3 ms·
Is this actually true for English speakers? Especially prominent Latin names have been totally butchered. For example Markus Antonius always gets butchered as M
by ajmurmann 5y ago
Is this actually true for English speakers? Especially prominent Latin names have been totally butchered. For example Markus Antonius always gets butchered as Mark Anthony which clearly isn't a name anyone in Rome would have had. This also seems to go hand in hand with the general ignorance of the huge problem that's the great vowel shift that messes everything up for native English speakers pronouncing words from other languages.
- dkdbejwi383 5y agoMark Anthony is a transliteration rather than a mispronunciation is it not?
- seszett 5y agoIt's more of a translation than transliteration. Mark and Anthony are just the English translations of Marcus and Antonius. In French he's called Marc Antoine, in Spanish and Italian Marco Antonio, etc. All Latin languages do that for names (at least historical names, but it's common enough for other names too) it's just less common for Germanic languages except English which is like always a bit in-between the two.
- kingofpandora 5y agoNo one is reading "Markus Antonius" and pronouncing it as "Marc Anthony". A few historical figures have Anglicized names for whatever reasons, so we use those.
- robocat 5y agoThat is some Latin name translation thing. Christopher Columbus (EN), Cristóbal Colón (ES), Christophe Colomb (FR), and Cristoforo Colombo (IT) are all Christophorus Columbus (his original Latin name). Edit: the same things happen with Ancient Greek names - one person has different spellings and pronunciations in different languages — look up 荷马 or ソクラテス.