What Would An Ancient Roman Think of Our Modern Romance Languages? Would They Sound Strange?

The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages,[clarification needed] are numerous modern languages that evolved from Late Latin and its spoken form, often called Vulgar Latin.[1] They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages branch of the Indo-European language family.
The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (489 million), Portuguese (283 million), French (80 million), Italian (67 million) and Romanian (24 million), which are all national languages of their respective countries of origin.
There are more than 900 million native speakers of Romance languages found worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Africa. The major Romance languages also have many non-native speakers and are in widespread use as linguae francae.[2]
Name and languages
The term Romance derives from the Vulgar Latin adverb romanice, "in Roman", derived from romanicus: for instance, in the expression romanice loqui, "to speak in Roman" (that is, the Latin vernacular), contrasted with latine loqui, "to speak in Latin" (Medieval Latin, the conservative version of the language used in writing and formal contexts or as a lingua franca), and with barbarice loqui, "to speak in Barbarian" (the non-Latin languages of the peoples living outside the Roman Empire).[3] From this adverb the noun romance originated, which applied initially to anything written romanice, or "in the Roman vernacular".[4]
Most of the Romance-speaking area in Europe has traditionally been a dialect continuum, where the speech variety of a location differs only slightly from that of a neighboring location, but over a longer distance these differences can accumulate to the point where two remote locations speak what may be unambiguously characterized as separate languages. This makes drawing language boundaries difficult, and as such there is no unambiguous way to divide the Romance varieties into individual languages. Even the criterion of mutual intelligibility can become ambiguous when it comes to determining whether two language varieties belong to the same language or not.[5]
The following is a list of groupings of Romance languages, with some languages and dialects chosen to exemplify each grouping. These groupings should not be interpreted as well-separated genetic clades in a tree model:
Ibero-Romance: Portuguese, Galician, Asturleonese/Mirandese, Spanish, Aragonese, Ladino;
Occitano-Romance: Catalan/Valencian, Occitan (lenga d'oc), Gascon (sometimes not considered part of Occitan);
Gallo-Romance: French/Oïl languages, Franco-Provençal (Arpitan);
Rhaeto-Romance: Romansh, Ladin, Friulian;
Gallo-Italic: Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol;
Venetan (classification disputed);
Italo-Dalmatian: Italian (Tuscan, Corsican, Sassarese, Central Italian), Sicilian/Extreme Southern Italian, Neapolitan/Southern Italian, Dalmatian (extinct in 1898), Istriot;
Eastern Romance: Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian;
Sardinian: Campidanese, Logudorese
Modern status
Main articles: Romance-speaking Europe, Latin America, and Latin Union
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
European extent of Romance languages in the 20th century
Number of native speakers of each Romance language, as fractions of the total 690 million (2007)
The Romance language most widely spoken natively today is Spanish, followed by Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian, which together cover a vast territory in Europe and beyond, and work as official and national languages in dozens of countries.[This paragraph needs citation(s)]
Romance languages in the World
In Europe, at least one Romance language is official in France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Romania, Moldova, Transnistria, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino and Vatican City. In these countries, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Moldovan, Romansh and Catalan have constitutional official status.
French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian are also official languages of the European Union. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan were the official languages of the defunct Latin Union; and French and Spanish are two of the six official languages of the United Nations. Outside Europe, French, Portuguese and Spanish are spoken and enjoy official status in various countries that emerged from the respective colonial empires.[This paragraph needs citation(s)]
#ancientrome #latin #language

[@Glossologia]

A small note: the current consensus is that the uvular R actually developed first in French and then spread to German, not the other way around. German also had a trilled R until quite recently, and it's very much alive in the dialcts.

[@beefcakepantiehoes]

Don’t forget Danish as well!

[@yiannisroubos8846]

I was just gonna make this comment! I think it originated around île de France and spread to Germany and then to Southern France.

[@matf5593]

Intéressant! In Québec French, we still roll the R’s 😊

[@yiannisroubos8846]

As a learner of French; Québécois is basically another language. C’est le fun! @@matf5593

[@erichamilton3373]

Paradoxically, German and French are very similar phonetically which is due to their close geography: it is an areal feature. Languages can have similarities due to shared geography. It is another form of relatedness...

[@sevenproxies4255]

If you pronounce Kiss as "Chiss' then suddenly you're into Swedish territory, because "Kyss" means Kiss and is pronounced "Shyss" (Swedish has a bazillion "Sh"-sounds and they all have about an equal amount of different spellings like k, sch, sh, ch, sj etc.)

