AD61 samples

Here are shown a few samples of the interviews with characters from ancient Rome. A Latin Qvarter film with Robert Bathurst, Marco Bortolami, Olivia Cockburn, Anthony Easton, Edward Gillespie, Tom Morris, Giada Pantano and Steve Wright. Filmed and produced by George Sharpley. Nero is the emperor, the first Christians are in Rome, and a few months earlier the northern province of Britannia has been rocked by a bloody uprising. Boudicca, queen of the rebellious Iceni, now lies dead, her army too. In Rome, people are nervously awaiting the outcome of a recent murder: Lucius Pedanius Secundus, the city prefect and former consul, has been killed by his own slave. The law demands the execution of all 400 slaves in his household, man, woman and child. Their fate is the talk of Rome ... talk that is here preserved in filmed interviews with a senator, slave, gladiator, merchant, poet and other Romans of the time. The Latin Qvarter has recreated a realistic idea of people speaking the Latin language in ancient Rome.

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Education

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• AD61
• Latin
• Latin language
• Latin DVD
• Latin films
• colloquial Latin
• spoken Latin
• Vulgar Latin
• Latin poetry
• hear latin
• speak latin
• learn latin
• The Latin Qvarter
• Rome
• Ancient Rome

[filhodovento20]

Illas duas mulieres formosas sunt...

[filhodovento20]

@matrona22 I think it's because maybe they both descend from Indo-European.

gnosis/noscere

schizein/scindere

[Pollux6721]

It's nice :)

[imshadi]

I find it amazing when some elements of ancient languages seem to be part of modern slang in some languages. In Costa Rica, young people in slang are called "Puer" in a derogatory way. The sound of the letter "b" in Costa Rica is almost mute so words like "libro" could be written "livro" or "liuro" and still be pronounced similarly. Between vowels, the "b" sound tends to disappear, so "Puber" and "Puer" would sound identical. The origin of "puer" is not known locally though.

[imshadi]

@StMartinTours Thanks for your clarification. Love it when I can learn something new!

[StMartinTours]

@imshadi The Romance forms "verita'", "verdad", etc., derive from the accusative Latin form "veritatem" rather than the nominative "veritas". This is why they are accented on the "a". However, you're exactly right about the "e" and "a" in "veritas" being long.

[matrona22]

Greek had a massive influence on the Latin language, especially in Vulgar Latin. If you listen to the slave in the film, he has some Greek elements in his speech.

[matrona22]

There are other sources that give us information about the pronunciation of Latin (graffiti, spelling mistakes in literature, evidence from Latin grammaticians etc.) However, they may only tell us about the Latin spoken in a particular area of the Roman Empire. In Spain for example, there was confusion between the 'b' and the 'v'. (Beati hispani quibus bibere vivere est! - "Happy are the Spaniards for whom to drink is to live"!)

[matrona22]

You´re right that the Romance languages can give us some important clues as to how Latin was pronounced, but they can only indicate tendencies. Even in Roman times Latin was spoken differently throughout the whole Empire. At no time in any language has there ever been a homogenous pronunciation and Latin was a second or third language for many people. The actors in this film have different accents too but all show similar tendencies (loss of the final 'm' of a word before a vowel etc.)

[lezlie2k2]

@imshadi Greek and Latin are also sister languages in the Indo-European language family