Trajan's Latin: Civilization VI. How is his pronunciation?

The Civilization game series has some characters that speak in ancient languages. How is the reconstructed pronunciation? Let's discover that together!
#latin #civilization #trajan
Interview with the Legionary: • Interview with the Leg... ⚔️ 🤓
Calabrese Pronunciation System of Latin: • Latin Pronunciation: C...
🦂 Support my work on Patreon:
/ lukeranieri
📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks:
luke-ranieri.myshopify.com
🤠 Take my course LATIN UNCOVERED on StoryLearning, including my original Latin adventure novella "Vir Petasātus"
learn.storylearning.com/lu-pr...
🦂 Sign up for my Latin Pronunciation & Conversation series on Patreon:
/ 54058196
Consider joining this channel:
/ @polymathy_luke
☕️ Support my work with PayPal:
paypal.me/lukeranieri
📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks:
luke-ranieri.myshopify.com
🏛 Latin by the Ranieri-Dowling Method: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com/co...
🏺Ancient Greek by the Ranieri-Dowling Method: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com/co...
🏛 Ancient Greek in Action · Free Greek Lessons:
• Ancient Greek in Actio...
👨‍🏫 My Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata playlist · Free Latin Lessons:
• Greetings in Latin · L...
🦂 ScorpioMartianus (my channel entirely in Latin & Ancient Greek)
/ scorpiomartianus
🌍 polýMATHY website:
lukeranieri.com/polymathy/
😊 polýMATHY on Facebook:
/ lukepolymath
🐦 polýMATHY on Twitter:
/ lukepolymath
🌅 polýMATHY on Instagram:
/ lukeranieri
🦁 Legio XIII Latin Language Podcast:
/ legioxiii
🎙 Hundreds of hours of Latin & Greek audio:
lukeranieri.com/audio
👕 Merch:
teespring.com/stores/scorpiom...
🦂 www.ScorpioMartianus.com
🦅 www.LukeRanieri.com
☕️ Supported in part by LanguageMugs.com : languagemugs.com/shop/?wpam_i...
📖 My book Ranieri Reverse Recall on Amazon:
amzn.to/2nVUfqd

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Check out the Interview with the Legionary! All in Latin: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2O4fa2GisiUrrc ⚔️ 🤓 🦂 Support my work on Patreon: www.patreon.com/LukeRanieri 📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com 🤠 Take my course LATIN UNCOVERED on StoryLearning, including my original Latin adventure novella "Vir Petasātus" learn.storylearning.com/lu-promo?affiliate_id=3932873 🦂 Sign up for my Latin Pronunciation & Conversation series on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/54058196

[@benedictvogelheim6880]

You speak English very fluently for a roman citizen, Centurion.

[@oleksijm]

He was stationed in Germania, that's why.

[@alexsitaras6508]

@@oleksijm Wouldn't it be Frisia?

[@imadharrazi6029]

Lol

[@thofthe]

He was stationed in Londinium

[@wyqtor]

@@oleksijm More like Britannia!

[@bruh-lg6ch]

You’re telling me there’s a reason why Mario says “it’s-a Mario”

[@PresidentFunnyValentine]

What about Jar Jar?

[@humanbass]

@@PresidentFunnyValentine j Jar Jar is more a jamaican stereotype

[@blueheartorangeheart3768]

Italian translation: You’re-a telling-a me there-a’s-a reason-a why Mario says-a “it’s-a Mario”

[@antoniousai1989]

Funnily enough, Mario's dubber is a French guy.

[@mysterym3678]

@@antoniousai1989 a Japanese caracter that is Italian, speaks in English and is voiced by a French guy... Mario, Mr World Wide

[@jona.scholt4362]

Luke's looking like he's a centurion ready to give orders in perfect Latin to a bunch of legionaires

[@MagnusMoerkoereJohannesen]

...or to a very naughty boy, caught defacing local architecture.

[@landofw56]

@@MagnusMoerkoereJohannesen Lucius imperiosus est.

[@fabianofonda6758]

With a rudis in his hand😵

[@romanusinvictusaeternus3144]

@@MagnusMoerkoereJohannesen Or caught trying to write "Romani ite domum", but writting 'Romanes eunt domus' instead.

[@shrektheswampless6102]

the only problem that i find is that he sounds kinda nasal when he speaks in latin.

[@ciceronincheese7195]

Trajan is noted by his contemporaries as speaking with a heavy Hispanic accent. I wonder how the quirks imparted on this Latin by the Italian voice actor compare to the quirks of Trajan's accent.

[@SolarScion]

Thanks for verifying that. I'm not familiar with Italian actors/VA, but it did sound to me like the most "Castilian" Italian I'd heard.

