My Vices in Latin Pronunciation / Vitia mea in Latine pronuntiando

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I make a lot of mistakes when pronouncing Latin! These are my most frequent errors.
Multa facio errores Latine loquens! Haec sunt crebrissima mea menda.
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[@KnicksBasketball96]

I’m not gonna lie, I nearly keeled over when you hit us with that gringo Latin haha

[@keepersofthegrid]

HA! Same 🤣🤣🤣

[@MagisterCraft]

Thank you for doing this, my friend! We should all follow your lead in your display of humility and admit errare vere humanum est!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Heh it is indeed! Hopefully I can get rid of my darn American accent sooner or later...! Thanks. :) XIII !!!

[@aninhagamez]

I thought you were Italian hahaha your "r" is so perfect, as a Brazilian who speaks with that same "r" I can tell, and watching your video I realized that a lot of your vices in Latin are the opposite of mine when I speak in English

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Obrigado!

[@andresyanez9243]

Luke, estoy empezando con gran entusiasmo el estudio del Latín, y tus recomendaciones y videos han sido una inspiración para mi. Observo tu pasión y amor por la lengua latina, la importancia y cuidado que das a la pronunciación correcta, y francamente has logrado que mi entusiasmo se incremente. Gracias!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Gracias a ti 😃

[@weirdlanguageguy]

I constantly find myself returning to this video. Everything about it is hilarious and enjoyable, and I'll most likely be back in a week or so. Thank you!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

How kind of you to say so! I’m delighted 😀

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@ScorpioMartianus You're welcome!

[@yunasimanuishmausha4547]

Well worth it. Educational about the true pronunciation of Latin.

[@maximuslondon]

I studied Latin (and Latin literature) for seven years in Italy, a long time ago. We were never taught to speak or even write in Latin, the aim was to learn the language so that we could understand the Classics, like Virgil for instance. Now, though, just listening to Luke talking in Latin I am surprised how much of it I can understand.

[@yulissa2925]

I almost don't understand anything u say but its so catching and interesting! I tried to pronounce just like u were saying but it was difficult! I thought I'd be easy as I'm a native spanish speaker, however I really appreciate ur content! (BTW my English is not the best)

[@ScorpioMartianus]

¡Muchísimas gracias, Yulissa!

[@erjaluz7436]

Macchè Lucaaa tu sei italico onorario!!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Grazie, Erica! :D

[@remedyisrael705]

Are you going to make more videos soon because it seems like your channel would be very good and informational !!!! I like what I see in the one video so far off the titles it seems like you like doing experimental analysis on things and are you an astronaut ?

[@TheOtherCaleb]

I just noticed that if you talk latin with in American accent, you sound like Mark zuckerberg

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Haha that's funny. 😂

[@moonlightcocktail]

I thought he sounded like a Sim

[@ivanradu2503]

Sine cura sis, magistre! Tua dictione clarissima est et placet.

[@topazbutterfly1853]

Just a quick notice, second declension nouns that end in “-er” or “-ir”, such as puer, magister, mater, pater, have Vocative forms identical with the Nominative ones. So it should be “magister,” not “magistre.” Just like some other words have irregular Accusative and Ablative forms, like “vis, -is,” which is “vim” in Accusative and “vi” in Ablative.

[@remedyisrael705]

It seems like you were trying to mess up but your out of this world Latin speaking ability was getting in the way of you trying to make us feel better but we see what you were trying to show us 😂❤

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Haha. Very kind

[@juniusrabbinius211]

Juxtapositio Luci Itali contra Lucem Americanum instructiva magnopere est! Seriously, this is very helpful as well as being really really funny and entertaining. It’s terrific!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Gratias tibi, Juni mi care! Much obliged for your comment and for watching. :) I hope to get rid of some of these errors soon!

[@sahinoudiengo816]

Hello there! I'm Russian. Sorry for my "Anglica". I respect your work on creating classical Latin pronunciation. I started learning Latin two weeks ago. For Russian-speaking people learning Latin classical pronunciation is easier then for English-speaking, because russian T, D, P, C, U sound the same as Latin. But there are soft sounds T, D, B, P, N, M, L, G in Russian language, but there are not this sounds in Latin. Also in Russian sound L is not Latin and there are not sound W, which is present in Latin. This things do creating classical pronunciation more hardly for russian-speaking people. Thank you for your work, you stimulate me to learn Latin. (and "Anglica" even too!!!)

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Говоришь очень хорошо по-английски! Спасибо 😃

[@sahinoudiengo816]

@@ScorpioMartianus hah I have a little need of your help. How I can translate on Latin "Wonderer (or traveler) on the way" ?