[@corinna007]

I haven't really tackled Swedish yet but that's probably the biggest challenge pronunciation -wise that I've found. 😅

[@Mark-xh8md]

Even within Scandinavian languages, there can be some confusion. A Norwegian acquaintance once asked me (Dane) if I could take the the candles (lys) out of the fridge. I was confused, but okay...grabbed the lighter, opened the fridge and stood there for a second staring at the open fridge looking for the candles, before I turned around, looked at her and was like "...why do you have candles in the fridge?" She almost died laughing, as did I when I got the explanation. She'd said "Juice", but the pronunciation had made me think she said "Lys"🤣 I don't know if this is funny to English-speakers, but any Scandinavians reading this are bound to understand it 😅

[@nostalji75]

I assume these "sh sch ch" sound would be what a Roman would decribe as sounding babaric/ germanic. German has them, too. More than the "v=w" and "c=k" pronounciation Metatron mentioned, which we do aswell.

[@chartophylacium5250]

@@nostalji75 Not necessarily. 2000 years ago the Germanic dialects most probably didn't have those sounds either. They developed a lot later. For some Germanic lanugages the sh sound developed from sk, but not all of them have developed that sound. In English, some dialects developed that sound probably around 500 to 600 years after Classical Latin was spoken. In case of German, this sound probably developed in the late Middle Ages. It started from /sk/ written as sk or sc up until around 1050 AD. It went over an intermediate stage /sx/, written as sch, between 1050 to 1350 and became /​ʃ/ after that time. Most Dutch dialects didn't have the change to /​ʃ/ and still preserve the intermediate stage. In case of v and w, most of the Germanic languages changed the sound from w to v a lot later than the Romance languages. In the oldest records of German and also English, they even had to invent a new representation for this sound, as the Latin letter V already was pronounced as v. They used vv (two v's) which eventually turned into the letter w. Hence the modern English name "double u" for the letter.

[@nostalji75]

​@@chartophylacium5250 So these sounds developed after the ancient periode intresting. Do you know if the shift was similar in scandinavian languages? "In case of v and w, most of the Germanic languages changed the sound from w to v a lot later than the Romance languages." This doesnt make sense to me. w and v can sound the same, its just that v can also sound like an f (in German), And the romans just used v for w. This would mean that the letter w came in later, doesnt it? For the sound of w people used the greek Y or vv until th 14th century. The ancient germanic tribes probably had a rune for the sound of w/v if they used it which I have no reason to doubt they did. Yup they did use Wunjo (ᚹ) for w and Vend (Ꝩ ꝩ) for w, u and v.

[@vladimirspoutine1264]

Could you ever be so kind as to make a video on exactly how the Germanic Frankish and Anglo-Saxon dialects changed the languages of their conquered lands? I would particularly appreciate how in some lands, the Germanic languages won out (England as an example) but other places like Frankia basically retained a vulgar Latin language.

[@nostalji75]

Id also very interested to here more about the language/languages? of the Franks. I often wonder how it sounded. In my amateur opinion German actually conserved a lot of the traits of the latin language while romanic languages lost them. Ironically pronounciations like "v = w" and " c = k " are still a thing in German. Meanwhile Metatron assumes that a Roman would decribe someone who pronounces them differently as "Germanic" sounding. I wish we could trace back languages as efficiently as we can do with organisms. But to hear some educated guesses how languages were and changed over the centuries really triggers my curiousity^^

[@ironhead2008]

My understanding is that Modern French owes its distinctiveness to Frankish influence. A lot of the more guttural sounds in French are imported from Frankish for example.

[@StandardCabrera]

I watched a video on why Spanish has no German sounds considering the visigoth invasion, when there's so much of the language influenced by arabic. Really good video, should be easy to find.

[@StandardCabrera]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eIemfYJtarCsptk

[@StandardCabrera]

Check out the link, it's a channel with lots of videos all about stuff like this.

[@anubis7617]

The -um suffix is replaced by -ul in Romanian (muzeu = museum; muzeul = the museum).

[@Nenufort]

Some old people still roll their "R"s in Québec, it used to be a staple of the accent of Montréal. Here's an example of how it sounded and still sounds as those people got older: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHjLgXurh5h1qNk&ab_channel=archivesRC EDIT: In case you're interested, here's how a modern Québecois teenager sounds. A bit harsher, I admit, more "German-like". kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJbEeYxqgK-EiK8&ab_channel=ICIQu%C3%A9bec

[@herpyderpy2869]

"Oh Jupiter! Everyone sounds like peasants and barbarians!" -some Roman in 2023

[@wellersonoliveira5334]

Well i dunno, somethimes even "Portugal's Portuguese" sound "weird" to us Brazilians. Then again, maybe is due to the fun rivalry btween us haha ❤😂

[@nicolasalexandrevanveen1066]

As a speaker of Portugal Portuguese, the Brazilian one sounds weird to me, goofy and very emotive. ❤

[@alexandrepereira7521]

@@nicolasalexandrevanveen1066 Goofy being the word lol Brazilian portuguese is like australian english. It's just hard to take seriously sometimes

[@modmaker7617]

EN 🇬🇧🇺🇸: you PT-PT 🇵🇹: tu (informal), você (formal) PT-BR 🇧🇷: você [tu - dialectal form]

[@ErickeTR]

​@@modmaker7617sou gaúcho e não vou desistir até que "você" seja eliminado do vocabulário português

[@NunoPlague]

Rivalidade? Deves estar a gozar.

