
luke-ranieri.myshopify.com
🏛 Ancient Greek in Action · Free Greek Lessons:
• Ancient Greek in Actio...
👨🏫 My Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata playlist · Free Latin Lessons:
• Greetings in Latin · L...
🦂 ScorpioMartianus (my channel entirely in Latin & Ancient Greek)
/ polymathyluke
🌍 polýMATHY website:
lukeranieri.com/polymathy/
😊 polýMATHY on Facebook:
/ lukepolymath
🌅 polýMATHY on Instagram:
/ lukeranieri
🦁 Legio XIII Latin Language Podcast:
/ legioxiii
🎙 Hundreds of hours of Latin & Greek audio:
lukeranieri.com/audio
👕 Merch:
teespring.com/stores/scorpiom...
🦂 www.ScorpioMartianus.com
🦅 www.LukeRanieri.com
☕️ Supported in part by LanguageMugs.com : languagemugs.com/shop/?wpam_i...
📖 My book Ranieri Reverse Recall on Amazon:
amzn.to/2nVUfqd
00:00 Intro
00:45 Overall Impressions of the "Proto-Latin" dialogue
06:15 brēter/frēter
08:19 moinos, deikonti
11:15 esti
12:12 omnia nōβeis duena, timēz̠e
13:43 meter
14:38 mediēs, prīnceps
16:30 kwir, tibi
18:43 Conclusions
If King Arthur was done in original language it would not be done in any form of old English. Rather some version of old reconstructed Welsh as it is a celtic tradition.
I approve of this idea! 🏴
It would probably be in Cumbric, that is 'Common Brythonic'. I know a welshman who wants to make this the official language of Wales, encouraging people to take a stance of dignity and preservation toward their ancient culture.
Maybe Arthur spoke Latin with a Celtic accent.
@@edwardofengland2993 Cumbric's not quite common brythonic though. Cumbric is a relative to Welsh that developed in the Old North (hen Ogledd I think), if it was actually that different from the Welsh of that day. Common Brythonic is, however, the actual scientific name given to the non-latin language spoken in Britain, before it split apart, which happened sometime around the migration period when Rome moved out and the Anglo-Saxons in.
Hold up guys, wasn't King Arthur actually some kind of roman soldier who pushed back the Saxons? Wouldn't he have actually just spoken latin? Even his name can be connected to latin.
I love that someone went through with making a show in old Latin/italic though 😁
Right! and that's what I say at the end: at least it's trying.
Tbh that's the only reason I've watched it. The show itself wasn't that good imo plotwise
@@simonecordeddu4783 I was one of those people that watched the Avatar for the sake of the Na'vi language
@@simonecordeddu4783 yes, after trying to find the script in old Latin from the show I came across many reviews that were quite mediocre. Also your name looks Sardinian, are you Sardinian?
@@deoirdanandrei1512 yes I am
Hope this new trend will quickly bring us the first show in ancient Greek
That would be great!
Ideally Mycenaean Greek because why not
@@svyatoslavrurikovich8831 The mycenaenan conquest of Crete maybe, the Iliad has allready too many movies.
Yes!
Absolutely, I also think the other old Indo-European languages would be cool, If there was a show in Old Persian, Avestan, or Sanskrit, I would definitely watch it.
I truly love that their biggest mistake is that they reconstructed too much. That makes me exited for the day someone decide to make a series in PIE
Indeed! Google Modern Indo-European and you’ll find an awesome reconstruction
@@polyMATHY_Luke Wow! there are a lot of resources!! I guess i now am legally required to start learning MIE then
Well, at least Prometheus had some lines allegedly in PIE...
Didn't Far Cry Primal have a crack at PIE dialogue
@@polyMATHY_Luke really?
Still trying to understand why this show has people dressed like cavemen during the Iron Age..
Yeah this definitely a bigger problem the show has lol
I would say stone age
@@IctusPordenone Bronze age is the correct one I think
@@almerakbar ah u remind me of the archaic or dark greek age after bronze age collapse and the sea peoples of rameses account yes tho this is not that old thats like agamemnon minoan greek which is even more harder to make as a bit more historic knossos is old but idk if the fashion/cloths of that age somehow fossilized or survived there...
Yes! Generally, the setting feels like some hunter-gatherer -society. Or maybe some Latin American guerrilla base / cartel hideout (just, with period technology). 😅
I feel like people in Europe prior to domestic cats arriving there would have immediately recognized one as just a tame version of their native Eurasian Wildcats rather than some weird kinda fox. This is a nitpick.
Haha. I love the nitpicks.
Same
Weren't lions still roaming around Italy and Greece at this period?
@@redhen2470 Around Greece but probably not around Italy.
I would expect they'd recognize a domestic cat as at least related to the European, Asian, and African cats in the ancient world. Domestic cats go back to at least two different / separate species and attempts at domestication, one in Egypt, one in China, and I've forgotten the dates that were cited, but around 4 to 6 thousand years ago or more. The Chinese cat breed didn't work out, apparently, as modern domestic cats world-wide are from one species, not that one. And yes, a wild North African and European cat (Felis lybica, I think) which became Felis domestics / Felis cattus. It seems like it would be odd to mistake them for some kind of fox. -- However, the words for "cat" come from just two or three sources, except for a few, er, exceptions. (LOL.) I don't think I've heard an explanation for "ailuro-" in Greek for cat, but there's apparently some dispute over where the cat/gat root came from. So at some point, "cats" were a new enough thing to need a new word for that domestic kind, as opposed to other cat-like critters (felids) running around. :D
I think we can all agree on the fact that you should be writing the scripts for those shows :)
Or he should be a consultant. A lot of these shows could use a good linguist or two when dealing with ancient languages like this.