[@jmgguinea]

Tu canal de KZbin es un feliz descubrimiento para mí. Estudie Latín en la escuela secundaria y me fascinaba, aunque el método gramatica-traduccion resultaba frustrante. Muchos años después, aquí estoy redescubriendo esta lengua maravillosa gracias a tus excelentes dotes de comunicador (sí, un español aprendiendo Latín de un "bárbaro"). Muchas gracias por esta labor impagable.

[@abelpalmer552]

Was my quarantine project to learn a little Latin and I did but it fell by the wayside during the semester...just came back to this channel and can understand way more than I thought I would. Seriously motivating to study it more.

[@taylorgibb174]

I've watched a few videos of you speaking latin but I never noticed you having an american accent. As a german speaker I myself have the most trouble with not adding aspiration to the initial unvoiced plosive (which can be a problem in many languages, not only in latin). It's great to see how much effort you put into thinking about your pronunciation, but don't be too hard on yourself.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Danke! Very nice of you to say. 🤠

[@tereseshaw7650]

@@ScorpioMartianus I learned the plosive in Ancient Greek class. We did it, but we Americans were dubious.

[@plakette26]

When I watched your first video (and a couple more) I thought you were Italien! I would have NEVER EVER expected you to be American, cause your pronunciation is so perfect and open!! I'm no linguistic expert but: you can be proud of yourself! I am proud of you 👏👏👏

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Aww how sweet!

[@tancredi7106]

amice mi, loqui latine incepi cum pelliculas tuas vidi, ergo ego italus et vocales et litteram el et adspirationes in consonatibus barbare dicere et "r" semper ut /r/ dicere coepi 😂 ad hoc animadverti et mendas meas nunc corrigo. tamen mendas corrigere possum, quia tu linguae latinae vivae amorem in me adduxisti, magister Luci! valeo si vales 🤗

[@willowwedemeyer5152]

Iucundissime maxime mones, Luci! Ego quoque nimis Americanice loquor, sed multum pejus. Aliquantulum delictorum iam mihi notum erat, sed gratias plurimas tibi, quod aures aperis! Mihi autem valde exercendum est, ut ne resurdesceam. ;)

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Gratias pro comentario tuo! Paene eundem sonum Americanum habeo in lingua Italica. His diebus strenue me exerceo in hoc sono exstirpando. :D

[@joachimbramson1991]

thanks for the clarifications. that's pretty much what I understood from Wheelock's lating for beginners. I wish I could roll the 'r' better. this language sounds much better than I would've anticipated. When I was younger all I would hear of latin what the church pronounciation and I never liked it. Apart from the 'r', I also have issues of my own, pronounciating the words from my native French tongue. The 'u' of Latin is equal to the 'ou' of French but I keep pronouncing it like the French u, or /y/.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Merci! Ah, oui, les grecs avaient le mème problème, since the omicron-upsilon ου = [u:] in Koine Greek, the same Greek around the time of of the Romans. Wheelock is one of the worst books I've ever encountered, if you don't mind my blunt opinion. :D The pronunciation guide in particular is lousy and damaging.

[@DrWhom]

Le y en Latin se prononce comme le u en français, donc Aegyptus = aie - guppe - tousse

[@ogorangeduck]

A knowledge of Mandarin helps somewhat with not aspirating stops, but since I speak in English much much more frequently, I still make mistakes (specifically 'pulcher') Great video!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Very true! I'm glad you liked it! :D

[@CarLostis]

In my native Spanish, we have this errors in pronunciation also, for example, some r’s we pronounce as “middle” or “long” r’s, like scorpio, has a single r, but we pronounce it like Scorrpio(middle), and in Marrrtianus the r is rolled more, I guess it is more natural for the tongue to say it that way, the Italians pronounce roma with a single r, and in Spanish, all words that begin with an r, are pronounced with the rolled r, in Spanish, Rrroma and in italian Roma.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Actually, you are correct in your pronunciation! The single 'r' only happens between vowels in Latin and Italian; it is doubled elsewhere, even when written single. Stay with your Spanish convention! If it differs at all with the Italian, that's probably fine; I'm sure the Spanish convention of 'r' was an acceptable variant in Roman times. I made a video about it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5WslY2Kjd2jmsk Thanks for your comment!

[@joselugo4536]

In Puerto Rico it depends on the individual, some pronounce rs as the hebrews do. No Puerto Rican pronounce perro as pelo.

[@uplbdevcom]

As an Italian native speaker I find that your effort in pronouncing long and open vowels is sometimes innnatural, but you probably just do it for didactical purposes

[@GumSkyloard]

Never expected to see a Latin Vlog, but hey, not complaining!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

There are many on this channel

[@intheclouds7932]

Sei fantastico! Ed anche divertente! (I was cracking up!) Grazie mille per questo canale. 💝

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Grazie, Sabrina! Molto gentile

[@abdulhakimsaid9264]

Salve et vale domine Lucius(americanus,mihi multum placet suam dictionem!!!Restitutio suam est in integrum!Gratias ago!!!(Repetitio est mater studiorum!/Multum mihi gaudeo vos vedere et audire!!!/ Продължавай отличен си!!!)

