4 ms·

I think it is really hard for speakers of European languages to believe that a language could have the same pronunciation that it had centuries ago. Obvious ex

I think it is really hard for speakers of European languages to believe that a language could have the same pronunciation that it had centuries ago. Obvious example: Arabic from at least the 7th century AD: As an Arabic speaker, I can totally read a text the way it was pronounced 14 centuries ago and also perfectly understand it. You cannot say the same thing for European languages. Probably the same for sanskrit.

anthk 5y ago
> As an Arabic speaker, I can totally read a text the way it was pronounced 14 centuries ago and also perfectly understand it. I may be able to do something similar in Spanish. I've read Emilianensian /Glosas/ in Navarrese-Aragonese and understand near the 95% of it. That being a close Romance to Castillian Spanish. Scroll down and compare, you don't need to understand Spanish: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glosas_Emilianenses https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glosas_Emilianenses Also, I can perfectly read Don Quixote. My main issues would be the old Medieval slang with things that do not exist anymore or they changed a lot. But without the footer annotations, I had no issues at all to understand the 80% of it. But, spelling it? Heck, it didn't change at all, our Spanish standards (Nebrija's grammar) date back to that era.
yorwba 5y ago
> As an Arabic speaker, I can totally read a text the way it was pronounced 14 centuries ago You probably cannot. Every region with a tradition of reciting the Qur'an has their own way of pronouncing it. It would be a strange coincidence if your tradition in particular happened to keep the pronunciation unchanged while all the others didn't. E.g. do you pronounce ﺽ as a pharyngealized voiced alveolar lateral fricative? That's the most likely reconstruction of the sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B8%8C%C4%81d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B8%8C%C4%81d
- hassancf 5y ago
  >> You probably cannot. Exactly my point. You’re under the impression I cannot because of your limited knowledge of this topic: even if 1 letter was slightly different (which it is not), how does that discard the prononciation of 99% of the rest? >> Every region with a tradition of reciting the Qur'an has their own way of pronouncing it Plain wrong. If you knew the topic, you would know that the various way to read the Holy Quran are so close that you could just say they are identical. In my original post, I’m not even necessarily talking about the holy Quran. What about the vast poetry written in Arabic in pre-Islamic times that anyone today can read the same way? I will not get into the subject of whether I would understand it or not since you are still debating whether I would pronounce it the same way. BTW, this is very different from : how does one pronounce Latin etc.
  - yorwba 5y ago
    It seems our disagreement is mostly about the semantics of what it means to pronounce something the same way.
- ssr2020 5y ago
  Because it is necessary to read the Qur'an properly, and in order for it not to change or deteriorate over time, old scientists wrote in books how to read each letter and its rules. It is written in detail where each letter will come out of the mouth and what features(like the sibilants, the stressed letters, the soft letters, the labiolinguals, and tremolo etc. ) it will have. For us in Turkey it is different ve more difficult but we learn it to read the Qur'an properly. You can listen a surah from the Quran from a Turkish or Arabic reciter there is no big difference.
  - yorwba 5y ago
    > old scientists wrote in books how to read each letter and its rules. It is written in detail where each letter will come out of the mouth and what features(like the sibilants, the stressed letters, the soft letters, the labiolinguals, and tremolo etc. ) it will have Indeed, that is why modern scientists believe that ﺽ must have represented some kind of lateral sound, like a lateral fricative (or maybe a lateral affricate or a stop with lateral release – the descriptions aren't detailed enough to distinguish between these options.) But most modern speakers nonetheless pronounce it as a plain stop or dental fricative instead of lateral. Having a description of the pronunciation doesn't mean that someone reading the description will be able to follow it perfectly. Otherwise everyone learning a foreign language would be able to develop a native-like accent just by reading about the correct pronunciation.

anthk 5y ago

> As an Arabic speaker, I can totally read a text the way it was pronounced 14 centuries ago and also perfectly understand it. I may be able to do something similar in Spanish. I've read Emilianensian /Glosas/ in Navarrese-Aragonese and understand near the 95% of it. That being a close Romance to Castillian Spanish. Scroll down and compare, you don't need to understand Spanish: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glosas_Emilianenses https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glosas_Emilianenses Also, I can perfectly read Don Quixote. My main issues would be the old Medieval slang with things that do not exist anymore or they changed a lot. But without the footer annotations, I had no issues at all to understand the 80% of it. But, spelling it? Heck, it didn't change at all, our Spanish standards (Nebrija's grammar) date back to that era.

yorwba 5y ago

> As an Arabic speaker, I can totally read a text the way it was pronounced 14 centuries ago You probably cannot. Every region with a tradition of reciting the Qur'an has their own way of pronouncing it. It would be a strange coincidence if your tradition in particular happened to keep the pronunciation unchanged while all the others didn't. E.g. do you pronounce ﺽ as a pharyngealized voiced alveolar lateral fricative? That's the most likely reconstruction of the sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B8%8C%C4%81d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B8%8C%C4%81d

hassancf 5y ago
>> You probably cannot. Exactly my point. You’re under the impression I cannot because of your limited knowledge of this topic: even if 1 letter was slightly different (which it is not), how does that discard the prononciation of 99% of the rest? >> Every region with a tradition of reciting the Qur'an has their own way of pronouncing it Plain wrong. If you knew the topic, you would know that the various way to read the Holy Quran are so close that you could just say they are identical. In my original post, I’m not even necessarily talking about the holy Quran. What about the vast poetry written in Arabic in pre-Islamic times that anyone today can read the same way? I will not get into the subject of whether I would understand it or not since you are still debating whether I would pronounce it the same way. BTW, this is very different from : how does one pronounce Latin etc.
- yorwba 5y ago
  It seems our disagreement is mostly about the semantics of what it means to pronounce something the same way.
ssr2020 5y ago
Because it is necessary to read the Qur'an properly, and in order for it not to change or deteriorate over time, old scientists wrote in books how to read each letter and its rules. It is written in detail where each letter will come out of the mouth and what features(like the sibilants, the stressed letters, the soft letters, the labiolinguals, and tremolo etc. ) it will have. For us in Turkey it is different ve more difficult but we learn it to read the Qur'an properly. You can listen a surah from the Quran from a Turkish or Arabic reciter there is no big difference.
- yorwba 5y ago
  > old scientists wrote in books how to read each letter and its rules. It is written in detail where each letter will come out of the mouth and what features(like the sibilants, the stressed letters, the soft letters, the labiolinguals, and tremolo etc. ) it will have Indeed, that is why modern scientists believe that ﺽ must have represented some kind of lateral sound, like a lateral fricative (or maybe a lateral affricate or a stop with lateral release – the descriptions aren't detailed enough to distinguish between these options.) But most modern speakers nonetheless pronounce it as a plain stop or dental fricative instead of lateral. Having a description of the pronunciation doesn't mean that someone reading the description will be able to follow it perfectly. Otherwise everyone learning a foreign language would be able to develop a native-like accent just by reading about the correct pronunciation.