Re: Boris Johnson & Iliad

For medical reasons I've been retraining my soft palate, tongue and epiglottis, which has me pronouncing k's at various intensities and with various articulation points. Latin-speakers clearly did this (not for medical reasons) and, over time, shifted the articulation point, where the middle of the tongue touches the roof or back of the mouth, from the soft palate to the hard palate. And then variations happened in different parts of the empire from Spain (where the palatal c became th in some dialects) to Gaul (s) to the Rhineland (ts). Cretans and Cypriots make a similar shift with their kappas, so the good old Cretan musket is a doufechi, Turkish tüfek. It would be nice to defer to some kind of local standard, but Cicero can't speak for himself.
OC

-----Original Message-----
From: Classical Greek and Latin Discussion Group <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Diana Wright
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2019 9:24 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Boris Johnson & Iliad

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Cicero/3rd Yr Latin was not taught in Birmingham AL when I was considered ready for it, so my mother hired a retired teacher to tutor me for credit. It was purely gruesome, being the only person in my class & responsible for translating about 20 lines a week.  The teacher told me about Kikero and Kaesar, but said she personally thought they sounded silly.  I did, too, and that was the one bit of relief in the year.

DW



On 7/29/2019 11:19 AM, Jan van Puffelen wrote:
> I learned that Cicero was pronounced as kikero and Caesar as kaesar.
> etc. i.e. c=k and u is mostly pronounced as 'oo' ; the Greek 'ou'.
>
> Regards Jan van Puffelen
> Amsterdam
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Zoja Pavlovskis-Petit"
> <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2019 3:12 PM
> Subject: Re: Boris Johnson & Iliad
>
>
>> About a Hungarian Romanian: after the Second World War a sizable part 
>> of what used to be Hungary became part of Romania.  Furthermore, 
>> Transylvania (now part of Romania) was settled by Germans in the 
>> Middle Ages.
>> Hence the
>> detail in the story of the Pied Piper of Hameln about the possibility 
>> that the Piper led the children of that German town to Transylvania. 
>> (I'm talking about the version of the story recorded by the Grimm 
>> Brothers in their collection of German legends -- not their 
>> collection of fairy
>> tales.)  Anyway, more to the point: Tzitzero is the way Germans still 
>> pronounce the great man's name, and Russians, influenced by Germans, 
>> say Tzitzeron.  (I never find Cicero boring; the beauty of his style 
>> compensates for any dull spots!)  Zoja Pavlovskis-Petit, Binghamton 
>> University (NY).
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 10:30 PM Michael Smith <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> True, true. Every region had its own local version of Latin (and no 
>>> doubt Greek, too). I knew a distinguished lady from Romania (though 
>>> she considered herself Hungarian, and had a German surname) who 
>>> pronounced the Great Bore's name as 'Tzitzero'. My impression is -- 
>>> I speak with deference here -- that the English put Latin through 
>>> the Great Vowel Shift alongside English itself, so the older English 
>>> pronunciation is a bit of an outlier, but the difference is at best 
>>> quantitative. French Latin certainly fronted all the 'u's, which to 
>>> an Anglophone ear gives French Latin a Pythonesque flavor.
>>>
>>> On 7/28/19 1:31 PM, Ralph Hancock wrote:
>>> > Michael Smith wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> The Brits have always done that. Speak every language as if it 
>>> >> were English. Some amusing survivals of Brit Latin are to be 
>>> >> found in the thieves' argot of lawyers. 'A fortiori', for 
>>> >> example, sounds like
>>> "Ah,
>>> >> fer sure-ee."
>>> >
>>> > To be fair, the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish have long
>>> pronounced
>>> > Latin in their own ways, and no doubt other European nations too.
>>> It's
>>> only
>>> > in the last 100 years that much attempt has been made at
>>> conforming to > a
>>> > hypothetical 'correct' style. The ecclesiastical pronunciation of
>>> Latin
>>> > remains far out, and still varied; the French and Germans do not >
>>> conform
>>> to
>>> > the Italianate pronunciation we are used to, as can be found by >
>>> listening
>>> > to recordings of liturgical music.
>>> >
>>> > The normal old-fashioned British pronunciation of _a fortiori_ is 
>>> > 'eh
>>> forty
>>> > your eye', a survival of the days when the English pronounced
>>> Latin in
>>> > their peculiar way. The classical Greek I was taught at school in 
>>> > the
>>> 1950s
>>> > and early 60s was pronounced far more barbarously than Boris
>>> Johnson > does
>>> > -- something I've already discussed on this list.
>>> >
>>> > RH
>>> >
>>>