[@elYisusdelaNazza]

As a Spaniard, the most difficult thing in Latin, grammar aside, is the pronounciation of short and long vowels 😢 o god is it Cāesar? Or Caēsar? Or Caesar? 😢😢

[@marinalypirou-bali7315]

Έχετε μα πόσο δίκιο! Είστε φανταστικός, το ίδιο πάθαινα όταν δίδασκα Γερμανό ελληνικά

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Χαχα ναι, μάλιστα! Έχουμε πάντες χαρακτηριστικά των διαλέκτων μας.

[@marinalypirou-bali7315]

@@ScorpioMartianus Μία ερώτηση μονάχα κύριε καθηγητά, γιατι cujus κ οχι cuius; ως ήχος αποδίδεται το ίδιο κ στους 2 τυπους, αλλά παρατήρησα πως στα κείμενα Ρωμαϊκής περιόδου αποδίδεται ο 1ος τύπος ενώ ο 2ος σε κείμενα Μεσαίωνα. Εσεις πότερον διάλλεκτον μιλάτε;

[@thadtuiol1717]

You say you're American, but your face is so Italian!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Hehe thank you! :D My father's parents were from Italy, so I look approximately 50% Italian I think. I appreciate the comment! Thanks for subscribing.

[@thadtuiol1717]

I knew it! I've lived in 7 different European countries and am fairly attuned to European phenotypes. In Italy you would blend in perfectly

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Haha grazie! Actually the Italians usually thought I might be French or Swiss, also because my accent in Italian isn't distinctly American (though still foreign).

[@iberius9937]

You have a striking resemblance to a very good friend of mine, sir. He as of Spanish/Cuban heritage but also has a phenotype that is finely attuned to a Roman or Italian. Very alpinized Atlanto-Med.

[@tudormardare66]

@@ScorpioMartianus Es similior Heluetis, sed adhunc potest quiddus dicere te Italus Septentrionis esse. Itali diversissimi inter ipsis in aspecto sunt, quoque Hispani, Dacoromanique, quod omnes populi antiqui Maris Nostri inter Septentrionales cum oculis viridibus caerulissimisque, quoque cum pelle alba, et Meridionales cum pelle maroniore, oculis saepe tenebrioribus extabant. In fine: medium idealis inter has regiones. Semi-latinus, semi-germanus, potis et pauco celtus.

[@lucamaestrini8696]

Oltre ad essere colto e estremamente simpatico nonché autoironico sei un gran bel pezzo d'omo!

[@aiocafea]

old video but i just wanted to say this video is brilliant and it can be so *hard* to admit even minute faults after studying a language for several long years, especially if you did it in a formal setting or commented on its phonology (or other aspects) for many years i had been so drunk with the idea that i need to sound indistinguishable to a native-english speaker *all the time* and in all circumstances that i took all criticism personally, and all inaccuracies as moral failings phonetics and language-learning can be extremely fun!! it is however extremely easy to consume yourself in search for the *perfect* pronunciation or fall into pitfalls of pride, and the first step to get back onto the horse is realising that if you want to be more knowledgeable in anything, you have to accept that you will always continue to be a language learner, and it's normal to make mistakes

[@plakette26]

NOW I know why I love your videos so much. Because as a girl from East Germany we have difficulties with open vowels, too 😅 (Most of the time I speak "hochdeutsch" but it's soooo hard to speak especially o and a 🙁🙄). Nevertheless, I am so used to you speaking Latin, and I adore your voice. With or without this small mispronounciations 💕💕💕

[@tictacmaniac7415]

Same here, Hochdeutsch :/ But at least we’ve absolutely got the u sound down, hehehehehe

[@plakette26]

@@tictacmaniac7415 haha welcome 🤗 But I have to confess, I have to train the U also 😅

[@g.v.3493]

Sic domine! Gratias tibi ago. Vere me multum iudet.

[@carlnikolov]

Hi Luke! Thanks for your videos. I always watch your videos, I have seen almost all of them! Hahahae!

[@Claudialupper]

This showed up in my feed...I think my phone was listening to my Latin students today!

[@siwanthaawikrema8738]

Thanks you are explaining well

[@siwanthaawikrema8738]

How many tenses in latin like English

[@TheManzanita09]

Wow! I just discovered this channel and I think you are really funny además, encuentro muy interesante lo que haces.

[@bedwere]

Sumus omnes peccatores, Luci!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Gratias, Roberte! :D Sumus quidem.