Thanks! That would be fun
Sky Italia: makes up “Old Latin”
Luke: theatricality and deception, powerful agents to the uninitiated... but I’m initiated!🤣
Hahahah
Actually for Arthur you'd want (at least for Arthur and his circle) Brythonic (the most recent common ancestor of Welsh, Cornish and Breton), since a very early form of Old English or proto-West Germanic would've been the language of his Saxon enemies
Exactly
Yes, although:
(1) Brythonic was right at its end, and might be better considered to be proto Welsh (if you take Arthur to be from the Hen Ogledd, that is the north, or the South of Scotland, where a lot of the Myrddin mentions seem to come from, etc). Brythonic would certainly be in the process of rapidly losing cases etc.
(2) Arthur, seemingly having a Latin name Artorius and being of the upper classes, might well have spoken late British Latin, probably as well as late Brythonic. This would also be in the process of becoming early Romance, also losing cases and so on.
There is AIUI good evidence for interaction between the grammar and sound systems of these two languages btw. Even now Welsh vowels are much clearer than English, and work better for Latin (not the same, just more distinct and clear than English).
Or maybe Latin if they were consciously trying to hold on to the old culture. But I agree. Definitely nothing Germanic.
The Saxons should speak moderen Saxon dialect, that would be hilarious.
In Salentino, my home dialect, the third singular person of the verb essere is ete/eti, which might come from est(e)/est(i) due to the greek/byzantine influence for more than a millennium.
there's still some old greek speakers in some villages there and in Calabria I think!
My friend, it is derived from Latin Est, even the romanians got a similar word. Also, in the trapani province ( Sicily), they say Esti for "is"
In Emilian, the third person of the verb "to be" is either "Te"(affirmative) or "Et" interrogative.
I guess "Ete (Eti) " would stress both situations.
Would love a video on the sister languages of Latin and how they differed from Latin based on the inscriptions by which they are attested!
That would be interesting! I've really been interested in Faliscan but I can't find much information on the internet (except for that wikipedia page).
Yes! Please! I have been fascinated by the sister languages of Latin since I started learning the language.
Add to Oscan and Umbrian to that list as well.
I second this!
🙂
Another great video ❤ Really enjoyed this one.
OMG !! ITS YOU
Even if they failed to make it accurate, your explanation of the Proto-Italic, "Deikont", to Latin "Dīcunt", which descends to the Italian, "Dicono", fascinated me. I find etymology super interesting, I love how languages like Italian still preserve words that go back to ancient languages like Proto-Italic. Another one of my favorites is the Proto-Italic, "Ezom", (to be), to Latin, "Esse", to the Italian, "Essere".
Man, did I mention I love etymology?
I love it too!
It's got a MAU!!!!!! :-DDDDDDD
Made my day.
Me too! 😸
Mine too 😸😻😽!
*Son* : Can you buy this Proto-Latin book for me?
*Mom* : We have proto-latin at home
*Proto-Latin at home*
Nitpick: 14:15 "mētēr" isn't nearer to PIE, the root is *meh₂ter-, but *eh₂ is the normal source of long ā in Latin and Greek. The change to ē is an Ionic-Attic phenomenon, Doric has μάτηρ. But I'm sure you know all that ;-)
I agree. The translators must have put in a lot of little things in the text (like a final -i) that came from Ancient Greek because they didn't do enough research on how Proto-Latin from that period actually sounded except for a few words.
Wait, are you telling me that Latin had originally stress on the first syllable and then shifted to penultimate 🤔 That's very interesting because it also occurred in my native language, Polish, as well 😁
In Latin, it also resulted in some strange vowel changes. That's why you have māchina instead of māchana or Massilia instead of Massalia.
Tak! I love how Polish changed when compared with Czech and Russian, since you do indeed see these sorts of things.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Interesting. In Polish this shift to penultimate was caused by the loss of vowel length around the XV-XVI century. Originally, our language distinguished between long and short vowels much like Latin or Czech.
@Filosofía Perenne That is more likely the result of the merger of the 2nd and 3rd conjugation afaik
@Filosofía Perenne Well, not so much a complete merger, really.
Latin 3rd conjugation verbs are on general more irregular than others when it comes to forming the perfect and supine stem (like canō, ere, cecinī, cantum). In the development of Romance languages, the 3rd conjugation gets mostly lost. In some cases they are replaced by 1st conjugation verbs derived from the passive participle (like cantum - cantare; jactum - jactare etc.). In other cases they get reanalized is either 2nd conjugation verbs (like saber) or 4th conjugation verbs (like decir).
What I wanted to say is the shift in stress in some Spanish verbs is not the result of a regular sound change, but rather of morphological leveling (that was probably precipitated by a vowel shift in Western Romance).
This show sounds fantastic! I hope that one day we can also have a show in Sahidic Coptic :D
Agreed!
I suppose the invasion of the sea peoples and the fall of civilization at the end of the Bronze Age would be a nice setting. You could have dialogue in Egyptian, though the Cyprioys and Cretans would be a problem.
How would you call it? Nile in Flames? Ocean of War?
@@oneukum rameses prolly has terms for them lots of accounts about them around that bronze age collapse time, diff from punt tho which is egypt trade partner, punic is carthage times so diff I supposed
If someone did an Arthur series like this, then it would have to be in late proto-Brythonic, the ancestor of modern Welsh and Cornish, his enemies; Hengest and Horsa would be speaking early old English
I was just about to mention this. Thank you getting here before me. Proto-Brythonic, the ancestor of modern Breton as well of which I am also a speaker.