[@jordinagel1184]

Ah, so that’s why I found his intonation to be easier on the ears (as a Spanish speaker)... If that was done on purpose, it’s a very nice touch which really wasn’t necessary, but absolutely makes the production stand in a better light if you do know about it

[@philomelodia]

Who knows what that sounded like back then? It would be so hard to reconstruct that. Spanish or, Castillion, if you want to be pedantic about it, and all its sister languages on the peninsula were heavily influenced by the Arabic of the Moors and by the Gothic spoken by the invaders that preceded them. Trajan spoke a Latin with a Basque and Celtic substratum, perhaps. Maybe a touch of Phoenician. Certainly intriguing.

[@bayern1445]

JAJAJJAJA trajan is a SPANIARD Hello México

[@PSTorres]

in fact i think he was born in Italica, which is in the south of Spain

[@iPlayGamesITA]

My god, being Italian and having studied a bit of latin at high school, hearing LOWIS whenever I play is goddamn painful

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Infatti, una tragedia proprio

[@tFighterPilot]

If they used J the actor could have said Zhowis

[@iammaxhailme]

I usually play with the sound off and am listening to my own music when I play civ, but when he pointed out "lowis" I had to LOL

[@jangtheconqueror]

@@tFighterPilot But he seems to have gotten the J in Trajanus correct

[@mathy4605]

@@tFighterPilot Italians usually know how to pronounce J correctly. See the popular calcio team, Juventus.

[@r.b.ratieta6111]

Firaxis/2K Games should just hire Luke to voice their next Roman leader from Civilization VII.

[@mvmsma]

Or they could add a second leader for Rome im Civilization VI. Aurelian would be cool, or maybe Julius Caesar himself.

[@r.b.ratieta6111]

@@mvmsma Those were the exact two I was thinking as well. 😄 Julius Caesar or Marcus Aurelius. Luke is more the pensive, calculating educated type, so I think a better fit would be Marcus Aurelius.

[@mvmsma]

@@r.b.ratieta6111 I meant Aurelian (270 - 275 AD), the guy who saved Rome from collapsing too early, but Marcus Aurelius would be cool too

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Let them know I'm available for hire.

[@captainchaos1311]

I think Augustus or Marcus Aurelius would be great choices. Caesar would be also good. I think many people forget a lot about Augustus.

[@CousinChal]

"Caesar, pronounced like eye" And also like Kaiser, funnily enough

[@ibnyahud]

Never took latin, but I know this from how it's written in Judeo-Aramaic in the Talmud, a work contemporary to the Roman Empire...

[@jordinagel1184]

Ironic that it’s the Germans of all people who would retain the most faithful pronunciation of that name/title... (afaik, I don’t know if languages apart from French, Spanish, or English also use the German pronunciation or a similarly faithful one)

[@M3RT27]

@@jordinagel1184 Spanish uses Rei as Kaiser

[@jordinagel1184]

@@M3RT27 well, no, not really. It depends. The name Caesar still exists as césar, but “rey” comes from the Latin word “rex,” while the Spanish term for the title of “Caesar” would be “emperador.”

[@lordfedjuvekinval252]

@@jordinagel1184 I used to have a linguistics course at uni, we had a few lessons dedicated to “loanwords”, that is words that languages “loan” from others to fill semantic gaps in their own. Like “thug”, “motto”, “chance” etc. in English. One property of loan words that is often noted is that , as time passes, they tend to stick to their original pronounciation in the receiving language more than their source. Kaiser comes straight from Caesar, and as Latin languages evolved and their native words with them, Kaiser stuck closer to its origin specifically due to its foreign nature.

[@Omar-wb8bg]

My teacher is Italian and make that sounds with consonants.

[@pasqualesimonelli1513]

Yea the fun thing is (as an italian) that when I say that to someone thethey have no idea about what I'm talking about because (theoretically) the ə doesn't exist in Italian 😂

[@pasqualesimonelli1513]

@Han Boetes basically every word in Italian ends with a vowel so we just add a vowel when there isn't. This also happens a lot while we speak English, we add a ə in the end of words but we don't pronounce the ə when we actually should because we don't think that's actually a vowel, we tend to use a "real" vowel like a, e, i, o or u. Of course I'm speaking generally there are Italian that can speak English and Latin properly 😂

[@TheAtomoh]

@@pasqualesimonelli1513 Just like Japanese ppl, an example is KitoKato instead of KitKat

[@pasqualesimonelli1513]

@@TheAtomoh yep exactly

[@kabochaVA]

@@TheAtomoh Even worse... "kentakkīfuraidochikin" for "Kentucky Fried Chicken" (KFC), or "Ōsutoraria" for "Australia".

[@mrtyphoon8923]

1:18 every Fallout New Vegas player knows that. Ave, true to Caesar.

[@idontbelieveinthealliespro4426]

Ave, true to to Caesar.