[@astherthemetalhead3000]

Even the Magister makes Mistakes. Gratiam

[@thegreatbatsgy7018]

Youre so cute!! I do this when i speak spanish too...weirdly enough im good with the double r's...its the double/triple vowels that get me the most and the vowels with inflection at the beginning of words next to words with vowels at the end. I love the "gua" words. At least in the part of mexico i learned its pronounced "WAacamole" (guacamole) or might as be spelled "Huacamole". I really love y's with vowels too. "La playa" can have part of the ñ (nia versus jia like youd try to pronounce in english) sound in it (or not, ive heard it both ways there).

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Absolutely!

[@albarylaibida1214]

I don't believe that you are american! You definetely have no accent. I can say this because I speak portuguese and your pronunciation, especially the 'r' sound, is so perfect. Congrartulations, man!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Obrigado! 🥰

[@albarylaibida1214]

@@ScorpioMartianus By the way, do you teach Latin online? I got interested.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Yes! www.AncientLanguage.com

[@truthterrain3484]

I learn from you BECAUSE you are an English speaker. You made the effort and had to bother about perfection and details way more than Italians or Spanish.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Very kind. I still have much work to do

[@hubert1990s]

I discovered your channel recently. I do not speak Latin (yet :) ), but I extremely enjoy it, really :)

[@markisback]

Americanus with better prononciation than Latin teachers in France. Fun and Learning Latin since novembre 2021, thanks Lukius.

[@steamfunk19]

As a french native speaker the latin plosive sounds are easy to pronounce ! On the contrary, when I speak english I tend to pronounce those consonants too smoothly without the breathing /h/ following them...

[@patchoulicolt7093]

I'm sitting here wondering WTF is going on. Turns out I'm supposed to have subtitiles enabled. . .

[@nettuno891]

Sei un grande, bravissimo!

[@plakette26]

Watching this with mit cat lying next to me, snoring. You trying the "cat.... Hhhhhccccat... " instant head tilt from my cat and staring at you 😂😂 You are a cat whisperer 😁🐱

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Haha I am! I love chatting with cats. I get them haha

[@plakette26]

@@ScorpioMartianus indeed 💕 My cat watches your videos as hypnotized and excited as me 😻😍👏👏👏

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Aw that’s so cute 😻

[@CeWagnoun]

Luke I really like your videos! I just wanted to say, anyway, that most scholars think classical latin had a double /l/ sound: the first one, as you said, the "Italian" one, the second one, like the american one, [ł] (velarized) close to velar vowels or consonants (this feature transformed "velo" from "velle" into "volo"). The same about the vowels: short vowels were probably more open, so short /i/ and /u/ were most probably [ɪ] and [ʊ]. Saluti dall'Italia!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Thanks! As for the velarized L, my research has shown that this was localized to the Ibero-French branch of Latin, but has no basis in Classical Latin pronunciation at all. What the ancient Romans describe for LL is exactly as you do in Italian: the tongue is pressed against the palate, producing a palatalized sound. As for short i and u, watch my video on tbt Calabrese Pronunciation. Le brevi suonavano in qualità uguali alle lunghe.

[@CeWagnoun]

@@ScorpioMartianus Lo farò con piacere! Thanks for your clarification: I'd be curious to read something about that! As for what I mentioned, I show you this paper from Luciano Canepari (I don't always agree with his methods, but he is considered among the best phoneticians in Italy). canipa.net/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=en:latin_pronunciation.pdf Un abbraccio e continua a farci appassionare con i tuoi video! :-)

[@antoniofuentes6523]

What about Priscian saying "l" triplicem ... sonum habet: exilem, quando geminatur secundo loco posita, ut "ille", "Metellus"; plenum, quando finit nomina vel sylla- bas et quando aliquam habet ante se in eadem syllaba consonantem, ut "sol", "silva", "flavus", "clarus"; medium in aliis, ut "lectum", "lectus".

[@madhobidas4123]

​@@ScorpioMartianus Is the Classical Latin L sound a dental L sound ?

[@bonniebrown1566]

I know this video is old, but I just wanted to say this was encouraging and funny! It’s so hard as an American to get those vowels right. And as a TEXAN, who can manage to inadvertently transition through pretty much ALL vowel sounds just trying to say the letter “a”, this was especially entertaining. 🙈😆

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Haha thanks

[@g.v.6450]

Thank you for cutting the American accent short! Speaking Latin (or Ancient Greek, for that matter) like that is against the Geneva Convention!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Haha

[@danielfetz589]

Gratias propter tu latine loqueris! Priusquam Amicus mihi te excoperire fecisset, numquam cogitassem aliquem latine apud internet loqui velle... et quanta passione! Te admiror sed a te etiam quaero: nonne est paulum triste se dedicare de latina lingua nec facere aliquid societati "utilius"? Quomodocumque certus sum te negotium quoque habere (fortasse latinam linguam docere in schola?), atque te admiror.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Grātiās! Sed quid inūtilitātis?! 🤣 Num spernis artem pingendī? Canendī clāvicordiō? Vae!

