What ancient languages sounded like

[Brian G Turner]

A few interesting ancient languages brought to life on YouTube:

 

[Foxbat]

Very interesting. I'd heard Old English before and was quite surprised how different it was to today's language. Although it's Anglo-Saxon in origin the pronounciations definitely sound a bit Norse to me. I suppose being geographically close, there's bound to be some cross-over.

 

[Brian G Turner]

And there's more - some really interesting ones in this one, too.

 

[Justin Swanton]

How Latin was spoken:

 

[Brian G Turner]

I have to admit, I would have expected the Gothic reconstruction in the 2nd video to sound more French. I'm pretty convinced the Gothic formed the basis of the French one.

 

[Elckerlyc]

As far as I'm aware French comes from Latin, like Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Have a look at the Indo-European language Tree

 

[Justin Swanton]

French grammar is Latin in origin as is most of its vocabulary as far as I know (I speak French albeit a bit rusty now).

E.g.:

j'aime - amo - I love
tu aime - (te) amas - you (sing.) love
il/elle aime - (ille/illa) amat - he/she loves
nous aimons - (nos) amamus - we love
vous aimez - (vos) amatis - you (pl.) love
ils aiment - (illi) amant - they love

 

[Brian G Turner]

As far as I'm aware French comes from Latin, like Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Have a look at the Indo-European language Tree

French grammar is Latin in origin as is most of its vocabulary as far as I know (I speak French albeit a bit rusty now).

E.g.:

j'aime - amo - I love
tu aime - (te) amas - you (sing.) love
il/elle aime - (ille/illa) amat - he/she loves
nous aimons - (nos) amamus - we love
vous aimez - (vos) amatis - you (pl.) love
ils aiment - (illi) amant - they love

Yes, I know French is derived from Latin, but the French accent is unique and doesn't fit with the other Romance languages.

However, I think I got it wrong - it won't be the Goths the French accent came from, but the Franks of course!

 

[Justin Swanton]

Yes, I know French is derived from Latin, but the French accent is unique and doesn't fit with the other Romance languages.

However, I think I got it wrong - it won't be the Goths the French accent came from, but the Franks of course!

Mmmmh....I don't think the Franks had much effect on the accent of the Gallo-Romans anywhere except in northern Gaul since that's where they originally lived and they didn't migrate southwards. That's Wiki's take: "The Franks expanded south into Gaul. Although the Franks would eventually conquer almost all of Gaul, speakers of Old Franconian expanded only into northern Gaul in numbers sufficient to have a linguistic effect. For several centuries, northern Gaul was a bilingual territory (Vulgar Latin and Franconian)." Old French did pick up several hundred words from Frankish like jardin (garden), but it seems they had about as much influence on the development of French as Norse had on English, at least in central and southern France. The Franks became Gallo-Romans with modifications, not the other way round.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I don't think the Franks had much effect on the accent of the Gallo-Romans anywhere except in northern Gaul since that's where they originally lived and they didn't migrate southwards.

They didn't need to - standardized French is based on Parisian French, is it not?

Also:

it seems they had about as much influence on the development of French as Norse had on English

Norse had a huge effect on English. Apparently, if standardized English had been based on its use in old Danelaw areas in the north of England, ie, York, rather than somewhere central and Saxon like Birmingham, then English would have had far more Norse words and would have sounded more Germanic.

 

[Justin Swanton]

They didn't need to - standardized French is based on Parisian French, is it not?

Also:


Norse had a huge effect on English. Apparently, if standardized English had been based on its use in old Danelaw areas in the north of England, ie, York, rather than somewhere central and Saxon like Birmingham, then English would have had far more Norse words and would have sounded more Germanic.

I'm not sure what standardised French is based on - it might possibly be made up rather like standardised English (or Oxford English) that doesn't reflect how most people actually talk.

We have several hundred loan words from Norse but did it have that much effect on pronunciation?

 

[Brian G Turner]

I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's something in relation to some of the regional accents of Northern Britain.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Could be.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It's a bit like learning French in school, then going on a daytrip over there and trying to use it; it just doesn't work. Even if you learn how to speak a language 'properly', local dialects and colloquialisms mean that it's unlikely to sound anything like those who speak/spoke it as their native tongue.

 

[THX1138]

Or even within your own country the same is true as well. Seaside, inland and mountain folk all have their own dialects and colloquialisms, as do city folk. And if your city is big enough it will be there too in some form.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I just finished watching season 2 of the German series Barbarians in Netflix, about the wars between the Germanic tribes and the Roman Empire. One of the aspects of the (excellent) show I loved was the Romans (mostly played by Italian actors) speaking conversational Latin. I have no idea how accurate it is, but it provided an additional layer of authenticity, IMO, to the series.

One of the things that surprised me was their pronunciation of Caesar as Kaiser, which I always assumed was the German version.