[@giovannimesse3344]

Wait…ae said like eye…holy shit, that’s why it’s called kaiser, cuz it sounds like cæser or however it is spelled.

[@ohauss]

About the only thing they got correct...

[@lupression4457]

My thoughts were instantly the fuckin Legion in Fallout 😭😆💀

[@MagnusMoerkoereJohannesen]

2:00 *Life of Brian intensifies*

[@joshuasims5421]

People called Romanes they go house?

[@stanislawchlebowski4245]

Sussus amogus

[@thoughtfox12]

@@joshuasims5421 ‘ouse*

[@Jill_Sandwich]

Biggus Dickus

[@roocip8243]

I just realized i havent heard Trajan's voice actor before this because i have literally never played any other civ than Rome in all my 500 hours

[@AG02024]

You're always very modest when people praise your Latin skills, Luke, yet here you are, correcting the Latin of Roman Emperors! That's what a good grounding in "LLPSI" can do for us! Great work!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind! haha

[@allanrichardson9081]

Actually he’s correcting the grammar and pronunciation of the voice actor, saying that the actual Trajan in his lifetime would not have sounded like the actor.

[@Aresydatch]

@@allanrichardson9081 The joke flew over your head

[@TheEvolvedMind]

Caesar non supra grammaticos.

[@CuchulainAD]

It sounds like Nicholas Cage 😅😅😅

[@clivemeisterperryweiner3415]

I love this game, and I knew it had translation issues elsewhere (Montezuma's Classical Nahuatl was poorly translated and mispronounced), but good Jupiter i didn't realise Trajan's translation was this badly done as well! Enjoying these analyses of the Civ cutscenes!

[@Omar-wb8bg]

I'll search this about moctezuma.

[@damienthewolf9340]

I've heard that Suleiman's Ottoman Turkish was terribly mispronounced as well.

[@nathanskeen5865]

At least they got Victoria, teddy Roosevelt, and John Curtain’s right

[@nicholasneyhart396]

Frederick's old high german is a bit wonky even for being archaic. They should have used stand german.

[@chobai9996]

it's kinda sad really, they tried to go for historical authenticity and got conned by thinking that an Italian could do Latin because of Romans being their ancestors..lol, it's like thinking modern Brits could speak Old English, like reading Beowulf, haha

[@inspector_beyond]

I hope you will decipher Alexander's (Civ 5 and 6), Pericles and Gorgo's (Civ 6) ancient greek pronounciations... If you even do Ancient Greek content, I'm just new here and I don't know yet what's your full circle of competence.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yup! That’s soon

[@ninjayanyan]

You'll need the Macedon dlc to have Alexander in Civ 6 tho

[@dimk735]

@@polyMATHY_Luke will you do basil(byzantium) as well? It would be nice to see the changes of the language over the centuries.

[@thoughtfox12]

Wow the case errors there are really rookie-level, and god damn that I vs L thing is absurd

[@Alfwin]

It's also not the only instance of a mistake like that being made in Civ VI. In the opening game narration when playing as Khmer, Sean Bean reads the J in the name "Jayavarman" as a T. I get the impression that the voice actors for Civ VI had very little or poor direction, which is a shame. It's still a fun game, though.

[@thoughtfox12]

@@Alfwin There's some really lazy languaging in general throughout Civ V and VI; they use modern Nahuatl in Civ V, so Montezuma calls himself "impero", an obious Spanish loanword, rather than Hueyi Tlatoani.

[@brumm3653]

@@Alfwin I vs l mistake is understandable, but how can one mistake J for a T?

[@Moses_VII]

I used to read the moon of Jupiter 'Io' as 'Lo'. In handwriting, I add to horizontal lines to capital i, so it looks like Japanese エ.

[@majormuffin6203]

I'm from Anagni ( a town near Rome ) and our "dialect" is full of latin words. For example, we use "ite" like latin imperative "ite". It means: "You, go there" (more or less), like the latin once! That's amazing! P.S. I'm totally addicted to your channel

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@jaycorwin1625]

What I like best in this video: your absolute passion for Latin and classical languages in general, and your desire to see the best representations of it possible. Great job.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks so much! Very kind of you.

[@skyletwings5711]

1:18 Now everything makes sense to me. The last name Caesar became synonym for German word Kaiser (emperor). "Kaiser" is pronounced as you read it, with the "ai" sounding exactly like the English word "eye". Ironically, English caesar is Cäsar in German, where "ä" is pronounced like in English "cat". So, in a nutshell: The latin original pronounciation of the name sounds almost exactly like the contemporary German word Kaiser (emporer), which stems from his name, while the actual German pronounciation of his name moved away so much that the relation is no more recognizable.

[@skyletwings5711]

I feel obliged to add that your smile and whole way of speaking and presentation makes you absolutely personable and likable. You are one of the most charming, kindness spreading people I ever had the pleasure to watch. Your pronounciation is great and though I've never had any personal relation to latin, your videos make me wanting to learn it. :) Thank you!