[@danielfetz589]

@@ScorpioMartianus non, certe! Sed incredibilis est mihi homo qui cupiditate latine loquitur! Admitto me quoque ipsam passionem habere! In omni causa tibi auguro bonam prosecutionem.

[@inespoliglota]

When someone outpaces my nerdiness. At quite a fast pace :D

[@sahinoudiengo816]

They say what "adultus" man can not speak foreign language with really good "pronuntiatione". Lucius, mihi placet! You spoiled these stereotypes. I love your pronunciation! Or... Did you get help of your Italian when you had been making your "bonus" Latin pronunciation?

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Very nice of you! I draw on my familiarity with many languages, like Italian and Japanese

[@Brandon55638]

Tam joculāris es!😂😂😂

[@Apaurie]

I like the part: "i am an american" and me: im glad no to be it, cause of mother tongue i don't have these problems with the vowels xD The rolled "R" = ppffffff can't pronounce them properly. After all, that's not a problem, im a barbarian so im not supposed to know every subtles of the language xD Good job man !

[@nurmihusa7780]

A proper mea culpa! Hahaha. I find when I try to speak Latin I have a slight Finnish accent because you live and die in Finnish depending on your command of short and long vowels. I struggled to perfect them when learning to babble to cousins. When I speak Finnish, however, I suspect I may have a Latin accent. A fearful symmetry in that. Finnish broadcasting used to do the news in Latin. Perhaps they still do?

[@jussibusy]

Voin toimia Suomen-serkkuna ja kertoa suru-uutisen: "Nuntii latini" on lopetettu viime vuonna yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2013/05/24/nuntii-latini

[@nurmihusa7780]

@@jussibusy Voi voi voi. Muistan Nuntii Latinii kun olin suomessa 30 vuoden sitten. (Google translate says I should’ve said vuotta. I am amazed that was the only mistake I made!)

[@Marianofrv]

Lucius, etiam magister errare potest

[@gainmelk]

Luca - homo universalis es! Avem gubernator, linguarum peritus, auctor et cantor! Euge!

[@igormarilhanofernandes8432]

That "American latin" pronuntiation remembers me of the American priests who say latin masses always terribly pronuntiated.

[@Aditya-te7oo]

Pronunciation wise I don't have those problems, 'cause my native language (Bangla or Bengali) has both the unaspirated and the aspirated consonants, i.e. c/k/q, ch, p, ph, t and th. It also has both the dental T and D sounds.

[@christosmpourazanis9284]

Well you struggle to pronounce latin as an English speaker(but nonetheless your Latin accent is almost perfect!!) but i from the other hand as a greek i pronounce easily Latin but I'm struggling with English pronunciation sometimes 😂😭

[@Vitorruy1]

we all have a cross to carry as the saying goes.

[@justamusician7846]

Sālve, Lucie !! Ego Carolus sum, puer peruani. Sicut scitis, ego Linguam Hispanicam loquo, et phoneticae Linguae Latinae facilem per Hispanophonis. Sed, gratias tibi ago pro videi tuii. I am not sure if I wrote this text properly. As you know, there aren't any good Latin translators, so, I wrote it by myself. 😊

[@Max-te2gy]

Is there an actual difference between unaspirated t and regular d? Same for c/k and g, p and b? Technically the latter sounds should be voiced as opposed to the previous ones, but I can't seem to pronounce unanspirated unvoiced t with a discernible difference to d.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Yup! Although English and German speakers can’t easily tell the difference, these are completely different phonemes. You’ll get the hang of it! Listen to lots of Spanish or Italian or Russian and you’ll be able to learn how to do it eventually 😊

[@DrWhom]

The following exercise has been proposed for Anglophones needing to unlearn aspiration: hold a small open flame (e.g. candle) in front of your mouth, at about an inch or two. Say cat, cup, pet etc. The flame should not move! BTW: for learners whose native language does not aspirate in these contexts, it is fairly straightforward to learn, but difficult to remember to do it consistently.

[@Brontosuchus]

Grahtsee! :)

[@FarfettilLejl]

Imagine showing this video to an ancient Roman. They'd be like WTF?! :D

[@valeriusdacius2123]

Perbelle loqueris, vitia humana sunt!

[@karlpoppins]

I'm curious as to why the Wikipedia section on Latin phonology seems to claim that short vowels have different qualities than long vowels: "[...] each vowel had short and long versions: /a ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/ and /aː eː iː oː uː/". Ironically, these short sounds are the same vowels you would be tempted to make as native American English speaker. Is this really true? Because I was really surprised to see this; I expected that the vowels of Latin are identical to those of Spanish, Modern Greek, etc, just with phonemic length.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Wikipedia’s transcriptions are based on Sydney Allen’s work which is out of date. You are correct.

[@karlpoppins]

@@ScorpioMartianus That makes sense! As a native speaker of Modern Greek it makes me happier that vowel qualities don't change - other than the nasals :)

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

What was that in the start, classical-intent-pronunciation Latin with a strong American accent...?

