Latin accents in the ancient world

[guy]

Here is a wonderful article on the Latin accents in the ancient world by classical language expert professor Wolfgang de Melo of Oxford.

 

Quote

When people respect or mock specific accents, and when they describe some as correct and others as having vitia ʻfaults’, this can lead to confidence or anxiety in people whose speech deviates from what is deemed the norm. We can observe such anxieties in the emperor Lucius Septimius Severus, born in 145 in Leptis Magna, a city located in present-day Libya. His father was Phoenician, speaking Punic, a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew, while his mother was Italian, and when he became ruler in 193, he made history by being the first provincial to occupy this position: provincial not just by place of birth, but also by his paternal ancestry. Septimius Severus had native fluency in Punic, but he was also educated in Latin and Greek. His sister, on the other hand, had not received the same degree of education, and when she came to visit her brother, the emperor, in Rome, her lack of language skills caused him severe embarrassment, as the Historia Augusta reports (Sept. Sev. 15.7): cum soror sua Leptitana ad eum venisset vix Latine loquens ac de illa multum imperator erubesceret … redire mulierem in patriam praecepit (“when his sister from Leptis had come to him, barely speaking any Latin, and the emperor was deeply embarrassed about her… he ordered the woman to return to her country”). We don’t know much about what Septimius Severus sounded like himself, but for an emperor it must have been awkward to have a sister around who could not communicate in the language of the ruling classes.

 

 

 

https://antigonejournal.com/2022/05/latin-accent/

[guidoLaMoto]

It was true then as now, a regional accent can bring on stereotypical images. I often joke that if Einstein had been from Alabama, there'd be no atom bomb today. Nobody in Academia would have taken him seriously.

"...redire mulierem in patriam praecepit"...The use of "praecepit" instead of a simple "iussit" implies an urgency. Cf- praeceps-- head-long.

Edited December 11, 2023 by guidoLaMoto