[@DrKrisRizzotto]

Your example of nosotros and nos is spot on, as nós is precisely “us” in my language, Portuguese :) How about branco (Portuguese), bianco (Italian), and blanco (Spanish)? The consonants are playing musical chairs!

[@Laurelinad]

those relations were literally how i (german, with english, french and a tad of latin learned) understood an italian text back in school :)

[@InAeternumRomaMater]

Loved your video, hopefully you will make more about this subject. The way you pronounced "Cesare" sounds closely to Romanian "Cezar", we have the same "Ce" pronunciation😊. Also we Romanians have the word of _Imperiu_ written and pronounced without an M at the end. I love our Romance family🏛❤

[@InAeternumRomaMater]

@@Bogumilrum I know, Țar is the Old form in the Old Romanian language. But also Țar is a borrowed word, and it also derives from Latin Caesar. But I was reflecting the pronunciation and not their origin.

[@giorgiodifrancesco4590]

@@InAeternumRomaMater Țar seems to be a slavic reinterpretation of the latin Caesar passed to the Old Romanian.

[@Winter-Alpha-Omega]

Why do you have "753" as part of your profile name?

[@qswaefrdthzg]

Isn't the uvular R a consequence of a speech defect of the high Parisian class that then spread through Europe because of the prestige of Parisian French and not the other way around? Particularly, High (i.e. southern) German still uses the trilled R and many positions.

[@armandobroncasegura5170]

Actually, nosotros results from the merging of nos + otros (we + others, as a way to remark the distinction from they). Nos was quite frequent in Old Castilian (Old Spanish), while nosotros is kind of modern. The same goes to vosotros, the formal way of the plural 'you', it is the merge of vos+otros (you+others), in Old Castilian vos was pretty common as well.

[@lellab.8179]

Interestingly enough, in Italian we have both: "noi" and "voi" are the normal way you use "nosotros" and "vosotros" but we also have "noialtri" and "voialtri" as a sort of strengthening form (I don't know if this is the right word).

[@tylere.8436]

​@@lellab.8179Those are indeed cognates or at least calques

[@MrStronglime]

And that's why I say "Y'all" so much.

[@gj1234567899999]

I think the closest to see in real life without time traveling a Roman to see how weird a Latin speaker would hear Romance languages is for someone who is not a Romance language speaker and has zero Latin influence - so English or German would be out of the question since many Latin words are loan words or have Romance language loan words. So maybe a non-indo European language, and then teach him Latin as a second language with no exposure to Romance languages or even English. Then have that person listen to Romance language to see if he understands.

[@Gelu345]

This is the best test

[@jeffersonleonardo2]

So they should teach this person Vulgar Latin not Classical Latin.

[@Gelu345]

@jeffersonmachado3116 Question is ,what vulgar latin? From Galia, Dacia, Spain, from Africa? In our day in France, for example ,french is spoken with various dialects or accents . Although we have printed books, tv , social media still doesn't have a linear language to a territory. In roman times , the vulgar latin must be very different in the various places ..

[@jeffersonleonardo2]

@@Gelu345 That’s why we can't and shouldn't cling to that childish mindset that existed only Classical Latin and they spoke it all the time and everywhere.

[@moritamikamikara3879]

​@@jeffersonleonardo2I think you're missing the point. For the purpose of this experiment... which vulgar Latin do we teach the dude? There's a lot of vulgar Latin dialects, so why would we pick one when classical Latin is so much more documented? What's more how could we? Put them all on a dartboard and throw?

[@khelian613]

French is actually a great exemple as to how far the "dropping" of sounds can go compared to other romance languages. All the endings basically dropped after the stress. Like for your example, equivalents to Spanish "nosotros" are "nous autres" and "nous". The first one drops the final "os" part entirely ; the second is basically down to "/nu/" (albeit the s can activate during liaisons).

[@caleumarques146]

I'm a native Portuguese speaker and I can confirm what you said; yes, we always pronounce the M very nasal when it's the last letter.

[@guillermorivas7819]

If a Latin speaker from 2,000 years was transported to our modern time, I think we would golden nuggets in how he spoke Latin. And especially, as you mentioned here, probably comment on our modern romance languages sounding awfully similar to other parts of the empire. We would be amazed on how some words sound almost the same while others so-so and lastly the remaining words strange. This following Latin phrase sounds very similar to Italian and Spanish enunciation/phonetics: "Roma tributa vostra non amplius remissuras."

[@nostalji75]

"Rome tributes ? not aplitude? remission?" You can almost guess the meaning by just being fluent in modern English. You can guess that someone is not paying tributes/taxes to Rome. Maybe you could assume Rome is the one who refuses to give tributes, but context explains this easily.

[@tylere.8436]

Ok, isn't that a line from Barbarians?

