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

[@herpyderpy2869]

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

[@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...

[@DrKristinaRizzotto]

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 :)

[@SasSnow]

However "Bianco", in Italian, and all his "brothers" around the other West romance languages are derived by germanic influences. Romanian still uses "alb", from Classical Latin "albus".

[@UlpianHeritor]

Well, a Roman wouldn't understand, "Blanco", "Bianco" or "Branco" because those words come from Gothic, however, he would likely understand the Romanian equivalent "Alb" because in Latin, the word "white" is "Album".

[@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.

[@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

[@fundyracer5648]

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

[@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.

[@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ]

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

[@WasickiG]

@@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ The year of the foundation of Rome, 753 BC, if I were to guess.

[@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ]

@@WasickiG Wow, I wrote this comment 3 months ago and it feels like it was yesterday. My perception of time is f*cked.

[@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 😅

[@nostalji93]

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]

@@nostalji93 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.

[@nostalji93]

​@@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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?

[@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."

[@nostalji93]

"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]

@@nostalji93 It means, “Rome will no longer waive your tribute.”

[@nostalji93]

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

[@guillermorivas7819]

@@nostalji93, 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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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).

[@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".

[@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ]

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?

[@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.

[@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

[@himfalathiel4012]

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

[@VieiraFi]

Very interesting, please do more episodes like this!

[@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?

[@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.

[@eertyuiuytr]

Great video dude! Part 2 please! I really want to know what our friend Caesar would think of the "c" sound becoming a sibillant! Also, no need to wait 2000 years for final "s" to drop in Spanish. It has already happened in Andalucia and parts of South America

[@user-ef4gf7rr9r]

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

[@gromosawsmiay3000]

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

[@andyaknoby5007]

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

[@UlpianHeritor]

You didn’t mention anything about Romanian! I think a Roman would find it quite strange that the Latin /d/ sound transformed into /z/ in Romanian, possibly due to Greek influence (as in Deus and Zeus). For example, dice became zice and decem became zece. Additionally, in Romanian, the Latin /q/ sound shifted to a /p/, so aqua became apă and quattuor became patru.

[@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.

[@jackotanify]

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

[@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?

[@ImissSaganCarl]

Very FASCINATING, as all your videos are. Thanks!

[@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.

[@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😊

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@nostalji93]

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

[@arthurvanrodds2772]

@@nostalji93 There are more than 7000 languages in use today and many are rather isolated so that's very unlikely to happen

[@nostalji93]

@@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"

[@Mulambdaline1]

What an ingenious idea for a video!

[@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.

[@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

[@anubis7617]

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

[@caenieve]

I thought that was from _museum illum_ with the end being a suffix that means ‘the’? So _muzeu_ is the word derived from _museum_ (via French _musée,_ according to Wiktionary), and you have _omul_ being ‘the man’ where _om_ just means ‘man’ etc

[@anubis7617]

@@caenieve Yes, in Romanian the "the" article is added as a suffix to the noun, but it's a bit more complicated than simply adding 'ul' at the end. It depends on the gender of the word, so a masculine noun like bărbat (man) will become bărbatul (the man), while a feminine noun like femeie (woman) becomes femeia (the woman). And this becomes more complicated when the noun is in plural form. So bărbați (men) becomes bărbații (the men) and femei (women) becomes femeile (the women).

[@riverasamuel911]

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

[@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?

[@gaius_aerister]

I was waiting for this video!!

[@vibati2889]

Love your channel. Mi piace un sacco!

[@StanGraham1]

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

[@KertPerteson]

Always been interested in this

[@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

[@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. 😂

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.

[@Davmz91]

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

[@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.

[@thomasbarca9297]

I would love if you did a video on PIE

[@teresamerkel7161]

The evolution of language is a facinating study.

[@jozzieokes3422]

Love this!

[@Larckening]

interesting, please continue :)

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@cyrielwollring4622]

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

[@AlexFeldstein]

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

[@daviddiaz529]

I like this series. Nice work!

[@Martin_Boru_The_Herald]

loved the video

[@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 😳

[@Jormone]

Quali sarebbero le caratteristiche più conservative del campidanese?

