Rameses the Great Posted March 5, 2007 Report Share Posted March 5, 2007 All during this week at 8 ET, the History Channel shall air the showing of 'Barbarian Week.' Anyone interested in Celts, Goth, Huns, and any other 'barbarians' can watch and discuss here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecimusCaesar Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 Although I don't have 'the History Channel' and therefore I can't discuss the program, but I am curious if these are the documentaries they aired a few years back- in which they had full scale reconstructions of the lives of barbarian warriors- The Huns, Goths, Vikings and Mongols. Will Terry Jones' series be aired as well? Or is this a completly new line up of shows? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rameses the Great Posted March 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 Although I don't have 'the History Channel' and therefore I can't discuss the program, but I am curious if these are the documentaries they aired a few years back- in which they had full scale reconstructions of the lives of barbarian warriors- The Huns, Goths, Vikings and Mongols. Will Terry Jones' series be aired as well? Or is this a completly new line up of shows? What they did was to start the week off they had a new documentary on the Dark Ages. Later they used old documetaries on 'barbarians' throught the week. Of course this all hints at European history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 The one last night, on the Saxons, was ok. I find that the History Channel is part of a nasty trend of late, in dumbing down and over-dramatizing events. OTOH, the fact that they had the characters speaking 'in the native tongue' (I have no idea how accurate it was) was quite interesting, and great to see. Sadly, when the Roman soldiers and elite were talking, I could barely hear them, so I have no idea what or how well they were speaking. Still, overall I'd give it a B...solid entertainment, and has me thinking on a couple of topics for the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Octavius Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 Unfortunately, DoL is right. The usual alleged "History Channel' twaddle. Interesting though. Good thing I don't know anything about the subject. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 So I was paying more attention to the languages in tonight's episodes (on the Franks and the Lombards), and I had a series of questions...perhaps someone else picked up on this: --When the 'Romans' spoke, it almost seemed like they were using Classical Latin words, but in Subject-Verb-Object (i.e. later Romance) word order. However, this is first impression only; I didn't tape them, so I couldn't go back and hear the speech again. --With regard to Frankish, I understand that we have few (from what I understand, very few) texts to get some idea of the Frankish language. But they had the Lombards speaking a Germanic language, too...I didn't think we have anything in Lombard? --The Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula were said to be somewhat bilingual in both their Germanic language and Latin, due to their prolonged contact and work with the Romans. Because of this, once they took over in Iberia, it's noted (Penny 1991 is just one of the latest, but it's discussed in Menendez Pidal, among others) that the Visigoths moved to exclusively using Ibero-Romance as their language over the generations (no one is sure how long this took). The documentaries didn't represent either the Franks or the Lombards as being 'bilingual', for the most part, although I'm sure that it would have been the norm among the nobility. Still...I find that aspect very odd...this is a huge aspect linguistically of the history of the Romance languages, that despite the Germanic tribes (among other groups) who invaded and took over control of the land, the Romance languages were maintained. The closest we see in tonight's episodes is the Franks taking over Romanized towns and 'continuing Roman way of life'. But, in my biased opinion, language must be mentioned! I'm sure there's more, but I'm a wee tired right now. Any other thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLavius Valerius Constantinus Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 So I was paying more attention to the languages in tonight's episodes (on the Franks and the Lombards), and I had a series of questions...perhaps someone else picked up on this: --When the 'Romans' spoke, it almost seemed like they were using Classical Latin words, but in Subject-Verb-Object (i.e. later Romance) word order. However, this is first impression only; I didn't tape them, so I couldn't go back and hear the speech again. --With regard to Frankish, I understand that we have few (from what I understand, very few) texts to get some idea of the Frankish language. But they had the Lombards speaking a Germanic language, too...I didn't think we have anything in Lombard? --The Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula were said to be somewhat bilingual in both their Germanic language and Latin, due to their prolonged contact and work with the Romans. Because of this, once they took over in Iberia, it's noted (Penny 1991 is just one of the latest, but it's discussed in Menendez Pidal, among others) that the Visigoths moved to exclusively using Ibero-Romance as their language over the generations (no one is sure how long this took). The documentaries didn't represent either the Franks or the Lombards as being 'bilingual', for the most part, although I'm sure that it would have been the norm among the nobility. Still...I find that aspect very odd...this is a huge aspect linguistically of the history of the Romance languages, that despite the Germanic tribes (among other groups) who invaded and took over control of the land, the Romance languages were maintained. The closest we see in tonight's episodes is the Franks taking over Romanized towns and 'continuing Roman way of life'. But, in my biased opinion, language must be mentioned! I'm sure there's more, but I'm a wee tired right now. Any other thoughts? Well, I 'm not an expert, but I do know Latin and I think you're correct in asserting that the "Romans" spoke in subject, verb, object. However, you can't expect a Roman centuries ago to always use a verb always placed at the end, to him, it didn't matter where it went in placement unless others could understand it. However, I noted that there was a lack of Latin sentence constructions including infinitives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecimusCaesar Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 What they did was to start the week off they had a new documentary on the Dark Ages. Later they used old documetaries on 'barbarians' throught the week. Of course this all hints at European history. It isn't surprising to see them regurgitating old material. Are they still showing 'The Roman War Machine' ? I remember seeing that when it first aired at the end of the last millennium about 2 years back I had a chance to tune into the History Channel only to see that the show was being repeated, although now it had been heavily edited, meaning that most of the good material had been removed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Octavius Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 Last night we saw an adumbration - no sound for half the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 Well, I 'm not an expert, but I do know Latin and I think you're correct in asserting that the "Romans" spoke in subject, verb, object. However, you can't expect a Roman centuries ago to always use a verb always placed at the end, to him, it didn't matter where it went in placement unless others could understand it. However, I noted that there was a lack of Latin sentence constructions including infinitives. Yeah, that's the point. Classical Latin is 'considered' to be predominantly SOV order, albeit with plenty of free word order. Vulgar Latin, too, is thought to be predominantly SOV, but with common SVO word order. (Just for reference, by the time we get to Late Latin, or around the 4th c. CE, the order is predominantly SVO.) But, I was under the impression that the soldiers were 'trained' in Classical(ish) Latin as a lingua franca, or at least that's how they spoke for the most part, as well as the (educated) elite. Maybe someone who is more 'in the know' on Romanization, but I would have expected speech patterns from these two groups which ressembled C.Lat. more? Again, I was going by first impressions, so I could be totally wrong here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Divi Filius Posted March 9, 2007 Report Share Posted March 9, 2007 (edited) I was under the impression that the soldiers were 'trained' in Classical(ish) Latin as a lingua franca Unlikely. The later Roman soldier was far more likely to be illiterate then the "classical" legionary. Even as you got into the higher ranks... Edited March 9, 2007 by Divi Filius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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