[@ΣταύροςΚοτσακωστούδης]

Hello I want to ask how can we say : "only for loved ones" in Latin

[@guillermorivas7819]

Mis vicios pronunciando en Latin. No lo se todo pero lo hablo muy bien.

[@имяфамилия-и4ш6н]

Брат не парься, всем давно понятно что у тебя лучшее произношение в youtube. Ты реинкарнация какого то римлянина

[@AuthLing]

Thanks for your channels, they are fantastic! Some new sources like Cser 2020 describe /l/ as dark L in most positions, except for geminated /ll/ and followed by "i". Do you think that this may be right? Then your American dark L would sound like authentic Classical Latin.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

It seems to be correct for pre-Classical Latin, but it seems to be an innovative phenomenon outside of Italy in Hispania and Gallia after Classical Latin, and in different environments

[@AuthLing]

@@ScorpioMartianus Thank you for the answer! Who are the most competent modern latinists? I am only familiar with works of Cser, Calabrese and Allen.

[@bolenco149]

Duolingo Latin speakers be like: 0:27

[@servantofaeie1569]

lol

[@umcarafilipino]

💀💀💀

[@rationaltrekker2509]

British "L" - at least ( in some regions) is light like the Italian and Castilian pronunciation. Listen to "The Logical Song" by the UK group "Supertramp." The /l/ sound is repeated throughout the song and aways very lightly - lingua-dentally. I too American (Southern California), but I have spoken Spanish for for so many years - Castilian Spanish - and I have had British and Canadian influences on my English throughout my life - that some of my sounds in English are not at all typical of my region. I have also had German and Russian / Church Slavonic. Many of my sounds, like /l/ and /o/ come out more British, at least in in some contexts. I tend to be aware just because of the several languages I have learned to some degree, and others to which I have been exposed. Phonetics is something I'm attuned to. At the same time, I AM American and I am hard of hearing nowadays so accurately hearing and reproducing some sounds escapes me.

[@a_sterling4514]

It's too bad I can't get those 'r's. I feel like I can manage the vowels with practice but I have never been able to roll my 'r'. I can get a trill so I can say 'ero' (in theory) but I'll never be able to say 'erro' as far as I can tell. I've been practicing that sound for years and have never done it.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Try my Rho video on polyMATHY

[@Leoptxr]

Your short I and U point brought up something that has been kinda bugging me for a while. I recently found out that, at least as far as the work of Sidney Allen, which is my go to reference for Latin pronunciation, short I and U had indeed a different quality from long U and I as do short O and E from their long counterparts. These qualities being exactly [ɪ] and [ʊ] for short I and U respectively (actually Allen proposes [ɨ] and [ʉ], but [ɪ] and [ʊ] are close enough). Nam, qui opinaris, o dilectissime gurus meus?

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Hi, Leonardo! :) I cover this in my videos on the Calabrese system, which is what I now use: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJnUgq2DhLeKjM0 kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3mbdmiIgNZmZ6s Simply, Sidney Allen was mistaken. Andrea Calabrese's evidence is extremely difficult to refute.

[@RexGalilae]

Yeah, it was also a documented stereotype that the African and Sardinian provincials didn't know the difference lol, proving that such a difference existed in the first place

[@servantofaeie1569]

i think its just [i] [iː] [u] [uː]

[@alicarbajobrisam2309]

As a spanish speaker, I really find these phonetics easy to pronounce

[@ViiKa99]

Portuguese is a language with closed sounds too. Our pronunciation sounds like yours.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Sim! português é muito bonito

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

The only one of these mistakes I make is the vowel length, but I’m getting there, I’m a native English speaker myself, but I was blessed with being natively bilingual in a language that has all of latin’s vowels, but not the vowel length lol. Also I thought wiktionary has those I and U sounds you advised against as being part of Latin phonology ? Strange 🤔

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Oh yes, Wikipedia is *completely* wrong! Pronouncing short I and U as anything other than [i] and [u] was something Cicero considered very rustic and un-Latin. Wikipedia is taking its declaration from Sidney Allen's "VOX LATINA"; Sidney Allen is right about many things, but dead wrong about these sounds (note that the Germanic vowel sounds Allen recommends don't occur in *any* Romance language). More likely, the 'ĭ' went from [i]>[e] directly with no intermediate step, as did 'ŭ' [u]>[o]. This transformation occurred in rural speech of the 1st century AD, as can be seen in the inscriptions of Pompeii. Eventually Vulgar Latin made this transformation complete. But this did *not* happen in the most conservative Romance languages, namely Sardinian and Southern Lucanian. Therefore it can be very safely assumed Classical Latin had the same [i] and [u] qualities for I and U. I'm going to make a video about this topic soon. Thanks for your comment!

