Re: 18th century tankards

Don Moody wrote:

<snip>
I got four different replies. All fervently declaimed to be the way a Roman
would have said the phrase.

Which, indeed, was quite possibly true.


<snip>
My two question were (1) how
could anybody know exactly how Romans pronounced their language, and
(2) if there was such a thing as a correct version how could there be
four different correct versions? The Latin teachers couldn't answer
either question.
<snip>


Ah, the advantage of age! These seem, to me, to have been somewhat shallow
adolescent thoughts of yours.

(1) how could anybody know exactly how Romans pronounced their language?

It's not a properly phrased question in relation to the conclusions you've
drawn.

You could ask, for instance, how anybody could know exactly how educated
Romans of senatorial patrician rank in the age of Augustus spoke (and draw
some conclusions about the methodology). You could ask, for instance, how
educated Romans of senatorial patrician rank in the age of Augustus spoke
(and accept or reject the theory).

You are quick to criticise people on this group for ill-formulated
questions - perhaps one of your teachers should have slapped you round the
head and said, 'Think properly, youth' (I'm in Arisian mode here!)

(2) if there was such a thing as a correct version how could there be four
different correct versions?

How many sciences have only one answer to a complex question?

They were teasing you. I would swear blind, if I were a teacher still, that
there was only one way to pronounce Latin, and leave you to work it out.

[The first thing that happened to me when I arrived at univerity in 1971 was
to be summoned into the Senior Censor's office to be instructed how to say
the Grace in the correct Oxford manner, not the Cambridge way.]

Chris









.