[@simonecordeddu4783]

@@Jormone 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)

[@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".

[@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...

[@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.

[@Hun_Uinaq]

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.

[@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.

[@tommyfishhouse8050]

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

[@davidp.7620]

The hablamos -> "hablamo" procesos has already started

[@Dreju78]

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

[@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

[@guycalabrese4040]

I think Sardinian language would have been the most recognizable for an ancient roman.

[@StandardCabrera]

My old neighbour was Portuguese and it sounds almost slavic

[@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.

[@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...

[@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 .

[@KertPerteson]

Final m in latin was nasalized? Interesting to discover about

[@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

[@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?

[@EdwardM-t8p]

A Roman from 2000 years ago would be completely lost among the French while trying to make sense of their language.

[@lasagnasux4934]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@sevenproxies4255]

Speaking of cutting words. Always found it peculiar how the english speakers cut biblical, ancient roman and ancient greek names. Like Paul for Paulus, John for Johannes, Plato for Platon, Herod for Herodotus in a very arbitrary manner. Because other names are for some reason kept full and intact like Spartacus, Hercules, Graccus, Jesus and Julius.

[@sevenproxies4255]

@valerioluizfelipe Jesus is an especially peculiar one, since English calls him "Jesus Christ", whereas the Latin form would be "Jesus Kristus". So the english shortened his surname, but kept his first name intact :S

[@Mark-xh8md]

I feel compelled to point out that John's real name wasn't "Johannes" (which is the Germanic version of the name), but Yochanan :P

[@georged.5595]

Small correction because I was sitting there puzzled about what Herodotus has to do with the Bible: Herod is Herodes. However, in German, Herodotus does become Herodot, while Herod is Herodes. Plato, as someone else said, lost the final -n in Latin, and English took it from there unchanged. Julius did give English July and Jules (I think from French).

[@teuvorallikuski390]

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

[@roberthamilton9263]

Absolutely fantastic video!!!

[@TheMastermind729]

Spanish v is a voiced bilabial approximant in most contexts, which is pretty similar to a w sound, so I think a Roman would understand a Spanish speaker the best here

[@qwidium]

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

[@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?

[@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.

[@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?

[@tylere.8436]

If you think about it, Proto-Romance is just Classical Latin (perhaps of the Silver Age), because Sardinian is a Romance language and is rather conservative with the vowels and most consonants.

[@Nissardpertugiu]

Sardinian is african latin

[@mrtrollnator123]

​@@Nissardpertugiuwhat?

[@simonecordeddu4783]

​@@mrtrollnator123 I believe they're referencing the fact that, out of all the regional varieties of Latin, the one spoken in Sardinia was in the same group as the one spoken in North Africa. Moreover, after the Vandal invasion and the later Arab expansion, a lot of North African Latin speakers were displaced and moved to Sardinia, further enhancing the north African flavour of Sardinia's Latin. Calling it "African Latin" might be a stretch though

[@mrtrollnator123]

@@simonecordeddu4783 OK thanks for explaining

[@Nissardpertugiu]

@@simonecordeddu4783 Correct, in fact , Sardinian, Corsican, and Sicilia', Calabrese, Napolitan are based on this. The influence you can also find it in ligurian stuff

[@amaranthineA]

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

[@TheMarketofAlexandria]

Kick-ass episode Maestro!

[@caenieve]

I thought French uvular /ʁ/ being a Germanic feature was quite debated, especially since German historically had /r/ too.

[@massaosaito4084]

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

[@btf1287]

This is exactly how currently the portuguese understand 90% of spanish by context for example smoke is fumo and in spanish is humo. Now bieng able to write what you are hearing is another matter.

[@Spartan10k]

I’m loving these Metatron

[@thegoodtimesclub608]

I listened to old English, old German from the beginning of 20th century via my 78 rpm records on a gramophone and, in the US they rolled their R's and they also did in Germany. Not anymore I guess

[@VAFFANFEDE18]

So basically we would sound countryside german barbarians? I'm from a valley near Trento so, spot on dear legionary