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

ScorpioMartianus No problem ! Just a few questions, how do we know what Cicero thought of this, did the romans write a grammar saying what they sounded like speaking ? Also is Sardinian conservative in terms of phonology only or grammar aswell ? Thanks !

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Here is the full paper available on Reddit; please feel free to comment there as well since better linguists than I (namely user Raffaele1617, who posted the paper) can offer insights into Sardinian: www.reddit.com/r/latin/comments/96goqo/full_paper_on_classical_latin_vowel_system_by_dr/ The quote of Cicero that seals the argument for me is on the 11th page of that document, citing Cicero de Orat. 3.46: www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/oratore3.shtml Most of the grammarians wrote in the later Empire, and they agree that 'i' and 'u' are always one sound each ( www.gutenberg.org/files/7528/7528-h/7528-h.htm ). Given the quote from Cicero, we can see that the transformation that took hold of the Romance languages (except Sardinian and Southern Lucanian), namely changing short 'i' and 'u' to 'e' and 'o' had already occurred for uneducated rustic speakers in the speech of some commoners. Sydney Allen's VOX LATINA, which is the basis for bad pronunciation guides like that in Wheelock, attempts to explain the transformation and the confusion of i/e and u/o in inscriptions by assuming there is an intermediary sound, and for some bizarre reason assume they must be like the English short 'i' and 'u', which I find ridiculous. Yet there is zero evidence for an intermediate sound! There is evidence that the closed variants of [e] and [o] took the place of short 'i' and 'u' for the rustic/uneducated speakers of Vulgar Latin. Allen proposed the English phonemes because he was an Englishman and had little practical experience with the vowel systems of the Romance languages. It was a convenience for Anglophones, but overlooked the other evidence.

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

ScorpioMartianus Thanks for the info and links ! ❤️

[@ScorpioMartianus]

My pleasure! I'd be happy to discuss it further any time.

[@gabrielgerolamo2884]

At 2 minutes and 35 seconds the upper right hand corner of the screen reads ‘i’ = [u], but should it have been ‘v’/‘u’ = [u]?

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Indeed

[@gabrielgerolamo2884]

@@ScorpioMartianus In any case, I admire your videos very much. Please keep up the good work.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

I have been trying for ages to pronounce the unaspirated plosives and I can't figure it out. Do you have any advice?

[@ScorpioMartianus]

I do! So, for an English or Arabic speaker, the voices consonants g d b are not aspirated, just voiced. So the trick is to say g d b, but without using your vocal chords. And we don’t use our vocal chords when we whisper! So if you whisper “give,” “bed” etc, you’ll be saying exactly the right sound. Then all you have to do is selectively turn your vocal chords back on after the enunciation of a whispered d, and you get t, etc. It takes some practice, but you’ll get it! It also helps to listen to lots of a language which doesn’t have aspirated k t p, like Greek and most forms of Italian.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@ScorpioMartianus Thank you!

[@iberius9937]

@@ScorpioMartianus Interesting that you should say "most" forms of Italian, as I've actually heard them aspirate the C sound.

[@ndcensurado6298]

I was expecting him to say that he is a devotee of Dionysus and toasted a lot.

[@jacopoevangelista7658]

Te cognovi per Ecolingistis canalem, primum te audivi vidique in idiomaton latinorum comprehensionis experimento. Italus vocem latinam (graecamque) discens in superiore schola sum ac latinum dicere conans qua de causa repente me canali tuo subscripsi. Optime loqueris latine, minimae sunt tuae imperfectiones pronuntiationis, nullae syntaxeos. Tibi ago gratias et tibi tuoque labore gratulor.

[@roncoleman7504]

You are my favorite American Roman ^_^

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Thanks!

[@OscuroYami]

❤

[@GigaDavy91]

I also have to say that sometimes you roll your double r too much, that sounds a bit Spanish. It sounds like a triple r errramus, you should stop the r when the rolling sound it's just started, i don't know if you were doing it on purpose for making the sound more clear to others, but many times non Italian speakers tend to increase the rolling too much.

[@lorde_dimoria362]

Im a native brasilian portuguese speaker and i also have some trouble sometimes speaking that last a sound, mainly when im speaking more naturaly huaahuahauaa

[@PeterSipes]

interdum in schola discipulis fabulas legens pulchre linguam pronuntio pausamque facio et mihi voce interiori dico "bene factum'st." generaliter multi lapsus sunt mihi latine loquenti.

[@LordTankian0]

"Au"-Owen Wilson

[@cmyk8964]

If you know Finnish or Japanese, _pronouncing_ vowel length distinction would be easier than if you didn’t.

[@cahallo5964]

Reading latin is really easy and so is speaking it the issue is I have no clue what I am even saying (I am a native Spanish speaker so I am basically cheating I had to learn like 2 things, c always strong and using the weird spanish s which we don't use here) edit: vowel lenght I guess it's tricky sometimes

[@WasickiG]

The Duolingo Latin team should watch this video. Their pronunciation sounds awful to us Romance languages speakers.