@@yannschonfeld5847 i didn’t include Breton in my comment because I felt less people knew of it, though this might be bad reasoning, keep the Breton language alive, keep your people alive. May the red dragon and her people live ever on
Yep, I find the celtic languages of Britain very interesting, how close are the Goidelic languages to Brythonic, and did Pictish belong to Brythonic or its own branch?
@@user-cp3ju4zs8c Brythonic or Neo Gaulish languages are to Goidelic what Osco-Umbrian Italic languages were to Latin. As for Pictish, it is a contested topic as too little is known whether it Brythonic or even an Indo-European language.
@@user-cp3ju4zs8c There is been much debate about this question some like to say Irish and Welsh are closer and some like to say welsh and Gaulish are closer, but I think that later is more correct because ancient sources seem to agree, and the recent innovations in grammar and word structure shared by Irish and Welsh seem to be because of the sprachbund affect, the same process that causes south Slavic and Greek to be grammatically more similar than one would expect
This is not only a study in languages, but also history, entertainment and so much more. You're a very good communicator and presenter, probably the best example of what You Tube can do to enlighten regular folks. I also agree with other comments about eventually collaborating with Jackson Crawford...I hope you get to the 100, 000 subs sooner than later. Cheers!
That’s very kind of you! I look up to Dr. Crawford quite a bit, and I’d be open to collaboration with him at any time. Perhaps later this year once I pass the 100K mark. I’d be happy if our collaboration would bring clear benefit to his channel as well.
How much detail in the analysis of the pronunciation?
Luke: *I T A*
😂😂😂😂
Amazing analysis, Luke! It's great to see all these details!
Thanks so much for watching, Erick! 😊
Fantastic analysis (loved the easter egg at the end, too 😁)!
Ahaha grazie, Davide! 🥳 Too bad I'm a day late
@@polyMATHY_Luke anyway, I hope when they make the next show in Classical Latin / Old Latin / Ancient Greek they just call you😅 the end result would be much better 😁
I am at complete awe of your knowledge and most of all the analytic approach to everything you say. Big thumbs up!
BTW, since you always say "don't forget Romanian", please please please do a video on how Latin evolved into Romanian.
Anyhow, again, awesome videos! Felicitări!
That's a great suggestion! Yes, I do that little joke because in Western Europe and the Americas people usually list Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian, and then maybe Catalan, as "the Romance languages," without ever remembering Romanian. The notion that Romanian might even be derived from Slavic is very common. Hopefully we can work to change that. Mulțumesc!
♥️ 🇷🇴
@@polyMATHY_Luke whenever you decide to work on something of the sort, do let me know if I can help. I may not be versed in Latin, but I sure understand my fair share of romanian grammar. Servus!
Latin didn’t evolve into Romanian. They already had a common ancestor and the oldest archaic latin inscriptions literally got deciphered with Romanian. I can send you the project which is under research now.
@@antonioconstantinmusic is this a peer reviewed stuff, and internationally recognized, or just some more dacianism?
@@AndreiIorgulescu romanianpelasgian.blogspot.com/2022/10/romanian-is-pelasgian-thracian-language.html
I love your videos and how you are keeping the classics alive! About the inconsistencies regarding the usage of the words from different periods I think that it is nice of the screenwriters/translators that they used this opportunity to show the world their knowledge and to show the world about this whole Linguistics world and the origin of the words. I personally love this and maybe this is the only explanation why they are inconsistent, even in the same sentence 😊. Also, the wrong endings maybe a result of easier pronunciation for the actors. But this is my opinion 😊 However, I love that I can present these movies to my students, so I am very happy that they even exist so far ❤️
Thanks for the comment, Valentina!
From one historical linguist to another, I TRULY enjoyed your analysis. Please, please, please continue making videos with this sort of content. A+ and five stars!!! :-)
Luke's not really a historical linguist iirc
Fantastic content. If only paid networks had this quality. Accuracy is everything when it comes to languages.
Very kind!
Excellent video! The show looks damn interesting, and the fact that they TRIED and came close is incredible.
Thanks! Yes, I agree
Como nativo do Português, pra mim é mais fácil entender Italiano e Espanhol, e tenho uma noção boa de vocabulário (apesar de não falar) do Inglês, e a tua fala em Inglês é clara e pausada suficiente para que eu consiga acompanhar e entender o que falas, por isso e por gostar do Latin que olho teu canal.
Sim! Por motivos óbvios ele tem cuidado na hora da pronúncia do latim mas nesse caso com o inglês dele, mesmo eu que sei bastante, a dicção dele é muito boa pra quem não é fluente entender mesmo falando normalmente. Acho que você acaba aprendendo a falar mais claramente ao ensinar uma lingua
Lo he entendido todo sin saber nada de portugués xd. (but being galicianer always helps I guess)
@@Adrian-vy5vn he aprendido español leyendo libros en español con dicionario ao lado, después de unas 20 páginas ya habia dejado de lado el dicionario casi completamente, son praticamente hermanos gémelos los dos idiomas
Te indico lo mismo método, la literatura en português es muy diversa asi como la en español
@@PedroKrick pues no sería mala idea. Hay libros muy buenos de investigación sobre ufología y lo paranormal en portugues/brasileño
@@Adrian-vy5vn Aprovechando que encuentro un gallego, crees que tiene razón en cuanto a lo que dice al principio sobre la S española? No le veo lógica.