[@seoholee8536]

I think the script was trying to say after the 'dāvistī' part: num prōpāgātiōnem audiō tē terrēre? I hear you fear expansion, or else? but the voice doesn't sound quite like it, which, if my hunch turns out to be true, would again reflect badly on the handling of Latin here 🤔

[@Spvrinnaeli]

It's interesting that you say phonemic vowel length is the most important part of Latin phonology. This is by far the most difficult part of speaking Latin for me. It sounds correct when you do it but when I attempt it, it feels unnatural or forced. I suppose it is, given it's an ancient language, but I don't have this feeling when speaking Italian or Spanish. I tend to think any Latin spoken is better than none so I end up using the rhythm of modern Italian with an approximate pronunciation of classical (with a somewhat Spanish-y V sound instead of the more W-esque sound, it just sounds better to me) but it would be cool to get this part of the language down soon. In my brain it's hard to differentiate between stress and vowel length. PS: How obvious it is that this video was more painful to make than the previous one, despite the obvious German accent of Civ V hahaha.

[@juanme555]

Frankly, in a lot of cases, if you use the Spaniard pronunciation you get closer to classical Latin than if you use Standard Italian.

[@Spvrinnaeli]

@@juanme555 In some cases I'm sure that's true. Italian is just where I'm strongest, so it's a nice baseline but I try to use the Portuguese consonant nasalization and the Spanish V where I can. I'm sure it comes across as a frankenstein's moster of phonology, though hahaha

[@juanme555]

@@Spvrinnaeli Not Frankenstein, Vegetto.

[@Gorgonath]

the vowel lenght doesn't feel out of place and weird because latin is an ancient language, plenty of modern languages have vowel lenght like latin: finnish, czech, arabic, japanese etc. it feels weird bc probably your language doesn't have it so it feel weird to spend more time on some vowels bc in your head this brings no meaning

[@Spvrinnaeli]

@@Gorgonath AFAIK phonemic vowel length is a very conservative linguistic element in Europe so I think what I said still makes sense, but otherwise I of course agree with your reasoning as to why it probably feels weird to me.

[@charlesbwilliams]

Been waiting for this for a while now, thanks for making a video on this!

[@lradmclovin9]

Your hexameter rhythm at 5:30 is so enjoyable to hear. It's no wonder their poetry was so loved.

[@CheLanguages]

Please, please, please do a review of the Latin in Assassin's Creed Origins which I know is not great but interesting.

[@kingofarnor1430]

You are my new favorite channel :) Your kind of content is what makes KZbin great.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Your kind of comments make it worth it.

[@davidwang531]

Noticed the line from Aeneid straight away, glad you mentioned it

[@ForgottenHeroes]

I love your content. Thank you for sharing so much knowledge!

[@dominiclaurence7879]

As someone who speaks native Brazilian Portuguese, hearing Latin gives me anxiety. Like, why these common sounds are so out of place? lol

[@VerbalCoffee]

Thank you for this! I enjoyed learning more through a game I play a lot of. And I anticipate the Greek leaders very much!

[@gabriellawrence6598]

Great vid as always. Can't stress how much of a blessing your channel is. An analisys of the ancient Greek in this same edition of Civ would be very interesting. By the way, have you ever considered performing the Orphich Hymns here on YT? There are few renditions of them, and it would be specially neat to have some of your performances of them. I've been picking up some Greek vocab and grammar from memorizing some of them.

[@sonyablade3001]

Looking forward for more videos like this. Thank you for making it :)

[@ludovicocapparelli8032]

As a modern-day roman, I can tell that the voice actor is basically someone from Rome who is just reading the latin as he would read italian.

[@laisphinto6372]

i think a way of having that could be making the next roman leader gaius marius since he wasnt from rome and had an italian accent that was noticeable by other romans

[@mikeakersa8566]

If you're gonna do Civ games, I would recommend Basil II (Medieval Greek), Gorgo and Pericles(Ancient Greek, Doric and Attic dialects respectively), or Civ 5's Theodora

[@prototropo]

Love learning from you, Luke!

[@mattheweppley]

I was so excited when I saw this video recommended!! Excellent and correct analysis, as always!! Please, please, please do the Ancient Greek in Civilization in the future. Σε παρακαλώ πάρα πολύ να το κάνεις! :-)

[@IgorS.]