[@peterbrown7688]

Valde mihi placet camisia tua.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Gratias! :D Si vis, potes habere etiam tuam! teespring.com/stores/scorpiomartianus

[@niku..]

I disagree about the short vowels /i/ and /u/. Since they merged with long /ē/ and /ō/ in almost all Romance languages, their pronunciation was most likely already near open [ɪ] and [ʊ] instead of fully open [i] and [u] as in modern Romance languages.

[@niku..]

Also the velarized [ɫ] likel existed as an allophone of /l/ in certain positions. And lastly aspiration wasn't perceived as something "barbarian" but something characteristic of people trying to sound "Greek" which was seen as educated and thus high class.

[@ScorpioMartianus]

All of the assertions you make, promoted by Allen, have been debunked in the decades since (notwithstanding the inelegance of my presentation in this video) thanks to the statistical analyses done by Adams. The mergers don’t occur until well after the Classical Period (after 200 AD), first front vowels, then back vowels after 400 AD. Thus assuming that different qualities existed for short i and u is simply incorrect (Allen didn’t have the benefit of Adams’ data, hence his error), and making that assumption would be the same as assuming Old English had modern English R simply because it developed sometime in the past. The “dark” L proposed by Allen is probably best described as an example of pareidolia. He imagined the British English model to work for Latin L. He was wrong. His supporting evolutionary evidence is that Spanish and French syllable-coda-L went through heavy velarization, hence alterum > otro and autre. But this did not occur in Italian or Romanian, which have the bright L. For Latin to have had a dark L in “alterum” etc only to de-velarize it again in half of Romance is beyond belief. This is why it’s wrong for Classical Latin. However, Italian and Romanian have an important allophone for L when geminated and syllable-final, which is more palatalized, and is much more similar to the descriptions of that ancient Romans for L pinguis (because the tongue is literally fatter when flattened against the roof of the mouth).

[@dumupad3-da241]

@@ScorpioMartianus The common underlying assumption behind your reasoning on L and several of Calabrese's arguments on the long/short allophony seems to be that allophony, once arisen, does not disappear. But that's demonstrably not true, we know of many cases when it has disappeared (after all, even phonemic distinctions do so all the time). Re L, Allen notes pinguis is used elsewhere for back (velar), not front (palatal) vowels, and the apparent universal association in sound symbolism is precisely to perceive back/grave sounds as 'thicker' and front/acute ones as 'thinner'. I don't think it's cross-linguistically common for a more *palatalised* rather than velarised allophone to be used syllable-finally (I haven't seen any description of the Italian and Romanian final palatalised allophones you mention), and palatalisation being replaced with velarisation in half of Romance is even less likely. As for the long/short allophony, only Calabrese's argument based on the precise dating of spelling mistakes involving confusions with ae and the lack of renditions of ē as Greek ei seem (somewhat) convincing to me, although it still seems far from certain (maybe I'll post some objections under the relevant video later). The actual mergers must have been preceded by a period of allophony, and already Cicero mentions the I-E merger as characteristic of rustic Latin; I find it implausible that this would have happened before even a slightly more open allophone had become established in urban Latin, too. Even if Calabrese is 100% right, I still wouldn't say he debunked Allen, he just shifted the dating of the long-short allophony as described by Allen from the 1st century BC to some point in the 1st century AD (his 'Late Latin I'), after AE had monophtongised (this early date of Late Latin I is Calabrese's own; from 2nd century AD we already have explicit testimony from Terentianus). This would just make Allen's system slightly anachronistic in this particular respect.

[@heinz-peterwolfgangmarcelg1891]

In german a, u, o, e, i are pronounced the same way

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Not at all. These have very different qualities from Italian and also Latin.

[@heinz-peterwolfgangmarcelg1891]

@@ScorpioMartianusIn German a lot of the letters are pronounced exactly like you show. Especially a, i and u and most of the others as well. (what you presented as correct pronounciation)

[@tereseshaw7650]

And, you are from the Midwest? You betcha!

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Nope. Pennsylvania

[@xrayfull466]

4:43 sounds like a villager

[@IoannesOculus]

Me desidero loqui tam bene quam tu! :)

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Loquēris loquēris! :D Gratias.

[@MusaPedestris]

Maxima pars, ne dicam tota, errorum et mihi quoque semper occurit - numquam tam diligenter de iis rebus cogitaveram :-)

[@ScorpioMartianus]

Nec omnino necesse est, mactissima Musa, quae in lucem eddas sonorissimas rectitationes poematum! :)

[@remedyisrael705]

I would have never thought you and him make those mistakes because I think y’all speak Latin like a Native speaker but keep making videos the three of you are my favorite Latin teachers because y’all make it very fun ❤