Ok, the intro is literally THE CUTEST THING EVERRRRRR
Thanks Luke for this video 😁
Aw thanks! 🥳
¡Si! Episodio 3 de Barbarians🥰 es fascinante escucharte explicar en detalle. Tú fanatica favorita por aquí 🥰
Gracias amiga 😃
𐌓𐌏𐌌𐌀𐌍𐌏𐌉•𐌄𐌉𐌕𐌏𐌕𐌄•𐌃𐌏𐌌𐌏𐌌 ❢ - Rōmānoi eitōte domom!
All kidding aside, cannot wait to see this series!
Ever thought of collaborating with Dr. Jackson Crawford? You two are my favorite creators for historical linguistics on UA-cam.
I love Jackson Crawford! He knows I exist, but I think I'll wait till I get 100K subscribers - help me get there, and I'll reach out to him! 🤠
Subbed.
Simon Roper is awesome too.
Those are my top 3.
@SergioAlex92 absolutely! BTW they eventually all collaborated together. It's fun looking back at this comment chain
The series has many inconsistences, not just in language. Some of the swords are clearly iron made instead of bronze for example. And those horses, man , they are HUGE in comparison to horses from that period.
To be fair... Can't really unselectively breed horses
Unfortunately we lost the original wild horses due to breeding
The horses are huge but so are the people, I'd say it balances out
Speaking of which, I would very much like to see you do a video potentially giving longer samples of proper reconstructed Old Latin or even Proto-Italic, or even attempt to talk entirely in it for the duration of the video.
After a lot of months of nothing, today I finished this series. It was the right day
How did you like it?
Mh... historically something was strange, but as a series it was pretty enjoyable
@@polyMATHY_Luke volevo chiederti una cosa a cui accenni in questo video. Se la penultima sillaba è breve, si accenta la terzultima. Ma se la terzultima è breve, la si accentua comunque?
Sì, se la penultima è breve, è sempre la terzultima che si accentua. Ad esempio: in puerulus, cioè piccolo bambino, si accentua quello "er."
Luke, excellent piece, as usual. Have you made a video about your personal story with Latin (and Greek)? I would love to learn how you fell into it.
Thanks! Once this channel passes 50K subscribers I’ll do a FAQ video and cover this. 😊
i totally missed this show, thanx for bringing it in and for the very good analysis. reminds of more shows digging in pre-classical reconstructed langs, like in vikings (there was some old baltic and protoslavic).
Yeah, this infinitivus sufix is something that I recognize. Its interesting, cause in Old Latin esse was more standard hahae. And we see this rout es-, and have eso > ero.
Exactly!
"don't forget Romania",, tenho que rir,,, :-)
Haha. It's part of my campaign to remind people that Romanian is a Romance language. A lot of people don't think of it when listing them.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Óptimo, óptimo, viva a Romênia! :-)
@@polyMATHY_Luke Tiene sentido incluso simplemente por el nombre del país.
@@AutoFirePad Su nombre literalmente grita "SOY ROMANO"
@@polyMATHY_Luke Mine is to remind people the Roman empire did not fall in 476.
Something to point out: even though the actors are Italians, the voices you hear are not the actors'. The entire show is dubbed by other Italian voice actors. There is an article on the Italian Post i which they say the reason for the accent. The reason being to facilitate the pronunciation for the actors. The show had extremely good scholars as advisors and they have acknowledged that even though they pointed out many things out of place, this things went unchanged by the director's choise. Words were picked sometimes over real latin or proto-latin because of the sound etc. The scriptwriters also acknowledged that the show's language was made up with proto-latin parts, but, it is a made up language. Last but not least, the show's director has confirmed that it is not related whatsoever to Il Primo Re (not a spin off or prequel). Pax
The Latin dialogues are spoken by the actual actors. The Italian dubbing is done by voice actors. I'm assuming that Luke is listening to the original Latin version (as am I)
Great! I looked for analysis of this series' Latin when I watched it some time ago, but could not find it. Glad to be subscribed!
I’m glad you’re here!
I know you posted this two years ago, and you've probably moved onto other concerns at this point, but I thought I'd mention that I think that the "hic et nunc" particle (the final -i in some Indo-European verb forms) has been reconstructed for Italic on the basis of alternations between Old Latin verb forms like perfect feced 'she/he has done' (note the final d) vs present iovesat 'he swears' (with -t). The idea is that Old Latin final d in verbal endings comes from original final *t and the final *t comes from *-ti via apocope of the vowel. The apocope is attested elsewhere, such as in hoc < ho-ce (cf. interrogative hocine) or ut < *uti (cf. interrogative utine), or et from *eti. The distribution of -d vs -t in Old Latin is as follows: -d is found in perfect or subjunctive contexts, -t in non-perfect, especially present indicative contexts. This makes some sense if -t is from *-ti with the final i representing the hic et nunc particle which distinguished primary endings from secondary endings. As Archaic or Old Latin gave away to Classical Latin, -t was generalized. The verb forms I cited here are from the Duenos Inscription. A reference for *t > d vs *ti > t is John Penny's chapter called 'Archaic and Old Latin' in James Clackson (ed.), A companion to the Latin language. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
I'm fascinated by Proto-Italic and its daughter languages, to say the least.