Yes, you've done it! Would be really interesting to listen about Ancient Greek rulers from you. Thanks a lot)🤗

[@okand2904]

man this guy's dedication to roman empire and latin is so amazing

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@okand2904]

@@polyMATHY_Luke no problem

[@redpanda1765]

Salve, Luke! Glad to see a new video from you. Hope you're doing well and "que tengas un buen fin de semana" hahaha

[@zanedurante3709]

Nice! Just commented last video ab this-excited to see this one

[@rhomaioscomrade]

Your hunch about the voice actor not knowing Latin is 100% correct. From what I can gather from the entire game, the main priority of the devs was to hire people who are cultural descendants of the civs they represent, not necessarily experts in speaking the ancient forms of the languages. The classical Greek voice lines are also notoriously terrible, where it's obvious that a big part of the deficiency is due to the voice actors being modern Greek speakers and therefore lacking some key phonemes (aspirates, geminated consonants etc). Even Basil's medieval-ish Koine Greek has issues, albeit it sounds a lot more correct with a modern Greek speaker.

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

Likewise, the actor playing the Gallic leader Ambiorix has a very strong french accent

[@ibnyahud]

Civ was my favorite game, but they have sold out to woke greedy corporate types...Civ 6 has dumber AI than previous iterations and they adding fictional Or embellished female leaders for contrived representation. Also purposely never making a Judean or Israelite civ in order to appease the the numerically greater number of jwhaters in the world they would like to profit off of.

[@rhomaioscomrade]

@@ibnyahud Civ V vanilla AI was unambiguously the worst the series had ever seen, but it was forgotten as the game got better. This is basically the same road Civ VI is treading. Is this good? No, but it's a general pathology of modern AAA strategy games to have subpar AI. Total War suffers from the same too. Most leaders in the game are embellished, be it male or female. Alexander was a brilliant general, but also reckless, an extreme narcissist and a drunkard. Genghis Khan easily fits the requirements for committing genocide or at the very least serious war crimes. When you're making a game, you kinda have to present the historical figures in a much better light than it is historically apt or fair. Not including Israel is mostly to avoid controversy more so than appease antisemites. Judaism as a religion is in the game, as are synagogues as religious buildings. Plus, personally speaking, I feel there are many more civs not yet represented (or represented well) that would be far more interesting than Israel. Austria, the second largest European power for centuries was included just once in Civ V, for example.

[@v1n1c1u55anto5]

For sure. The Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brasil was just a native modern portuguese speaker from Brasil without any intention of reproduce the accent or grammar from his time, and he died pretty recent to be fair, not that dificult to recreate. Died in 1891.

[@ibnyahud]

@@rhomaioscomrade Fair points, although I strongly disagree with the "avoid controversy" excuse if that's their reason. That's pretty pathetic and just corroborates my experience as an American Jew who strongly identifies and associates with Jewish culture. It's like the one bigotry pretty much no one cares about Right or Left, except when used as a political bludgeon to discredit someone, but not actually to address the horrific issue itself. You'll even get the ashamed-to-be-Jewish types that will claim to speak on behalf of all Jews and cover for the antisemitic gaffing politicians in a bid not to seem like difficult ungrateful Jews. We have this whole campaign all over the place to "not hate Asians" (btw, never did! didn't need a PSA for that). Meanwhile, Jews are still the most targeted for "hate crimes" in America. It's telling some advisor had to beg Biden to at least tweet out to stop attacking Jews after more than a week of silence after an uptick in attacks against Jews by feeble minded idiots that, knowingly or not, subscribe to "collectivist salvation" ideology in attacking Jews in America for politics of Jews on the other side of the world. Here in the South, an otherwise friendly law abiding person, doesn't blink when calling someone a "Jew" for being cheap or saying they "jewed someone down on their price". I strongly feel this is a direct result of secular American Jews being being meek and shameful about their identity/heritage. If you don't even have enough respect for yourself and who you are, why would you expect anyone else to stand up on behalf of your honor - they don't even know it exists! Sorry for the rant, haha. Have a good one lol

[@molvania6330]

these civ videos have been really neat, i know the knight characters in "For Honor" speak latin, kind of curious of how good it is, though it's hard because they tend to shout a lot

[@sate4125]

I enjoyed this video quite a lot and I have to make a compliment, you have(atleast in my eyes) a fantastic charisma and a very captivating way of articulating. Also the way you use your mimical expressions make it very entertaining to watch, keep it up!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks so much! I appreciate that a lot.

[@tomkot]

I requested this video, thank you for doing it :)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

No problem 😊

[@youtubehandlesshouldsuckadick]

When the latin in Civ 5 had more effort than civ 6 How far have the classics fallen

[@whathow3109]

sure, youtube recommendations, id love to watch a video on whether the latin in some game i've never even heard of is accurate

[@fredpearson5204]

For anyone, like me, who geeks out on languages, your videos are really entertaining, interesting and educational. Thanks so much for posting.

[@Romanophonie]

Another wonderful video!

[@aleaiactaest6503]

Can you try occasional Latin in the subsequent total war games? They're my favorite

[@oleksijm]

There's fairly little spoken Latin in R2TW. And where it is heard from the unit command responses it's fairly obvious that it's Restored Pronunciation with a noticeable, though tolerable, British accent.

