Suetonius

[Pertinax]

Of course for names like Caesar and Cicero, English-speakers have to pronounce them as they've come down to us, whether the pronunciation is correct or not.

 

I was querying Jacobi's pronunciation of names or words very few people are familiar with:

Caenis, quaestor, aedile, etc.

 

Couldn't he at least get those right?

 

Flavia

Shame about pronunciation, but , the diction is good.

Doc makes a good point above, I was mindful of what Prince Charles had to say about the word "valet" , a definite frenchy "go boil your bottom silly Arthur King" word if I ever did...His Royal Highness (Charles , not Arthur) commented that (and I paraphrase) that we "must pronounce it val-et with a hard T to show that we are English using a word we know to be French , but subsumed into our language ..we therefore actively disassociate ourselves from the soft val-eh ending of the "true" French word".This does of course make a lot of assumptions about the educative standard and the vernacul;ar speech of the parties to the conversation, namely that a rough ,tough Northern (British) type might emphasise the flat vowels and a hard T anyway (because he wouldnt pronounce some effeminising French metric stuff).Of course the other minefield of manners is the desire not to express oneself with too many hints of Middle Class arriviste (note the irony) lingua franca.The other slight problem is the very modern (last 100 years or so, with the coming of the Railways initially) homogenisation of accents .

Phew, I got carried away in someone else's specialism.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Shame about pronunciation, but , the diction is good.

Isn't diction just word choice and pronunciation? If you get rid of pronunciation, the credit for word-choice surely doesn't go to the Jacoby. Would "enunciation" be a better word for the concept you'd intended?

[Pertinax]

Shame about pronunciation, but , the diction is good.

Isn't diction just word choice and pronunciation? If you get rid of pronunciation, the credit for word-choice surely doesn't go to the Jacoby. Would "enunciation" be a better word for the concept you'd intended?

Yes ,you are more accurate, though diction does include style of expression (but, also distinct vocabulary..hence I doff my hat to

you!).The original definition of diction is ,I believe, merely "to speak" (as in to speak "well").

[The Augusta]

A fascinating, if somewhat pedantic, thread. I was taught my Latin by a mad Welshman who nevertheless drummed into we terrified lasses the 'correct' pronunciation. Therefore, when I came to study the history of Rome in some depth and came up against famous folks that I had so far not met, I pronounced their names as the esteemed Mr. Southall had taught me. Now, I knew Caesar and Cicero from Shakespeare in any case - but my first literary meeting with Maecenas, for instance, had me pronouncing his name MYE-KANE-AS - which is no doubt 'correct' but no one would know who you meant if you pronounced it that way in the world of Academe or Literature. Or would they? However, there is one thing that I do insist upon. Marcellus is MarKellus - and I'll NOT say it any other way!

 

As for Jacobi's (as we're being pedantic, please note spelling of Sir Derek's name) pronunciation - can we remember that he's an actor, not a classicist. Actors don't care how they pronounce things, as long as it sounds nice! We also come to what other people have said about common usage, e.g. SEEZER and not Kaisar. I insist upon saying KWEYE-STORE etc. just like Flavia, but in many a historical documentary or chat with other academics, I have heard PREETER and EEDIL and KWEESTER. It jars with me as it no doubt does with others. But how pedantic are we going to be. After all - it should be OW-Goos-toos, not OR-gus-tus. It should be Ti-bairi-oos and not TYE-beeri-us. Heck - it should not be Vesp-ay-sian but Wesp-ah-sian! And Tye-tus is Ti-toos. 'I, Clowdioos', anyone?

 

The thing is, as most of these names have passed into history in English speaking countries with the traditional pronunciation, it would simply be an affectation to change them now. I personally would not wish to pick holes in an actor's rendition of the printed word. And after all, if we're going to be so 'correct', there is no way we should be speaking of 'Mark Antony' and 'Octavian'. Marcus Antonius and Octavianus are the correct names.

 

May I also take this opportunity of giving a warm welcome to Flavia. I hope you are with us for a long time to come.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

The pronunciation of Latin has been some what of a problem for me, I can honestly say that I don't think I've actually ever heard anyone speak Latin before (I can just see some of you re-coiling in horror now) well not personally anyway, I've heard the odd sentence or phrase before in the movies etc but I've never actually sat in a classroom or in the vicinity of anyone speaking Latin, which is a great shame. I've attempted to learn Latin a few times but it's pretty difficult when you've never even heard it spoken before. I've bought a few books on the subject which have helped a little and so has this thread, it great to have the opinions of such educated and scholarly people as yourselves explain and discuss the different pronunciations of Latin.

 

I just wish I'd have had the option of taking Latin when I was at school so that I could have participated in this fascinating discussion.

Edited June 21, 2007 by Gaius Paulinus Maximus

[Andrew Dalby]

The thing is, as most of these names have passed into history in English speaking countries with the traditional pronunciation, it would simply be an affectation to change them now. I personally would not wish to pick holes in an actor's rendition of the printed word. And after all, if we're going to be so 'correct', there is no way we should be speaking of 'Mark Antony' and 'Octavian'. Marcus Antonius and Octavianus are the correct names.

 

And in other countries the traditional pronunciations are quite different. On our first family holiday in France we got friendly with our next-door neighbour and his tiny dog whose name was -- it took a moment to catch it -- Titus, pronounced Tee-T