"Waynee, weedee, weekee!"

[purpletigron]

My attempts to learn Welsh have repeatedly been foiled, and I am about to return to living in England. I have more time than money at the moment. So, I've decided to take up a very cheap new hobby. I am learning Latin.

Now, I went to what is commonly known in the UK as a `grotty comprehensive' school, and the only language other than English which I studied was French. I had picked up a smattering of Latin from scientific and musical sources, but nothing particularly grammatical. But I had to hand copies of. "Minimus: An introductory Latin course", and "Learn Latin: The Daily Telegraph QED Series" by Peter Jones (Prof., not Book). Meanwhile, my good friend purplecthulhu is smugly sitting on a slightly dusty "A" in Latin `O'-level, from slightly less Great Old Days...

So, "amo, amas, amat..." I went.

But first! A few notes on pronounciation from Prof Jones:

_amas_ ... "uh-mas"
_amare_ ... "uh-mah-ray"
_Cicero_ ... "Kikero"
_Vergilius_ ... "Wher-gill-ius"

Argh!! Rebellion and strife in the Households of Purple!!!! Can it really be, that Julius Caeser uttered these immortal words (and thus sounded like he was naming characters from the Seven Dwarfs)?

"waynee, weedee, weekee!"

(_veni, vidi, vici_)

??????

Classicists of the Web, come to our aid!

Comments

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Pronouncing latin Vs as Ws has been the fashion for fifty years or more. I don't hold with it myself, but after all, the chances of having to speak to an ancient Roman and have your accent laughed at are fairly low, quis nesciet, so why worry? Unless you've been inventing a time machine, and I don't think you're that kind of mad scientist...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!! :-)

Nobody is sure

[redbird]

Except that even the weni, weedy, weaky people have that as w, not wh, if you're one of the people who pronounces those differently.

I'd go for ahmo, ahmas, ahmaht, myself. But whatever works in your head--this is mostly for reading, though I think Radio Finland may still offer a weekly newscast in Latin.

Re: Nobody is sure

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

w, not wh

Uh-huh. Dunno why he chose to write it `wh'.

Radio Finland may still offer a weekly newscast in Latin.

Oh, my! Yes:

"For a decade now the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) has been delighting Latin-lovers all over the world with radio news in their favourite language. (http://www.publiscan.fi/cu24e-0.htm)"

Re: Nobody is sure

[numbat.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Finland you might like to know that Dr Jukka Ammondt, senior lecturer in literature at the University of Jyvaskyla has apparently released two collections of Elvis Presley in Latin. One of ballads The Legend Lives Forever In latin and the other rockin' Rocking In Latin. My preference would be for the latter. Imagine Blue Suede Shoes...

Me humi proruas
Mi calces os
Aut infames nomen animos
Fac quidquid habes in animo
Sed, age, mel, nunc parce calceis

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

The problem with reconstructing pronunciations of dead languages is that you can never be sure you're right. You can make very educated guesses, but you don't *know*. Add to this the fact that Latin wasn't standardized when it was a living language, and therefore necessarily had a lot of equally valid dialectal pronunciations, and you might as well throw up your hands in disgust. It's likely that the [w] pronunciation and the [v] pronunciation both existed, but varied by region.

All of this is to say that if someone tells you you're doing it wrong, they've got a big fat stick up their ass.

Good luck, despite the weenies.

-J

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Cool linguistics professor to the rescue :-)

And so, harmony can be restored to the Households of Purple... if I tease purplecthulhu about this ever again, he will simply point to the big fat stick which suddenly appears about my posterior :-)

Heh heh

[(Anonymous)]

Heh heh heh. I'm just imagining the Eddie Izzard sketch… "Hallo, we're the RO-mans. Yes we are."

Anyway, this is all well and good. We need more Latin translators in the SCA.

Cheers, Dayle

Re: Heh heh

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Dayle! Good to see you. Want an LJ? I have a few extra codes lying around ...

-J

Re: Heh heh

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I've already tried to persuade Dayle on that :-)

Re: Heh heh

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the offer, therealjae, but I'm extraordinarily happy with Journalscape (I'm at www.journalscape.com/dayle, if you want to check out what I've been up to).

Cheers, Dayle

Re: Heh heh

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Oh! Which Izzard tour was that? I think I only saw each of the pre-Glorious ones twice each maximum (once with you, and once with `The Man Who Almost Said "Fuck" To My Mother'), and I don't recall this scene. I just keep thinking of John "The Romans, they go the house?" Cleese, Michael "My friend Biggus Diccus" Palin and Graham "Welease Woger" Chapman :-)

Before I get as far as doing Latin-English translations for the SCA, I've got to learn how to read purplecthulhu's Latin Asterix book ("Fossa Alta")!!! But... interesting thought :-)

Re: Heh heh

[(Anonymous)]

Uhm...I'm guessing either Live at the Ambassador or Definite Article. Probably the one with Hannibal and the elephants. (Sing it with me, now: "If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid."

They all blur together for me because I've seen them so many times. :-)

Cheers, Dayle