[@aleaiactaest6503]

@@oleksijm yeah lol. It's the occasional 'Salve!' with Hollywood Latin accents.

[@oleksijm]

@@aleaiactaest6503 in battles, Roman units also pronounce their own names on occasion, like "Socii Equites", which, admittedly, they pronounce /sókii/. I've also heard "obediámus" and "etiam" as affirmations after giving an order Hoplites call themselves /hóplites/ and not "hop lights" in battle. Admittedly I would have no issue whatsoever if there was absolutely zero Latin and Greek spoken in the game at all, since this is not really what people want out of it, but since there is, I'd say it's "not great, not terrible".

[@_ArsNova]

I can barely understand Latin, but even I knew that Trajan's VA was way off lol. As you said the emphases were all wrong, and he sounded more Italian than he did Latin.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Quite

[@ZedF86]

I respect you. Simply for saying that you know you're not perfect. The beauty is in the language, and even more so in retaining it. I wish I had learned more in school.

[@bee-yq3wb]

I'm a huge civ fan and learning from someone else's mistakes is really helpful for me, so these videos are great! You should critique Alexander's Greek in civ 5

[@mehmetsahsert3284]

after watching the video i just realised how italian the voice actor speaks. end of every sentence has that italian thing in it

[@Ithirahad]

Yes, it's almost like the stereotypical meme of an Italian speaker trying-a to speak-a English-a... but it is in Latin instead!

[@AmodeusR]

I'm looking forward for the Ancient Greek videos :D

[@FutureHH]

another thing that pinpoint the fact that the audio mixing and production work is done by italians (and then sent to firaxis) is that for some reason we up the audio volume for dubbed works. or at least that i experienced in my years consuming dubbed content in italian. don't know the technical motivation behind tho

[@Prostopyotr]

Wonderful video!

[@trajansdailysalad2462]

As his salad, I had no idea before watching this. Trajan put importance on not speaking while eating

[@sinaileon6734]

It's surprising to me that they've made so many mistakes in Latin, I thought it would not be hard to find someone who knows well about Latin. What I can be sure is that about the Qin Shihuang's speech, basically no sentence is completely correct. They tried to use ancient Chinese, though I appreciate their effort, they did a poor job, and the city names are ridiculous, too.

[@Kelcier]

This is great i just picked civ 6 up. Perfect timing!

[@aloysiuskurnia7643]

This is my first time on this channel and that est elision in 4:50 really caught off my guard lol Epic video, tho!

[@pile333]

You should be a consultant for a potential Latin and Ancient Greek real time automatic subtitles for KZbin videos.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Let them know!

[@LeonLayer]

that would be such a great Idea!

[@pile333]

@@polyMATHY_Luke I would (an I will), if they listened to users' proposals. I don't think there are many experts and scholars studying the accents of ancient languages that deep like you and of your age out there.

[@pterispertinax2868]

A thought: Speakers of the Friulan language (Friuli, in northern Italy) might have some advantages when it comes to pronouncing classical Latin. For instance, they don't tend to add an extra vowel sound after words ending with a consonant. There are also some nasal sounds and both long and short vowels. Other than that, it's quite similar to Italian.

[@roddbroward9876]

Looking forward to more videos like this one

[@AngeloArkham]

I'm not sure why KZbin randomly decided to recommend me this video but I am 100% on board. I can't wait to have a deep dive into this channel.

[@tankadar]

super nice video! as an italian (that doesn't know latin) I want to learn it now lmao

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Bravo! Ti consiglio il mio playlist LLPSI

[@shadowxxe]

Yep Civ 5 was always the better one of the two and you can definitely tell. in Civ 5 the latin and pronunciation of latin is fairly accurate compared to this one there are some mistakes but even the best depictions of latin in media will have errors but in civ 6 its like they ran it through google translate wrote it down and gave it to the actor. I may be a beginner at learning latin but even i could tell that the latin just sounded really off

[@sephikong8323]

I always found the pronunciation to be ..... unnatural. As if, it's like Trajan actually didn't speak the language and just read prompts given by his assistants in this game, it sounds so off, not on how it would be pronounced historically but just on how you speak your own language normally, the combo tempo + stress in particular is so off putting to me, I can't explain any of this very well, I just always had the impression that the lines had no internal consistency on how they are pronounced

[@dumbbellenjoyer]

For sure, the voice doesn't appear to match the character either. Half the time he's screaming the lines, when the character seems polite by contrast.

[@thehuman2cs715]

A bunch of other civs got done horribly in Civ 5 though, like with Ramses speaking modern Arabic and Montezuma sppeaking completely butchered Nahuatl. In general Civ 6 did a much better job in terms of language accuracy.