[@TomSFox]

@@nostalji75 It means, “Rome will no longer waive your tribute.”

[@nostalji75]

@@TomSFox ahh ty I was wondering how Roma tributa nostra is connected.

[@guillermorivas7819]

@@nostalji75, The centurion in the Barbarians series of Netflix sounded bad ass speaking Latin. The other people in the series didn't sound as strong nor as clear as him. The speech the centurion gave in the first episode you could see how the latin sounded a bit like all the romance languages -- arguably mostly Italian and Spanish. However, I love how he said "Posthac, Roma tributa vostra non amplius remissuras" because the speaker's speech rhythm sounded very close to Spanish. He was arguably the only speaker in the series that gave a forceful/strong speech.

[@Unpainted_Huffhines]

This is kind of reminiscent of a scene from the latest "Dune" movie. There's a scene in which the Emperor's private army is being hired by the Harkonnen. They're speaking a language directly descended from modern English, but it's been clipped down and had its grammar simplified to the point where it's unintelligible.

[@zsigzsag]

I did read a scifi story once a about an ancient Roman who was brought, accidentally, to the 20th century. It was so long ago I read it but one part I do remember is he escaped the confines of a facility because he recognized the word "exit" above a door. I think in Latin (exitus) means "to depart" or "go forth, departure". Wish I could remember the name of the story/novel.

[@grandmarshallkingwolfman420]

The Far Arena?

[@zsigzsag]

@@grandmarshallkingwolfman420 That could be it, thanks! 🙂

[@zsigzsag]

@@grandmarshallkingwolfman420 Yes that was the book by Richard Sapir 1978! Would make a great movie with Metatron as historical/cultural and language consultant.

[@thomasgypen4209]

Exitus literally means exit

[@Davmz91]

Very interesting topic! I'd be great to watch a part 2 of this.

[@daviddiaz529]

I like this series. Nice work!

[@himfalathiel4012]

These videos are so interesting! Thank you so much for making more of these!

[@VieiraFi]

Very interesting, please do more episodes like this!

[@riverasamuel911]

what was a great and curious video, would love a 2nd part!

[@jozzieokes3422]

Love this!

[@gaius_aerister]

I was waiting for this video!!

[@KertPerteson]

Always been interested in this

[@StanGraham1]

Love all your presentations which I know take much study and preparation Metateon. Keep doing the excellent work you do!

[@Larckening]

interesting, please continue :)

[@ionutpaun9828]

I would be very interested in a video covering all of the basic rules of pronunciation of Classical Latin. Another very important aspects would be how do I know where to put the stress ? Which vowels are long and which ones are short? If you read a Latin text online or even in some books, including the Latin bible, Latin chants or Pliny's the Younger letters for example, the vowels are not marked with macrons, which makes very difficult to know which vowels are long or short.

[@ImissSaganCarl]

Very FASCINATING, as all your videos are. Thanks!

[@user-ef4gf7rr9r]

Personifying the language in this way is an exceptional didactic tool. Really enjoyed the vid.

[@strictlyunreal]

7:26 Romanian has something similar, but with the definite article. "Imperiu" is the indefinite form of the word, and "imperiul" is definite, but the "L" at the end is silent in casual settings. "Imperiu" is not a good word in this situation, actually, as it's a later burrowing. You see, it's too clear, too unchanged, so I had a suspicion and I checked. For a word to be "OG" in Romanian, it has to look like it underwent changes, and the inherited word is actually "împărăție", from "împărat", definite "împăratul", but you'd only hear "împăratu".

[@Winter-Alpha-Omega]

What do Romanians think of the Romance languages? Because as a Spanish speaker from South America, I see Romanian as a form of Latin that surged in the Carpathian Mountains and became influenced by the possible Dacian tongue and then other languages, like Hungarian or Ukrainian. But I've seen sooo many opinions from Romanians in the internet about the Western Romance Languages. So could you tell me what the average Romanian thinks of Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan and Portuguese, please?

[@kimknute6777]

I sooo enjoy listening to your excellent speaking voice .. refreshing! Love the knowledge, intelligence and all your topics you choose. The ones on the Angels really blew my mind. Thank you for all the information and all the knowledge I get from you 😁. I'm really happy that your channel ended up on my KZbin page.

[@martinsimington]

loved the video

[@Mulambdaline1]

What an ingenious idea for a video!

[@unarealtaragionevole]

Metatron, something you didn't talk about here, and a possible video suggestion, is would something like vowel shifts or vocalization changes be an issue for a Roman? I mean the major vowel shifts for the Romance languages seem to have been from Latin to proto-Romance languages, and while there have been a few others since, not as many or as strong as like the Great Vowel Shift in the Germanic languages. Would that affect their perception of the the languages as being Latin'ish?

[@linamargaritalis]

Loving this content!!! I especially liked how you explained the French Rs have a germanic influence as opposed to the rest of romance languages. Would love to learn how they each evolved in their own way, what were the influences, etc

[@erichamilton3373]

The French R is NOT Germanic. Old Germanic r was rolled or trilled--same as Latin. Phonetic característics tend to have little to do with language families.

