LATIN, AS SHE IS SPOKE

[Lee Scoresby]

I once heard that a classics researcher had gathered in a sound studio a number of Catalan hill shepherds (I believe it was) and asked them to read various Latin texts out loud. They did not understand what they were reading but the hypothesis was that the sounds they made were the closest we can now ever come to how Latin was actually spoken in Rome and the Empire.

Last year, I emailed the Secretary of the Classics Dept at UCL to see if anyone there could spare the handful of minutes it would take to enlighten me, but (and if your experience is different, do tell) in the snotty tradition seemingly enveloping everyone in academia in this country, this person never troubled to reply.

I have tried to google but have failed to find the magic words which will elicit this information.

This is a genuine request for any information anyone can give me. It sounds like a fascinating experiment and I have wanted to know more about it for years.

Lee Scoresby.

[katie1997]

Dum spiro, spero.

Firstly, please check if it was UCL who organised this recording?

I agree, academics aren't as quick as 'business' people to reply but don't hold that against them, they aren't all snotty!

PS. Forum is from latin :))

[Lee Scoresby]

Katie,

thanx for responding. I did not say UCL "organised" this recording (a UCL graduate may have), rather that I contacted them (in hope).

Comparisons to what you call business people are, with respect to you, not the point. Whether they like it or not, academics occupy public life in some sense, and it behooves them to respond to public queries.

As to 'quick', at a certain point, one understands - does one not ? - that someone one has emailed is never going to reply. Hinc illae lacrimae, if I was going to be smart arse (tho I think I've misspelt that tag). To me, not speaking when spoken to is snotty.

But, really, grand as it is to rehearse all this, I am very keen to hear something over the digi-ether.

Lee Scoresby.

[ianr]

Lee, what are your thoughts about what a post such as http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100516092020AAUdcOM says about resemblances?

[PeckhamRose]

ianr you are a credit to this forum!

[ianr]

Oo er, missus, can't be dealing with many of them type of remarks. Gets me all anxious and deconstructiing. ;)

I chose that post btw (Mikhail's specifically) because it was easier than preparing one myself; though might follow up later. Just to say, though, that I'm a bit suspicious of the "the closest we can now ever come" in the OP. How could one know that? And if one can know it, why can't one come closer?

[Lee Scoresby]

I am obliged to ianr for that reference, even allowing that Mikhail, clearly a linguistics scholar, is answering a slightly different question. As he says, given that Sardinian has evolved away from Latin less than any other Romance language, as well as preserving many features of Latin, the shepherds in question were doubtless from Sardinia.

The experiment's rationale extends from the fact that any human infant acquires an articulatory phonetics (a performative competence) specific to the language she or he is learning, with its defining phoneme inventory. This has the broader effect that she or he will then prefer or find easier certain sounds, combinations and longer patterns, while others become difficult or unintuitive. Certain sound distinctions will be inaudible, others insisted upon.

Thus, although incomprehensible to these readers, the Latin texts would have been sufficiently similar to Sardinian that, employing their particular articulatory competence, the shepherds would produce a spoken Latin which one might at least hypothesise was much closer to the chatter of Ancient Rome than the speech of the classics master at Eton. It is as if, rather than written text preserved in a cache of old documents, this historically isolated speech-community has (putatively) preserved (quite unintentionally, and with a little drift) the 'how to' for an ancient spoken language.

Research interest extends from pronunciation, nasalisation of vowels and so on, to elisions and slurring, and the characteristic rhythms and pauses given to longer phrases, sentences and extended units of language.

I am sorry now to turn from thanking ianr to criticising him. I broadly understand the philosophical kite he wants to fly. The specific answer to how can we know is found in all that unending forensic interdisciplinary effort precisely to try to know: reverse engineering linguistic evolution through documents, synthetic linguistic modeling and so on, analysing transliterated Latin in other language texts, and clues in written Latin, particularly poetic meter.

The meta-level response to your epistomological whimsifying is that you, not I, introduced the possibility of 'knowing' how Latin was once spoken. No-one presumes that 'know' in this context means the same as knowing something straightforwardly in one's everyday life.

That being so, what is the meaning of your second question ? If one knows something approximately or vaguely in everyday life, one normally has the means at one's disposal to obtain better, clearer or additional information. In this context, one could indeed use evolutionary linguistic modeling and digital technology to tweak some of these verbal recordings and tentatively - always tentatively - get closer to what one proposes was ancient spoken Latin.