[@leojanjgava1714]

such a great channel, always a treat to watch. gratias ago

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks so much!

[@FernandoSV]

hey, nice video, thank you

[@wanda5899]

These videos partially made me realize how surprisingly impressive my ability to mimic latin pronunciation is lol

[@wanda5899]

Though, i will say, growing up japanese has made it quite easier, already being used to long ū ā etc combined syllables like æ and doubles such as nn and ll, this is something noted for me and others even in modern romance languages such as spanish, not a convergence most people would think of existing

[@zuluactual839]

For a Roman, Lucius is a very good English speaker

[@flamebird2218]

Thanks for the review. I don't know much Latin and want to learn more, but I always thought Trajan's voice actor sounded like a robot.

[@noamto]

Nice! Could you also please do Civ 4 at some point? I actually like what they did there more, where the units speak instead of the leaders. Also, I wonder which reconstructions use nasal vowels as opposed to full -m endings.

[@ebisumain8724]

Can I ask about covering Eleanor of Aquitaine, who uses Latin in her Civilopedia Quote, and then uses Occitan in the rest of her voice lines?

[@guillermorivas7819]

I have always said that Latin sounds like a combination of Italian and Spanish. Spanish speakers would not have a problem with ending in vowels -- as some words are ended in consonants. Only when words are conjugated do we typically end verbs in vowels. I also would like to see Spanish speakers from Mexico, Argentina, and Spain try to speak Classical Latin. I believe it would be a good spectacle as Castilian spanish would have the harshness of few words of Latin, Mexican spanish would sound neutral, and Argentinean Spanish would have an Italian melody.

[@OrigiRedLazer]

thats my plan once i get fluent

[@AraboNormand]

“I also would like”, you write as if one of the main latin podcast *isn't* _already_ from hispanohablantes. There you go, no need to be hypothetical. kzbin.info/door/u26iZQTTYYmW_3rO5g4toQvideos

[@birons3708]

No. You should get a Puerto Rican speaker like me to try it. Cuban and Dominican speakers also

[@primicerius1492]

I love the way you speak Latin like you're reciting a poem. It truly shows the extent of Latin as the progenitor of the Romantic tongues. I've not played Civ 6, but lord, if I could have a mod that had voice over of you for all Roman characters. Simply beautiful!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! That would be fun

[@micayahritchie7158]

Luke! They added Caesar. We need you again

[@higochumbo8932]

I have always read that Trajan had a strong "Spanish" accent and was mocked for it. I always wondered how "Hispanic" Latin would have sounded and if there is any common traits with the pronunciation of modern Spanish, or if it was completely unrelated and more linked to former "native" languages such as Iberian and Tartessian (Trajan was from the south of Spain, from a former Tartessian/Iberian area, whereas modern Castilian originated in the north due to the nature of the Reconquista and might have had foundational ties with Basque. Then again, there are also theories which link Basque and Iberian). It would also be interesting learn about the differences between Celtic influenced Spanish Latin and Iberian/Tartessian influenced Spanish Latin, and how much of each is there in modern Spanish.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

JN Adams covers this in his books

[@higochumbo8932]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Thank you for the suggestion, I'll give them a look =)

[@eudaimonia0221]

I've just noticed how "Luke Amadeus Ranieri" has become "Luke Amadeus Mozart". Strepitoso! 🤣

[@tonygjorgievski8966]

Greetings Luke, Thank you for revealing what spoken Latin really sounds like. During a free moment I check out your content. Listening to an Oxford professor or the like, I found this can't be right. Now for a 'fun fact' as it is called. My ancestry is Macedonian, mostly from the Republic of Macedonia. However branches of the family on both maternal and paternal sides originate from over the border in Greece and even Albania on my mother's side (same Macedonian ethnicity just newer political boundaries). I agree, the Balkans are a special place in Europe for the study of the past; so many layers to unravel etc. You differentiate between Greek and Slavic in terms of Macedonia (in a later episode). The Slavs arrived in the Balkans in the 6th century AD and all that. However, my late father's name was Trajan, in Macedonian pronounced Trayan. I have always found it fascinating how 'Slavs' in Macedonia who are not supposed to have any affinity with the 'Classical World' of the Balkans (that's an 'exclusively' Greek right) have used this name. Moreso, in the older generations I should say. Just putting it out there.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

There is indeed an enormous amount of ethnic, linguistic, and cultural mixing in all the Balkans. The great tragedy there, I believe, is that so many wars have resulted in trying to form nation-states and separate identities from peoples not easy unmixed.