[@remilenoir1271]

The German R has a French influence, not the other way around. Both languages used to have thrills, and German still do in many parts of Germany.

[@valerietaylor9615]

Portuguese uses the uvular R at the beginning of words and when the R is doubled. Otherwise, it’s tongue-trilled.

[@andyaknoby5007]

As a Brazilian,good explanation you give! o.o love that!

[@vibati2889]

Love your channel. Mi piace un sacco!

[@karliikaiser3800]

3:30 Interesting I am not sure if I can believe it... Because German speaking Polititians some decades ago used to roll its Rs like most romance languages today, my grandmother switches the Rs and sometimes uses the front rolled and sometimes the back rolled R like most German speakers, there are still some areas where German speakers roll the R in the front. Children with R misspronouncing are thought by speech therapists to roll the Rs in front because its easier for them to learn. I would not consider standard german as gererally have the same R. Still most do it in the back.

[@nickohart3408]

I always find these vids fascinating to say the least. I have always loved learning about languages. Unfortunately, my brain loves learning the languages, my tongue is like using a Maul, when you need to be using a feather.

[@OndrejLacuska]

Very interesting topic. I wonder how would they also look upon our written forms of those words. I think it would be much easier for them to undertand from texts rather than from spoken language. They would probably also think we did ton of typos and our grammar is horrible, but I think they would undestand more from written form compared to spoken one.

[@ashenen2278]

An interesting idea and for a betterr immersion a sentence in English could be taken and undergo the soundchanges to get more of a impression how a language might sound weird in the future. Oh, in Dune the Sardaukar speak a language derived from English. It's interesting how in written form you somehow can assume the English words but when spoken it's an unintelligible language

[@pomeoxfl]

Dear Raffaello, and what should this "resurrected" man from the 1st century A.D. think about the grammar of the Romance languages, BTW? The case system is gone, there are definite and indefinite articles everywhere (and phonetically an article forms the combined word with a noun: we don't say, for example, "l'elicottero" or "o cachorro" separately, right?), even the verb endings are shifted! Could he even find a verb in a sentence to understand the entire phrase?

[@Leonardo7772012]

I found it very interesting when you in a video about " carioca Portuguese" you told us that words ending in " um" sounded very nasal in ancient Latin like the portuguese you was hearing. Yes " um" (1 in portuguese), algum ( some) nenhum ( nobody, no one) are pronounciated somewhat like in Englisg you would read " oong". I always tried to pronunciate Latin words like Museum, mausoleum, with a wel pronunciated m like in " doom" , but now I know that if I will " read this in portuguese" it will be close to the origins😊

[@hglundahl]

8:05 nd in fact, starting to pronounce the -m as a full consonant after an oral vowel comes from the Anglo-Saxon pronunciation of Latin. Introduiced on the continent (except perhaps Germania) by Alcuin from York.

[@ashenen2278]

I used to think the uvular R came from French to High German and not the other way around.... Are there any papers to read about it?

[@lcparq1]

Great theme indeed... Yes, in portuguese we do have a lot of [um, uns, am] but also [ão, ã, ãe, õe, etc) and they are as difficult to articulate as the "u" for a non french speaker since childhood... Also just as a curiosity, I was told by a good friend of mine, a catholic priest who is also a scholar that during the Second Vatican Council, the official language among the cardinals was supposed to be Latin but they had to change it to English for they didn't understand one another due to de enormous differences in pronunciation... just a "fait divers", thank you for your Channel Metatron.

[@thomasbarca9297]

I would love if you did a video on PIE

[@rogeriopenna9014]

I once suggested this to Polymathy. getting some common people, randomly, speakers of different languages of Europe, including romance. then giving a fast lesson of how to pronounce latin. then giving them a text to read. and rating how close to classical latin they would sound

[@StandardCabrera]

I think they would be amazed at how many languages evolved from it. I think they'd find it funny that a word like clamus which I think means to speak or shout and how that's evolved into the English clamour for noisy, etc. They'd have a lot of fun I think once there's a some common ground

[@gromosawsmiay3000]

3:55 fun fact Museum, Imperium - in polish pronunciation is similar to classic latin, accent is little bit different :-)

[@SimonDubois52]

Talking about french r, here in Québec there are still people wlh roll their r. mostly old people. (Still hoping for a Québec french vidéo🙏)

[@FrenchLightningJohn]

i still roll my R and i'm not old, i was raised with rolling my R and i'm 35 years old, so when i heard metatron saying french don't roll their R i was surprised to hear that then when to google translate and was really surprised and felt weird to hear the R not being rolled

[@SimonDubois52]

@@FrenchLightningJohnIntéressant! J’ai 19 ans et j’aimerais bien rouler mes r car je trouve que ça rajoute du charme, mais il y a tellement peu de personnes de mon âges qui les roules que je paraîtrait ridicule. 😂

[@Hild1]

Funny that according to you the French R is a direct influence of High German, while I was taught the exact opposite by my Latin professor who explained how French influence brought about the change of the R sound in Germany which used to be almost entirely a "rolled" one until a couple of centuries ago. That made sense to me, because hardly any German can pronounce the "German" R correctly, while all Frenchmen have no problem with pronouncing it. There are still a handful of places in the Soutn and in the North of Germany where the R is rolled.