I support your deconstructions, your postmodern scepticism, as a means of interrogating our 'reality' and the assumptions of any intellectual practice. This is enriching. But when know-nothing-ism wishes to disrupt and replace that work, then our ways must divide, you into sterile masturbatory solipsism, myself to continue, naively no doubt, to be a very tiny part of that ongoing attempt to understand everything, not least our human past.

As I say, I am sorry to make this divided response to ianr. I thank him again for pointing out that reference to me.

And PeckhamRose (who is, I put it to you, your mum) thinks you're a credit.

I have been far too feeble about pursing this matter online and will take this it again.

The point of this thread may be at an end, Ariadne . . .

Lee Scoresby.

[RosieH]

The meta-level response to your epistomological whimsifying...

I think I'm in love.

[Jeremy]

Lee Scoresby Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> masturbatory

huh huh huh (spoken in Beavis/Butthead voice)

[PeckhamRose]

Yeah, he got me at "The".

[RosieH]

Jeremy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Lee Scoresby Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > masturbatory

>

> huh huh huh (spoken in Beavis/Butthead voice)

How did I miss "sterile masturbatory solipsism"? Lee, if by any chance you are not already married, will you marry me?

[ianr]

Prolegomenon: Oo er, missus (reprise).

The rest is laters (busy watching 3rd & Bird).

[ianr]

Footnote: This thread is substantially shorter than it was twelve hours ago. I distinctly remember putting in a holding response to a third post by Lee - I think PR's post was another of the resulting responses - and have just come back to think about making a fuller reply. I'm not quite sure now whether I'm miffed or relieved. Can I be both?

[RosieH]

Yeah - it's not in the Drawing Room - where did my posts go?

[Lee Scoresby]

My third post has indeed been removed, without notice or explanation, presumably by the moderator rather than pixies. And I assume this was because I responded to ianr's previous contribution in robustly negative terms - as well as thanking him. It is extremely annoying. The majority of my post was a detailed exploration of the subject which, I hope, was of interest to those finding and following the thread. I am guessing ianr's subsequent post was equally robust. Well, so what ? We're all consenting adults here in the tub, and the banter emphasises or colours the serious points of view being expressed, rather than being gratuitous abuse.

So I am asking the moderator to restrain his or her itchy blue-pencil finger (not for the first time, sadly), reinstate all posts, and let a group of grown-ups finish their conversation. Otherwise what is the EDF for - selling old furniture and bitching about cappuccino quality in Lordship Lane ? For goodness sake. But now I suppose this message will likewise disappear into the memory hole.

Lee Scoooo . . . . . . [silence]

[david_carnell]

Ah.

Many apologies my latinate friends.

'Twas nothing to do with content. Merely a moderator with fat fingers and a careless brain. Please forgive me.

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS

[RosieH]

Oh Lee, I was going to reiterate my offer of marriage as my first one has dropped away, but you sound a bit pissy with a persecution complex, so I respectfully withdraw.

I think perhaps D_C, your fat fingers were subconsciously saving me from myself.

[ianr]

Thanks, David. I now find myself reflecting on all the possible benefits of a random thread curtailment policy.

This one I'm forgoing voluntarily. I have some CBeebies programmes to watch.

[Lee Scoresby]

To RosieH, it is an regrettable compliment which only sets up a pointless insult. I really really should not be taking the bait like this, but why would on earth would you decide to address me as pissy and paranoid ? I have said nothing which warrants either of these epithets.

To ianr, thanx again for chatting. Sorry I missed some of your posts.

To the moderator, thanx for breaking cover and apologising. 'Fat fingers and a careless brain' does rather imply tho, that you were attempting to edit the thread in some way. Can you now restore all the posts, please ? I do not believe that the EDF operates without comprehensive back-up. Failing that, would it not be best to, as ianr puts it, curtail this thread ? As it exists now, it simply makes no sense, and wastes surfers' time if they decide to take a look.

Lee Scoresby

[david_carnell]

Alas they were not merely hidden but deleted permanently. And as such are irretrievable. Again my apologies.

"Breaking cover" - I like that though, implies I'm some sort of undercover agent.

Nor was I trying to edit the thread by the way - there are many options available and it was a simple error of carelessness.

I shall now lock the thread though, as per your instructions.