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I have been wondering: How can we know how languages, even our own
languages, were spoken before the earliest surviving audio recordings?
Back then there weren't any meticulous (if any) pronounciation guides
for any language.
For instance, how can we know if English was spoken in the 1500's even
close to what it is today? After all 500 years is a pretty long time, and
language (and its pronounciation) evolves. Even though we know how English
was written back then (and way, way earlier), how do we know how it was
spoken? (Sure, it was probably similar to current English, but to what
degree?)
On top of that, we often have distortions of spoken languages of the
past in popular media. For instance, the pirates of the 1600's did most
certainly not speak like the stereotypical pirate talk ("Arrr! Avast, ye
scurvy dogs!") I think this is just an invention of relatively recent
works of fiction (I think it might have originated from "Treasure Island"
by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1883.)
--
- Warp
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On 4/28/2012 9:25 AM, Warp wrote:
> I have been wondering: How can we know how languages, even our own
> languages, were spoken before the earliest surviving audio recordings?
> Back then there weren't any meticulous (if any) pronounciation guides
> for any language.
>
> For instance, how can we know if English was spoken in the 1500's even
> close to what it is today?
You might be interested in this reading of Beowulf:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&t=25 You can read on
Wikipedia about what our state of knowledge about the pronunciation ff
old English is. You'll also be able to find plenty of readings of the
Canterbury Tales if you want to hear Middle English.
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Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] u washingtonedu> wrote:
> You might be interested in this reading of Beowulf:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&t=25
Sounds like a mixture between Old Norse and German.
--
- Warp
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On 29/04/2012 6:49 AM, Warp wrote:
> Kevin Wampler<wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
>> You might be interested in this reading of Beowulf:
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&t=25
>
> Sounds like a mixture between Old Norse and German.
>
I would say that Beowulf is Old English so it is not surprising that it
sounds like a mix between Old Norse and German, it is.
Middle English (between the late 11th and the late 15th century) can be
found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU
--
Regards
Stephen
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Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
> Middle English (between the late 11th and the late 15th century) can be
> found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU
Sounds a bit Scottish.
--
- Warp
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Sounds a bit Scottish.
I don't know if it's just because I'm tired, but I couldn't stop
laughing at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BncDeMO_en0
--
- Warp
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On 29/04/2012 10:24 AM, Warp wrote:
> Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>> Sounds a bit Scottish.
>
> I don't know if it's just because I'm tired, but I couldn't stop
> laughing at this:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BncDeMO_en0
>
:-(
This video contains content from Channel 5, who has blocked it in your
country on copyright grounds.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 29/04/2012 10:18 AM, Warp wrote:
> Stephen<mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
>> Middle English (between the late 11th and the late 15th century) can be
>> found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU
>
> Sounds a bit Scottish.
>
It does to my ears too. Old Scots, at least the West Coast variety
sounds similar. But then it is descended from Middle English.
We studded Chaucer at school and I was never able to make heads or tails
of it. A few years ago a friend recited a passage using a broad Scots
accent. It suddenly became clear almost like listening to a Burn poem.
But still none of this answers your question?
How can we know how languages, even our own
languages, were spoken before the earliest surviving audio recordings?
Back then there weren't any meticulous (if any) pronunciation guides
for any language.
I don't know.
--
Regards
Stephen
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Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
> On 29/04/2012 10:24 AM, Warp wrote:
> > Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> >> Sounds a bit Scottish.
> >
> > I don't know if it's just because I'm tired, but I couldn't stop
> > laughing at this:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BncDeMO_en0
> >
> :-(
> This video contains content from Channel 5, who has blocked it in your
> country on copyright grounds.
What's the point?
If you like, I could send you the .flv file, if you can play them.
--
- Warp
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Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
> On 29/04/2012 10:24 AM, Warp wrote:
> > Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> >> Sounds a bit Scottish.
> >
> > I don't know if it's just because I'm tired, but I couldn't stop
> > laughing at this:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BncDeMO_en0
> >
> :-(
> This video contains content from Channel 5, who has blocked it in your
> country on copyright grounds.
Maybe this will work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5Wuwi9ZKxE
--
- Warp
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On 29/04/2012 11:30 AM, Warp wrote:
> Stephen<mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
>> On 29/04/2012 10:24 AM, Warp wrote:
>>> Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>>>> Sounds a bit Scottish.
>>>
>>> I don't know if it's just because I'm tired, but I couldn't stop
>>> laughing at this:
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BncDeMO_en0
>>>
>
>> :-(
>
>> This video contains content from Channel 5, who has blocked it in your
>> country on copyright grounds.
>
> Maybe this will work:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5Wuwi9ZKxE
>
Nope! but I get the idea from the titles.
When the iphone 4 came out. BBC news sent a recording team to Aberdeen
to check it out. In the clip below the policeman whose voice it
recognised was from Dundee. A very different accent from the Aberdeen Doric.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15475989
--
Regards
Stephen
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Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
> Nope! but I get the idea from the titles.
It's a comedy sketch. I don't think you get the idea without watching
it...
--
- Warp
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On 29/04/2012 11:46 AM, Warp wrote:
> Stephen<mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
>> Nope! but I get the idea from the titles.
>
> It's a comedy sketch. I don't think you get the idea without watching
> it...
>
Okay, please send me the files.
--
Regards
Stephen
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Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
> Okay, please send me the files.
Grab it from here, and reply so that I know I can remove it:
http://kapsi.fi/warp/media/Elevator.flv
--
- Warp
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On 29/04/2012 12:07 PM, Warp wrote:
> Stephen<mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
>> Okay, please send me the files.