Just before the "medies/medidies" thing, you missed another odd word: arkton. Presumably, the priestess wants to indicate the Ursa Major constellation, which, at the time, was much closer to the north pole, because of the equinoxes precession, and so used to stand for "North". But, as you know, the proto-Italic/proto-latin word for "bear" would have sounded something like *orssos (Classical ursus), not as arkton, resembling more a P.I.E. or greek sound. Anyway, you made an absolutely great job, as usual!
Thanks! Haha I didn’t miss it; I chose to ignore it, along with 50 other bizarre things that made no sense. 😆 The original version of this video was 2 hours long. I cut it down since it was just endless nitpicking of people who clearly had no idea what they were doing.
Awesome video - wish we had more 'proto-latin'...I'm lucky enough to actually live in Italy, so when I fly back there from the UK, I'll hunt this series down on Sky Italia.
Cannot wait for Barbarians ep.3 review! I guess I wasn't the only one dying to hear more from you on that front, hehe :) It would be truly amazing if you were able to discuss the Latin scripts prepared for shows such as Romulus and Barbarians with those who created them (or played a part in creating them). Imagine how cool that would be!
Thanks! Yes, more to come
This is so delightfully nerdy. And I just noticed that you pronounce your "wh" in "why" and "where" the old school way like my grandparents, lol. Delightful.
Yes, I have cultivated my speech to be more archaized
Incredible job! You described very well the phonology of Old Latin and even what you said about Proto-Italic is spot on. Another thing: E Ē O Ō would have been /ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː/ in my opinion.
The people who put together this Proto-Latin language are professor Gianfranca Privitera and epigraphist Daniela Zanarini.
I agree! Yes, I found their names as well. They don't seem to have the knowledge set required to do the job they were given.
Honestly, the way it's done, few people can pick u mistakes like you, but if if was in ecclesiastical Latin, a lot of people would rip it apart just for that.
Indeed! Or maybe just do it in Italian?
Yeah, it would suck immensely in ecclesiastical Latin.
Even i, with high school knowledge of Latin and some knowledge of history, would cringe really hard hearing them speak.
Matias Tonazzi . Sung ecclesiastical latin is perfectly comprehensible. This attempt in reconstructing protolatin is:n't but another americanade.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Honestly, modern italian would be the perfect answer. Just like when historical drama is made in USA and they all speak modern english.
The audience will know it's done for their own convenience.
It makes sense to me
Do it ! Do it! Just do it better every time! Do not let perfect be the enemy of good. The producers should listen to you, to continuously improve these fabulous movie language projects. Great video.
Very interesting!! What about making a video where you explain the phonetic and grammatical changes from proto-latin into classical latin? I'm looking forward to watching it 🤗👍
I’ll be doing that! Great idea. Thanks!
Hi! I loved this video! Bravo!
I was thinking about the "deikont(i)" part of the video. That's funny because they put a paragogical vowel where they shouldn't, apparently. I heard the same phenomenon earlier in the video where someone says "sunt(i)".
But:
1) as the actors are Italians... It's very common in Italy to add a middle vowel after a word that ends with a consonant. It's subtle but you know this better than me: sport(ı), market(ı), stuff like that. Maybe it was quite a natural reflex for them to add a middle voyel or a i-themed vowel after a final T?
2) as this is a very famous phenomenon in sardinian dialects, which are considered to be the most conservative romance language, keeping classical Latin features... Is it possible that they got inspired by sardinian and they thought that putting a paragogical vowel after the final consonant would sound more "authentic"? I don't think so but it's interesting.
The script writers must have put the final -i in the text. They were mixing up the Latin with Ancient Greek (which includes this final -i) because they didn't do enough research into what Old Latin and Proto-Italic were like.
As someone learning Dutch, this video finally clued me in as to why the Dutch I hear always sounds like they are almost saying "sh" and not the 's' I usually hear in English. Thank you for the retracted 's'!
Incredible (INCREDIBILIS) to see the connection of the word 'duel' to proto-Latin, that is phenomenal!
are there any shows that have successfully pulled off speaking a reconstructed language in accordance with generally agreed upon historical linguistics? I find this so interesting
It depends.
As a historical linguist, I know for sure that there is a lot of debate on how we should reconstruct languages.
For Indo-European, for example, there's almost total chaos: Glottalic Theory or not, for verb reconstruction Beekes and Kortlandt vs Lundquist and Yates, did Proto-Indo-European have an "a" or not etc.
In the past, almost all linguists dismissed Ferdinand de Saussure, and nowadays, following the discovery of Hittite, the laryngeals are part of mainstream linguistics.
I think that, in the end, we should first focus on having actors use languages we already have attested, such as Koine Greek, Attic Greek, Classical Latin, Imperial Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Arabic, Old Irish, Old Church Slavonic, Classical Chinese etc. before jumping into reconstructed forms, that would just overwork actors who are used mostly to living languages, and mostly to their native tongue.
Yes, Barbarians was rather good.
well said
@@tudormardare66
pie linguicist🙂
somone :a,b
pie linguicist😰
@@tudormardare66 well said we also need to advance in archaelogy to excavate/unearthen the would be attested corpora, like how when they open thus made air get into the iirc terracotta or the clay soldier statute of an emperor tomb in china etc, there are also a sinologist who made unicode table in his twitter provide an ancient langauge in china unicode characters available
It's my Mother's in Law birthday too, Ignez!