[@richlisola1]

I believe in Austria the R is still rolled.

[@Hild1]

@@richlisola1 It really depends. In Vienna and usually also in Tyrol the R isn't rolled. Just like in all German-speaking countries. In some places in Switzerland it is rolled, in others not.

[@jackotanify]

Maybe they'll just scoff : "Barbari" Great video as usual by the way!

[@thegreekguy1124]

I am surprised by how similar Latin and modern Greek pronunciation is in a couple aspects,given that those aren't even in the same language family and of course the time difference. From the 6 differences you pointed out,we roll the r too and a "ce" sound is usually translated with a "ke" sound(your pronunciation in 9:17 is exactly what a Greek speaker would say) and overall I think every native Latin sound is also a native Greek sound,although of course the alphabet is different

[@nostalji75]

I guess in 1000-2000 years all humans speak one language with different regional and social dialects.

[@arthurvanrodds2772]

@@nostalji75 There are more than 7000 languages in use today and many are rather isolated so that's very unlikely to happen

[@nostalji75]

@@arthurvanrodds2772 wow I had no idea. This is indeed a good counterarguement to my prognisis. I personally just see how similar languages are and how much more interconnected we humans are. But 7000 thats a big number which probably includes very diverse languages...

[@F_A_F123]

half of all people roll their r's, and ke sound combination exist in a lot of languages. That's like 0 of similarity. And Latin and Modern Greek are in the same language family (Indo European). You literally got it all wrong

[@thegreekguy1124]

@@F_A_F123 first of all Indo European is a theory so not proven yet. Secondly the actual language groups in Europe are Greek Romance Germanic etc those are the ones that actually have similarities between them. Greek and Latin really do have a lot of pronunciational similarities,you can study it and see it on your own. And no,the ke sound and rolling the r both in the same language is not as common as "half the people"

[@KertPerteson]

Final m in latin was nasalized? Interesting to discover about

[@cyrielwollring4622]

So In German and Dutch Kaiser and Keizer the original sounds are preserved?

[@erichamilton3373]

The k to ch and g to "dj" shift happened in Anglo Saxon AND Norman French giving us English: chair, chest, cheese, bridge, ledge, much, choose etc...

[@philomelodia]

I think he would be very hyper critical about some of the vocabulary that has come down to us in the modern Romance languages because it came from slang. For instance, the example you used in Spanish for to speak which is hablar comes from fabulare. Italian does not use something derived from caput but, rather testa which, I understand, comes from the word for jug or earthenware vessel. Parler for the French and parlare Italian comes from parolare. Lots of such examples. so, not only would he remark at the seemingly barbaric or highly rustic pronunciation, he would raise an eyebrow at some of the words we use for things and find them strange. It would be like an English speaker from 2000 years in the future using a do you a derived word from peepers for eyes and dude for man.

[@rogeriopenna9014]

yes, that m is exactly how we pronounce in Portuguese as for the R, it varies a lot depending of country and even area inside country. and time watch some 1950 Disney movies dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese and the Rs are rolled a lot, even in beginning of words. nowadays, when you have RR in the middle of a word or R in beginning, it almost sounds like English h sound. except in Rio, where it does like a throat r sound, direct influence of the Portuguese royal family moving to Brazil in 1806, and setting trends. and themselves imitating the French

[@richardarcher7177]

Reminds me of Colleen MuCullough's First Man in Rome where she has Gaius Marius from rural Arpinum being taught his Greek by an tutor from a Greek colony in Asia Minor rather than some scholar from Athens. She descrives his Greek as having an 'Ionian twang' to it which sounds wierd to his fellow Senators (taught 'proper Greek' but Attic tutors) so that they deride him as 'An Italian Hayseed with no Greek' - a double whammy of an insult.

[@VitorEmanuelOliver]

As a portugue speaker, I tend to think of the letter m in a nasalized context as a mixture of m+n, somewhere between the two

[@simonecordeddu4783]

Let me add more details on that specific feature of Sardinian. Sardinian is not the most conservative romance language just because it preserves the velar pronunciation of C and G. There is a whole ensemble of features that substantiate that claim and that are not uniformly distributed across various dialects. I want to stress this point because in my dialect the C and G do get palatalized and because of that too many people discard it as "Not actual Sardinian" and it pisses me off (who wouldn't be!). There are features of my dialect that are actually more conservative, even though there are fewer compared to some of the dialects that say 'kentos'. My point is that they all deserve equal acknowledgment. I know this was a long comment and if you read this far, thank you 🙏🏻

[@tylere.8436]

Oh I agree all the Romance languages deserve the love and attention, all of them have at least one quality that is conservative if not exactly the same as Latin. Sardinian with the phonology, Italian with accentuation, Romanian with declensions, French with final -t in writing, etc.