>
> Grab it from here, and reply so that I know I can remove it:
>
> http://kapsi.fi/warp/media/Elevator.flv
>
Fine, you can remove it now. Funnily enough I did get the idea from the
title.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 4/29/2012 0:56, Stephen wrote:
> I would say that Beowulf is Old English so it is not surprising that it
> sounds like a mix between Old Norse and German, it is.
I'm still with Warp on this one, tho. I want to know how they know this is
what it sounded like. :-) How does someone know what a language sounded
like when nobody still speaks it?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
"Don't panic. There's beans and filters
in the cabinet."
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On 29/04/2012 6:38 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/29/2012 0:56, Stephen wrote:
>> I would say that Beowulf is Old English so it is not surprising that it
>> sounds like a mix between Old Norse and German, it is.
>
> I'm still with Warp on this one, tho. I want to know how they know this
> is what it sounded like. :-) How does someone know what a language
> sounded like when nobody still speaks it?
>
I still don't know but remember GIYE ;-P
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 4/29/2012 10:38 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/29/2012 0:56, Stephen wrote:
>> I would say that Beowulf is Old English so it is not surprising that it
>> sounds like a mix between Old Norse and German, it is.
>
> I'm still with Warp on this one, tho. I want to know how they know this
> is what it sounded like. :-) How does someone know what a language
> sounded like when nobody still speaks it?
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_phonology has some info on this.
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On a related note, there are some who doubt a virtuoso pianist of the
19th century such as Liszt were all the good (despite the account from
other composers that he would play difficult concerto pieces on first
sight) because there was no recording.
I've also heard some jazz guys suggesting Bach's music was played more
relaxed back them, rhythm-wise. Which is too say, it'd sound quite a
lot like jazz, rather than with its characteristic rhythmic sameness
found in recordings.
Forgetting the past and then reimagining it has led to many works of
fiction as well. The greek forgot their past mycennean civilization and
came up with the Illiad to explain the many wars in oral legends and The
ages of man to explain the bronze obssession of the previous bronze age
civiliations.
I wonder how future civilizations will reimagine our dark digital age.
"These guys surely were a quiet lot!"
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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On 4/28/2012 10:49 PM, Warp wrote:
> Kevin Wampler<wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
>> You might be interested in this reading of Beowulf:
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&t=25
>
> Sounds like a mixture between Old Norse and German.
>
Actually, from some of what I have read there was, until fairly
recently, a "High German" and "Low German". The low version was very
close to English, enough that it was fairly understandable.
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On 4/30/2012 9:15 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 10:49 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Kevin Wampler<wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
>>> You might be interested in this reading of Beowulf:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&t=25
>>
>> Sounds like a mixture between Old Norse and German.
>>
> Actually, from some of what I have read there was, until fairly
> recently, a "High German" and "Low German". The low version was very
> close to English, enough that it was fairly understandable.
High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
you will observe no sudden shifts in the speech of the locals at any
given point. The exceptions occur if you wander into a French-speaking
area or a region whose inhabitants have consciously altered their
dialect (in order to conform to another dialect).
In a like manner, walking from the tip of the boot of Italy, up the
coast into France, and then down into Spain will result in to sudden
shift in language along the way (although signs placed by the government
will generally be in the official dialect).
Or I could be wrong.
Regards,
John
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> High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
> along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
> southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
You can even start in northern Italy rather than southern Austria. Also
I heard several times that when English people try to speak German it
often sounds very Dutch, so I guess even though we (in England) have
mutated the language a fair bit the accent is still there somehow to
carry on the smooth progression across Europe.
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John VanSickle <evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
> High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
> along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
> southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
> you will observe no sudden shifts in the speech of the locals at any
> given point. The exceptions occur if you wander into a French-speaking
> area or a region whose inhabitants have consciously altered their
> dialect (in order to conform to another dialect).
> In a like manner, walking from the tip of the boot of Italy, up the
> coast into France, and then down into Spain will result in to sudden
> shift in language along the way (although signs placed by the government
> will generally be in the official dialect).
In contrast, if you were to walk from Sweden to Finland to Russia,
you'll find three languages that couldn't be much more distinct and
unintelligible to the others.
(Of course inside Finland the dialect will change gradually from west
to east, but there are still very sharp divides between Swedish and
Finnish, and Finnish and Russian.)
--
- Warp
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On 5/23/2012 9:17 AM, Warp wrote:
> John VanSickle<evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
>> High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
>> along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
>> southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
>> you will observe no sudden shifts in the speech of the locals at any
>> given point. The exceptions occur if you wander into a French-speaking
>> area or a region whose inhabitants have consciously altered their
>> dialect (in order to conform to another dialect).
>
>> In a like manner, walking from the tip of the boot of Italy, up the
>> coast into France, and then down into Spain will result in to sudden
>> shift in language along the way (although signs placed by the government
>> will generally be in the official dialect).
>
> In contrast, if you were to walk from Sweden to Finland to Russia,
> you'll find three languages that couldn't be much more distinct and
> unintelligible to the others.
>
> (Of course inside Finland the dialect will change gradually from west
> to east, but there are still very sharp divides between Swedish and
> Finnish, and Finnish and Russian.)
Primarily because at least two of these languages are next to the third
because of recent (in linguistic terms) migrations.
Regards,
John
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> In contrast, if you were to walk from Sweden to Finland to Russia,
> you'll find three languages that couldn't be much more distinct and
> unintelligible to the others.
Swedish and Russian are both Indo-European languages. Finnish, which is wedged
up between them, is totally unrelated. It would be difficult to make a smooth
transition.
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