Nice, you just helped me with my Finnish pronunciation through a video about Latin xD
Very glad to be of help
@scorpiomartinus hi! I just wanted to say thank you for all the videos you make! I would not have advanced so far as i have with out yours and this communities videos of full spoken latin. It has significantly cut down on my learning time. ❤
That’s great ti hear! Thanks, keep up the good work
Sir, at this point I wouldn't be able to forget about Romania even if I wanted to hahah
Great analysis, thank you! I wonder if we will see more and more show try to be accurate, but kinda going too far and not far enough at the same time (if that makes sense)? I'm seeing it a little in costuming, where it seems they're trying so hard they're over complicating things and end up with something that's distracting.
Yes, "going too far and not far enough at the same time" is exactly how I would describe it. It's so odd. It's really lazy.
Hey Luke! I just found your channel and really enjoy your videos! Got me thinking, maybe I should learn latin! Anyway, have you heard about this game called Ludus Latrunculorum?
Its a roman strategy board game little similar to chess. They say the legionaires used to play it to pass the time. I think if you made a video about this (and other historical board games) it would be very interesting and also very inline with your channel's theme :)
Keep up the good work, cant wair for your next video :)
Thanks! Yes, when I was a kid I made my own latrunculī board. I never had anyone who would play with it with me though ahaha
Thats pretty cool in my opinion😄
Uugh, I am so glad you made a video about Romvlvs. I was listening and was like "this is either a proto latin or a specific dialect from that area. I would love to see someone as dedicated as you but on Dacic / Dacian language.
Te salut din România!😁😁😁
Thx for the reactioooon. Even though it dissapeared as I stupidly edited my comment😢😢😢
Explanation attempt for freter and breter: different words for younger and oder brothers!
Almost guaranteed to not be the case, but perhaps it helps with your suspension of disbelief.
I really enjoy your content. I studied Latin many years ago in school and have forgotten almost all of it, because I considered it a boring, clunky? (in terms of pronounciation - it never felt like people would use this to communicate) and dead language. You really bring it back to life for me.
In the example of “dicunti” could this be a case of the Italian-speaking cast not used to pronouncing words ending in a consonant, thereby adding a final vowel? This is a very common phenomenon in some varieties of Sardinian which occurs in Latin words ending in a consonant and is called “vocale paragogica o epitetica.” See how tres is pronounced tresi, ses : sesi, cras : crasi or crasa, sémper : sémpere, féminas : féminasa, sàrdus : sàrdusu, potet : podede, etc. This also occurs in other languages such as Sicilian effecting loan words ending in a consonant, e.g., computer : cumpiùteri, film : firmi, autobus : autubussu or autubussi, etc. We are almost conditioned not to permit our words to end in a consonant, even given the most precise of scripts. 😆
Indeed! Though it's so regular in the dialogue, and in the script some of which I've gotten to see today, it's clearly an intentional -i ending. And it's wrong for all Italic languages. The translators should have known better.
This explains why I always wondered why we write Sardinian "wrong" missing all of the ending vowels.
My God open syllables tho phonemicly it's morae in Japanese oops I mean syllabaries anyway it's a bit confusing per terms
@@polyMATHY_Luke Could it be that the translators thought that maybe the greek influence, since latium confined with magna graecia, could have influenced proto latin to have that -i ending that some time later fell off?
Or maybe they're assuming paragoge could be a thing also for protolatin and spoken latin. Vulgar latin graffitis in Pompeii could just show that, I've read there's many cases of added ending vowels that shouldn't be there. In sardinian paragoge happens depending on where the word is and what sound follows. It's a pronunciation thing. Tres(i), tres domus(u), tres domus de linna - three, three houses, three wooden houses. And that explains to Jeroen Orru why the words are written "wrong" in sardinian. THey are written correctly, it's the pronuciation that changes. :)
My reply seems to be lost.
8:40 Mau!
māo: modern Chinese (汉语) and Cantonese (粤语, Guangdong)
nīao: Minnan (闽南语, southern Fujian)
mīu: Hakka (客家语, many places in southern China)
These dialects are frequently used to help linguists to reconstruct historic Chinese pronunciations. They all contain certain ancient sounds.
havent check but theres also from nativlang comment section on egyptian vid, mew...
Since you touched on the subject briefly, I would absolutely love a video on proto-hellenic. I recently found a Mycenaean lexicon online, with linear B words and their equivalent in English and Ancient/Modern greek and made me very curious
So I didn't even know about the retracted-S thing until today, but I just realized that I've unconsciously been doing that whenever I speak Latin for some reason. I'm not sure if it's some subconscious thing from watching your videos or if it's just some deep psychological consequence of your brain naturally doing these phonological shortcuts. Either way, it came pretty naturally to me. Perhaps a memory of a past life in ancient Rome.
That’s awesome!
Hello! I really enjoyed this episode! Do you know anything about the dacian language? I'm romanian and I'm really disappointed that you can't find anything relevant about the language... It would be really cool if someone tried to reconstruct it! Anyways, keep up this interesting and fascinating work!
Salut! I would also like to know more about Dacian. We know very little, sadly.
this is so cool, i had not heard of this show before
I appreciated how naturally the actors seemed to pour the reconstructed speech, which was enthralling to language enthusiasts. I think a lot of effort went to this during the production. In so many movies where they make actors speak Latin, it sounds rough, unnatural, and hard to believe; it's as if the actors themselves didn't know what they were saying, whereas in Romulus it was fascinating how natural it was, even if they "mumbled" which we ourselves do on a daly basis. Great work! As a philologist (though semitic) myself, I find your observations very pertinent
Maybe they wanted to let them sound more Greek than Proto-Italic? *freter/breter and *meter remind me of the Attic-Ionic sound shift ..