[@michelefrau6072]

Eja, a is cabessusesus ddis praxit a narai aici, ma no si agatant de is furisterismus chi tenint issis puru, scéti nosàterus seus burdus

[@simonecordeddu4783]

@@michelefrau6072 e no funt scetti issus, ddoi at genti chi penzat aici in donnia logu, finzas de in bidda mia 😳

[@Jormunn]

Quali sarebbero le caratteristiche più conservative del campidanese?

[@simonecordeddu4783]

@@Jormunn Ti faccio un esempio per la morfologia e un altro per il lessico. La desinenza di terza persona plurale conserva anche la T del Latino (cantant contro cantan). Fra i verbi di uso quotidiano abbiamo scaresci e bolli (dal Latino EXCARESCERE e VOLERE) contro olvidare e kèrrere (dallo Spagnolo olvidar e querer)

[@hglundahl]

3:35 I am a Swede, 1/4 Scanian, but my mother, who recently passed on to I hope a better life was born in Södertelge. (Pronounce the last part "tell-yay") ... Now in Södertelge, they don't roll R's. In Malmö, they do. You definitely do get used to: * recognising the equivalence so you don't missunderstand words * and still finding the velar R's somewhat odd, a bit maybe ugly, certainly a bit vulgar.

[@tommyfishhouse8050]

Now you have to do one for the Samurai and modern Japanese.

[@davidp.7620]

The hablamos -> "hablamo" procesos has already started

[@stephanelelievre9133]

Not perfect but interesting : kzbin.info/www/bejne/o57GemysaL56nMk What are your thoughts on this?

[@jonathansoko1085]

Metatron this is a little off topic but did Romans think of the inhabitants of gaul as their brothers/people after they started speaking Latin and becoming more integrated into the empire?

[@evaapple255]

alas - there are other problems , or I would be able to understand Mittelhochdeutsch or even Althochdeutsch, unfortunately, although you might find some root words, sometimes they just used totally different words for things, or even borrowed words from other languages. We were puzzling over the gull in seagull and what it might have been in oldenglish-althochdeutsch, and learned that the gull was taken from a celtic word and that the olt term "mew" had been replaced, that "mew" would have corresponded nicely to our "Möwe", but there you go , lost in time.

[@qwidium]

which contemporary latin languages would be the most familiar to that classical latin speaker? what do you think?

[@lasagnasux4934]

I've met quite a few African French speakers who still use the rolled r.

[@teresamerkel7161]

The evolution of language is a facinating study.

[@christophertorak8301]

A great thought experiment. I am a Spanish L2 speaker for decades, and when I hear a song in Papiamentu, my inner-linguist goes all sci-fi timey-wimey. I find myself in the paranormal state of «sometimes completely intelligible ~ quasi-intelligible ~ on the cusp of intelligible» which ought to be akin to what a temporally itinerant Roman will have felt. It's a thoroughly enjoyable challenge to see how much one can understand, but also appreciate the linguistic left-turns and right-turns that make Papiamentu special as a Romance-descended language. Here's just two songs you could try for yourself: 'si bo kier bo bai" kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZWnY3yvlN6jpMk. , and 'Kuminsa di nobo'. kzbin.info/www/bejne/j6G1pXx4gJ5-o6M. . Who knows, you might wind up making a video "Can an Italian understand Papiamentu? " Avanti, cavaliere!!! - Ⲟⲩϫⲁⲓ ☥𓍑ቦ

[@AlexFeldstein]

Very nice and well done. Note in Portuguese words end in M never in N

[@Jailbreak49]

So how much of a difference is there between the Latin spoken at the beginning of the Republic and the end of the Empire?

[@KPH444]

Great video and analysis! Since you used a lot of ...Greek words in your video, now do the same again only...put a classical Greek person, let's say from Athens 400-300 bc, in to the middle of Athens of today! :) Oh, also this: Kaiser in German. The only difference is the strong sounding "K".

[@enfangelo]

Metatron, in a recent video you said there's no such thing as "vulgar latin", yet there you mention it in the description of this video...

[@blanska]

I really like the way you used English examples, so everyone can imagine easily how these changes might sound to a Roman :)

[@bjarkiorarson3546]

This feels to me a little bit like the difference between modern Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages. Modern Icelandic (native speaker here) retains a rigid case system with four cases and three grammatical genders, heavy noun and adjective declensions and conjugations, accompanied of course by LOTS of different endings, all of which has practically been dropped in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. I've learned Danish in school and university and I've been exposed to these three languages a lot, so I understand them quite extensively, but when I hear them and read them, it still feels sometimes like something is missing 😅 Because of this grammatical complexity of Icelandic, it has sometimes been described as similar to Latin when it comes to the time effort to learn it, at least for native English speakers.