[@majido1000]

Fun fact: 1:17 in Arabic we also say ka'i'sar stressing the I too

[@NickWright96]

It's so cool when they use ancient languages in videogames, I also enjoyed it in Assassin's Creed Odyssey (with ancient Greek), and Origins (ancient Greek, Egyptian and Latin), I don't know if they've done the same in Valhalla

[@shadowxxe]

I don't think they have

[@NickWright96]

@@shadowxxe aw I was referring to ancient Germanic languages for Valhalla, like Old Norse for example, I suppose there's no Latin or Greek XD but I'm curious anyway

[@shadowxxe]

@@NickWright96 oh no i was as well. there is ancient greek spoken in odyssey and i think there is spoken latin at some point in origins although i haven't played it so i couldn't tell you i was just referring to the fact that valhalla doesn't have any old norse or old english as far as i'm aware, its just all modern english

[@NickWright96]

@@shadowxxe ah yeah I understand ahah btw there are some Roman soldiers in Origins, in Kyrenaika I guess, so when they speak between themselves or when they see you, they say things in Latin *_*

[@user-is9nh8yi3i]

Καλησπέρα σας κύριε Λουκ. Πλούσιο περιεχόμενο έχει το κανάλι σας! Μπράβο. Παρ' όλ' αυτά μού φαίνεται λίγο δύσκολο να κατανοήσω την "Λουκιανή προφορά" (I am more of a fan of the Erasmian 🧐😆, no fuss). Γράφω αυτό το σχόλιο για να σας παρακαλέσω αν θα μπορούσατε (because I am interested like crazy in such languages) να κάνετε ένα βίντεο για τα αρχαία Αγγλικά (Old English) και συγκεκριμένα για την λεξιλογική ομοιότητα με τα σύγχρονα Αγγλικά ή ακόμα και κάποιο βίντεο για την Πρωτογερμανική Γλώσσα πιστεύω ότι θα είχε πολύ ενδιαφέρον! (Protogermanic, not Proto-German) Σας ευχαριστώ πολύ που επενδύσατε χρόνο για την ανάγνωση του σχολίου μου. Να είστε καλά!

[@ozanshijin8094]

Thanks for this video 😊 all hail to traian !!

[@LucaPassini]

I didn't play the game but I recognized the voice actor, it's quite popular in videogames here in Italy. About 15 years ago my latin teacher was very good at speaking latin. In any case very interesting video!

[@jonferngut]

I just don’t get why the creators of the game don’t ask Universities for help to keep the language accurate…

[@tenienteramires4428]

'Lovis' is the best part by far. 😂😂😂😂😂

[@awesomedude00001]

Great video! Please continue with AC Origins latin!

[@matthiascheah3519]

Outro music - Overture to The Magic Flute - Mozart

[@ludwig2583]

Gratias Plurimas Magister!!!!!

[@stateofconstatinopole8316]

I want you to see with athens sparta Macedonia and Byzantium as a Greek im really interested how well you will do

[@owenosborne-lewis5060]

I do catch on many of these words, since French is one of the many languages that originated from Roman Latin. I am really considering taking Latin classes when I get older and have time.

[@ness6099]

Very interesting video. I have heard that this game put some extra effort into making the dialect match that of the era that person is from, so while they may have made some mistakes with Latin I love the effort and I am curious how accurate the dialect actually is for other civs.

[@AleksandrPodyachev]

Please review Caesar's Legion from the game Fallout New Vegas

[@brunofons]

Good idea.

[@cleverman383]

Yes! Fallout New Vegas video please!

[@Myrrhth]

God loves a man who speaks his language.

[@lutianxing6406]

Didn't Jesus spoke Hebrew?

[@Brandon55638]

The way the voice actor said ['a:ue] for "ave" and ['lo:wis:e] instead of ['jowis] for "Jovis" was hilarious.

[@joakimbottamedisenlle4509]

Wow i wish i could have a latín teacher like you,mine is horrible 😕you are so cool!

[@CouchPolyglot]

I am a Latin newbie but love these videos, as I love video games! 🎮💖 It would be cool if they would engage you for their Latin scenes 😍 I think they just assume no one can spot possible mistakes, so they do not spend that much time trying to get it right. They just think it sounds cool and authentic, and I guess it does for most people 😅

[@danielmalachi8793]

La mia Catalana preferita! Ti trovo dappertutto in questi giorni!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Ehi amiga! haha thanks! I'd love it also if they hired me. Everyone subscribe to Couch Polyglot! She's amazing.

[@CouchPolyglot]

@@polyMATHY_Luke 👍🤣🤣🤣

[@thomashughes4859]

Hola, Poly!!!

[@DeHeld8]

Wow, love the vocale. nice weave!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grātiās! Fabrica Cacti

[@DeHeld8]

​@@polyMATHY_Luke Ah yes, I thought I regocnise the make. I hope now that the pestilence is slowing down I can soon put on my own vocale and go out with my fellow milites of the regiment sagittariōrum of the Cohortis II Batavorum.

[@danielmacgregor6245]

"Quae terra" is the one I commented about in the previous video! I feel so seen!