Exactly. Which, unfortunately, demonstrates the ignorance of the translators. Proto-Italic is well reconstructed: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Italic_language
Lucius: 0:21 "... or a legend."
Livius: Am i a joke to you??
Actually Livy would be pleased. He himself takes a sceptical stand to the legends: Quae ante conditam condendamve urbem poeticis magis decora fabulis quam [...] traduntur, ea nec adfirmare nec refellere in animo est.
Love it when you review Latin in shows!
Thanks! More of that to come
This guy is so interesting. As an Italian with a passion for proto languages, I find this video so fulfilling and educational.
I agree. It would be great if Luke discussed more about Proto-Italic or at least Pre-Classical Latin.
I find it curious that they went to all the effort to write a script in a “proto-Latin” but didn’t get it perfect. Surely if they had linguists working on it they would have got it spot on.
I’d love to see more stuff like this though, I’d kill for a series about Hengist and Horsa in old English!
Sadly, they didn’t have any linguists work on it.
@@polyMATHY_Luke oh really? It surprises me that they did as well as they did without a linguist on board, very impressive in that case. A linguist would provide some nice polish for sure.
15:04 I think it would be interesting to say here that ἀμφορεύς was shortened from ἀμφιφορεύς, again cutting off a whole syllable.
I guess I'll be watching Romulus and Barbarians. I'll see to it if I can understand their Latin. 😃
Very cool! Yeah, it's entirely possible linguistically. But it didn't happen in earlier Latin, so I think it's the actress making a mistake, or a typo.
Just a little note: in Belgian Dutch (aka Flemish), the retracted s is generally not used; it's just a regular s as in English.
I hope you haven't been bombarded with comments saying the same thing, and thank you once more for this quality analysis, as always 😄
Honestly, I loved hearing you talk about PIE & even Proto-Italic in this video. Have you ever thought about making content on proto-languages or does your inner nerd meet its match there lol? Love your channel (this one; I'm not familiar with Scorpius Martianus). Keep it up!
Haha I do talk about the subject frequently; it would be a fun topic to explore.
Bene, sum facile de videre un novo video hodie! Mitto videos tuos a meos amicos et meo amante, illa amas istos videos tanto quomodo Ego! Felix natalis urbe condita!
Benignē dīcis! Salūtem dīcō amīcīs et amantī!
Lo he entendido todo sin saber nada de latín.
@@manuelhurtado7599 Parlai/dicei in Interromanico, una lingua auxiliara pro communicatione intra las linguas romanicas. Sic isto non est Latina Antiqua, sed est multa circa! Est multo similare a Latino Vulgare in mea opinione.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 Da italiano capisco tutto quello che c'è scritto.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 Yo no hablo el idioma que escribiste, pero creo que dijiste "Bien, soy facil de ver un nuevo video hoy! Mando tus videos a mis amigos y a mi amante (pareja?), ella ama estos videos tanto como yo! Feliz cumpleano ciudad ______ ! No he entendido todo de lo que escribiste, por ejemplo, lo primero que dijiste. "Bene sum facil de videre" He traducido literalmente cada palabra al español, pero no tiene sentido (entonces, no he entendido).
This is so rad
Thanks!
Amazing analysis! 😁 will we see an analysis of the remaining episodes of Barbarians as well? 🙂
Thanks! Absolutely you will, Tullī mī!
I, as a spanish native, must say I've never heard nor pronounced a retracted s, at least while speaking/listening to european spanish. I'd love to know where have you heard retracted esses in Spain, because you got me quite intrigued now about my own language XD
Edit: Anyway, just found it. I promess I had never noticed that /s/ - /s̠/ duality in my own language. Thank you for appointing that detail. Keep up the good work!
I love the fact that you preserve the traditional English voiceless labio-velar approximant.
Thanks! Yeah, it’s a learned habit.
@@polyMATHY_Luke That's awesome, dude! I'm curious, do you maintain it in everyday speech as well or just while speaking publicly?
I don't understand what is going on here. I get the impression that he speaks Standard American English and then he archaised phonemes but not systematically. It's just sort of like why, because if he wanted to speak like an English person, he could just ask me - hello! - or tens of thousands of other people. I don't know. Clearly he went to a lot of effort to develop this habit. I don't feel like it's particularly fair for me to pick this to death which is why i'm going to stop here. ;)
Lol. Lots of people change how they speak consciously as they get older. Davide Gemello’s (Podcast Italiano) change of pronunciation in Italian over the years is a stellar exemplar
@@omp199 18:44 LMFAO
I wonder if this show and others feature some sort of bibliography appended to them-apart from the, obviously, language specialist(s).
Pasolini did insert book references in some of his films (was it ‘Medea’?).
And of course, why hasn't any producer called YOU yet to be their language supervisor on some such show?
I did find out who translated the "Old Latin." It's the director's high school Latin teacher, and an archaeologist who studies ancient European inscriptions. Neither is qualified through these specialties alone. They just needed to look up Proto-Italic on wikipedia, but they're rather old I think based on their photographs, so they might not know what wikipedia is.
As always I really enjoyed watching the video Luke, and learning a bit on proto- or archaic latin. As for the "quid tibi" thing; I get the impression I might have heard the boy saying "Quod tibi?"............
Thanks! Yes, upon listening again, I hear the same. Either way, it's not correct. 😅
You should do a cross over video with Dr. Jackson Crawford featuring a conversation between a proto Germanic and classical Latin speakers and do a breakdown of the linguistic conventions and cognate in each language. Being a language nerd, I think that would be awesome.