[@OVIDIUS.P]

In Romanian we still say muzeu, imperiu, only the m is missing. Being from vulgar latin it is simplified or shortened. I don't know if a classical latin speaker would understand or maybe to the extent I used to understand classical latin before I started to study it, at 70%-80% of the sentence. You are right about the fremch, here in Montreal they claim to speak an old french that doesn't roll R as much. When I imigrated I had a hard time understanding it and I was fluent and really good in french. I even ask them if we are actually speaking the same language? 😂

[@metatronacademy]

Vulgar Latin doesn’t exist. Romanian comes from from Latin ;) I spoke about it on my video about Italian vs Spanish.

[@OVIDIUS.P]

​@@metatronacademy Your right :) I have just seen the video. I don't know why I keep going back to that term. Maybe because in school they kept telling us 1000 times and it just stuck even if the terminology is wrong. Great content as always. Thank you😁

[@atlas567]

​@@metatronacademyLatim vulgar é um termo de extrema esquerda para desclassificar e inferiorizar povos de línguas originais do Latim, como não aplicam o mesmo termo VULGAR pra línguas de origem germânicas dizendo que são originais do germânico vulgar?

[@StandardCabrera]

My old neighbour was Portuguese and it sounds almost slavic

[@Dreju78]

Polish 'muzeum' and 'imperium' are actually very close/identical to the way yhat was pronounced! 😁

[@andrelegeant88]

He'd likely wonder why every word seems to be in the ablative case

[@yaff1851]

Interesting that the Germans word ‘Kaiser’ (emperor) is pronounced exactly as the Romans pronounced Caesar, but when the Germans refer to Julius Caesar they still pronounce it wrong.

[@diyarnechirvan]

Interesting fact: after taking Constantinople over, Ottoman rulers started using the title "Kayser-i Rum" meaning the Ceasar of Rome along with many other titles. And it is pretty close to the classical Latin pronunciation of the word Ceasar .

[@hglundahl]

7:13 your pronunciation of "chiss" is fairly close to Swedish "kyss" ...

[@richardfirsten2364]

Thank you very much for this video. It was greatly informative and your delivery is very entertaining. I could listen to you for hours! By the way, I was really surprised to hear you say that the typical French 'r' (as it's pronounced in Paris, let's say) developed from the influence of High German. Really? I'd love you to explain more about that. Thanks in advance.

[@IIARROWS]

8:45 in the previous video you were angry against this very concept... (and wrong)

[@georgepapatheofilou6118]

Aren't words with Muse in the beginning of Greco heritage in etymology. Then again , does it matter

[@massaosaito4084]

Lol, yeah, kinda. In pórtuguese we explain the "ão" as "aun" since, it's kinda like you say it

[@hic_tus]

it's me in scotland the first year. absolute linguistic nightmare.second year, better, third year much better, 8th year, nearly no problem. human brain is amazing when it comes to languages. as long as we are living in that environment. when i departed from italy i was like yeaaah i know english... nope. nope nope. and then i work with people from so many different countries, like ireland, poland, morocco, albania, new zealand, canada, us, spain, greece... india, pakistan.... malaysia... what else... mexico... damn we were all so bad at english but we managed to understand each other. i guess a roman would learn as well. i mean they went to gallia and found a wife. i guess they understood.

[@teuvorallikuski390]

Metatron's example of a hypothetical future Spanish makes me suspect Andalusian is the most evolved form of Spanish.

[@Leftyotism]

I like how in German we use "normal words", but also have the "technical" term, and in English they use our "technical terms" for their "normal terms", basically making German vulgar Latin. I didn't know how else to out it, I hope everyone can understand!

[@Rnbw16]

How is it possible to reconstruct what classical Latin sounded like? Genuine question.

[@jeffersonleonardo2]

When don't really know.

[@JudithYD]

This was fascinating! I would love to see a 2nd eposode. So he would probably understand in many cases but we would all sound like we were uneducated or barbarians.

[@FelixGerardo]

7:40 Being a native Spanish speakers I find most Italians do not pronounce final Ms as strong as we do in Spanish. Someone already put in the comments it has been dropped out in Romanesco. Also, we Spanish and Italian speakers alike do no use personal pronouns, conjugation tells you what pronoun is implied. I find English native speakers using them all the time when they are learning either, but we don't use them.

[@idnyftw]

might work if it was a well travelled roman, familiar with gallic and germanic languages

[@Rhangaun]

I wonder what our hypothetical Roman guest would think of how the Italian versions of certain Latin names appear to have been derived from the ablative case rather than the nominative: Iuppiter -> Giove, Scipio -> Scipione etc.

[@amaranthineA]

The best greeting to the Metatron Academy, is A chent’annos, as we Sardinians say 😊

[@roberthamilton9263]

Absolutely fantastic video!!!