_Priisemokaps_ ... huh. A bit of a mouthful, but also explains why the word _princeps_ always looked slightly odd to me for some reason. And indeed, "cuír" instead of "cuor" is rather... cuír!
Totally!
13:20 I know, that it is not your speciality. But would you be willing to do a video on the rhoticization of Proto-Germanic z? You do a great job at explaining phonetics. Or if you know of a great video explaining it, could you give a link to it?
Thanks very much! I’ll definitely cover that eventually
@@polyMATHY_Luke Awesome! Thank you for your response. And I hope all your other projects go well too!
@@nineball9746 Ive just read most of that so its called verner's law rhotic thus z become r, eg from wikipedia past of choose tho its only in the old language but modern example is was and were, the regular forms in choose is called paradigm levelling, the fricative thingies that are explained come first or last is grimm's law IE sounds laws are pretty extensive in wikipedia, need to read more on wikipedia, I forgot if winter's law is also about rhotic consonant tho...
Luke, where can I watch this show? I’ve been going crazy trying to find it haha also excellent video!
fascinating and informative.
I have a question, should proto-latin to be closer to proto-greek, being both closer to PIE? Because I feel that mycenian greek is more distant from proto-latin, than latin is to greek... I think you understand where I'm getting at.😉. PS. Very good quality of your material, congrats! 👍
Thanks! The farther into the past, the more we would expect the sibling languages to be similar.
Why make a show in Proto-Latin when the amount of effort is going to be monumental, the actors are going to hate every minute of it, the audience is not going to care, and the ones that do are going to be angry that it isn't accurate enough? 🤷♂️
Haha, right! I guess the gimmick of trying it brings attention to the show - I otherwise probably wouldn't watch it at all. So that's a success. But it's just as easy to do these things *right* in my opinion. So why not do them right? 🤷♂️
As an Italian actor I can tell you that this language is no trouble at all to pronounce. Besides, any well-trained non-lazy actor shouldnt have problems with acting in a different language, because it's not a matter of what you say but HOW (with emotion). In fact, we train a lot with gibberish. Yes, it's a lot of extra work to do, but I think it's an enjoyable commitment.
@@filipporubino4163 You're obviously interested in languages, otherwise you wouldn't be in this comment section. Most actors aren't.
Actually, almost any educated Italian would immediately get the difference between Ecclesiastical Latin, Classical Latin and this reconstruction. Even more so someone in his late teens who is actually studying Latin in school. “Giving an exotic sound to people barely competent” was exactly their point, and I think they got it.
"the audience is not going to care" is easily the most wrong thing I've read in your post.
The very reason shows are adding these ancient languages is for press attention and to give the audience an authentic, immersive feel.
Most like the idea of it even though they don't know enough about ancient languages to properly critique it like Mag. Ranierius does
nice vid man
Thank you
Man, if I knew what you know, I really wouldn't be able to watch the show. :D :D
One other thing - I really love the way you pronounce "wh-" in words like what, why, when and others. ;)
Thanks! Yeah it’s an older pronunciation but it’s still around.
I believe they purposely mixed and combined some known and understandable latin words with other reconstructed archaic sounding expressions. The rationale might have been to allow part of the public to vaguely follow the plot while still recognizing the archaic, and therefore mostly impenetrable forms of most spoken lines.
how do get these sources (such as for the ancient Greek pronunciation table), do you need access to a university library for any of this? and would you ever consider doing a pronunciation table for different periods of Latin, if possible?
I have done both :)
bit.ly/ranierilatinpronuciation
bit.ly/ranierigreekpronunciation
My research comes from the resources I cite on the tables.
@@polyMATHY_Luke cheers :) the Latin link is misspelled though and doesn't work when clicked.
I personally have quite an interest in Common Brythonic, which has some overlap with Latin when the Romans arrive in Britain, though it's a lot harder to get research on than Latin or Greek, so I thought it would be similar for old Latin.
@@siarhian10 is that of proto of welsh or irish or gaulish/goidelic? cuz I found a primitive irish in wiktio tho not sure if that form is attested in ogham script...
@@argyrendehringterimksaccu174 Common Brythonic is the ancestor of the Brythonic languages Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, and does not include irish
Fascinating analysis, I must try and watch the whole show or find the script!
One thing that struck me as probably wrong: he says "arcto-" for "north". That's a Greek loan word in Latin (and other languages).
I'm not sure a Proto-Italic word for north can be reconstructed (PIE cannot), as we are dealing with early Latin then septemtrio- is probably the best guess, it's a native word at least. Or maybe "medinox" by analogy with "medidies" (I agree with not using "auster" for "south" as it may have meant "east" in early Italic as most of its IE cognates still do)
Looks like I found a new show to watch?
We'll see if it gets this channels approval 1st...
I'll keep watching.
I was taught Ecclesiastical Latin. (English boarding school). Every time I use a Latin phrase there’s someone correcting me. Nowadays I just don’t bother
The retracted S sounds pretty much like my S sound in my "old voice". I do S and SH the same, somewhere in the middle. I guess this is more of an misspronouncing than actuall linguistic feature, but some old people around here do it.
It's a feature of Bologna accent too.
Do you think that the current form of the Proto-Italic reconstruction is quite close to how the real, actual language would have sounded ( like how a lot of Germanic language experts place a high degree of confidence in the standard Proto-Germanic reconstruction ) or do you think that better reconstructions might be possible? This was an extremely interesting video! I wish someone would make a series based on the Aeneid with a Luwian speaking Aeneas and a Punic speaking Dido.