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We can deduce facts about how the Romans pronounced Latin sounds by: * descriptions of the sounds by the Roman grammarians * wordplay, onomatopoeia, spelling

We can deduce facts about how the Romans pronounced Latin sounds by: * descriptions of the sounds by the Roman grammarians * wordplay, onomatopoeia, spelling errors in graffiti, etc. * the way in which sounds from other languages (particularly Greek) were adapted into Latin * the way in which sounds of Latin were adapted into other languages * comparative reconstruction of the Romance languages * evidence from metrical poetry, which provides particular clues about consonant and vowel length A very readable book on is W. Sidney Allen's _Vox Latina_. [edit: meant to reply to immediately following sister of this post.]

mattlutze 12y ago
I'd never thought of using misspellings from graffiti as a pronunciation clue, but it seems so obvious. I wonder how anthropological linguists would someday treat modern rap and hip-hop. In German, for example, it's not uncommon for the artist to slightly or not-so-slightly mispronounce words to make them fit a rhyme. Would that help or hinder a study?
- zhte415 12y ago
  > Would that help or hinder a study? I imagine it would help. If evidence for that mispronunciation happened consistently, it would be taken as a dialect, class, geographical or cultural thing (or subculture). If it happened consistently over a very short space of time (and there was surviving evidence) it could be confused as a blip, or fashion. Example: I'm constantly perplexed why 'where' is spelt as 'were' by so many, but I imagine there are a sufficient number of English-speakers' accents (or a sufficient amount of speakers of a single accent to be significant) where the two words sound similar enough to spell them out on a keyboard as the same.
- schoen 12y ago
  I see some hand-written signs by native Spanish speakers in my neighborhood that interchange b and v (and sometimes k and c, and sometimes c and s), which would make for good evidence for a future historical linguist that these were homophones or near homophones in certain contexts. For example, I think I've seen "besino" written by a native speaker for "vecino" 'neighbor'.

mattlutze 12y ago

I'd never thought of using misspellings from graffiti as a pronunciation clue, but it seems so obvious. I wonder how anthropological linguists would someday treat modern rap and hip-hop. In German, for example, it's not uncommon for the artist to slightly or not-so-slightly mispronounce words to make them fit a rhyme. Would that help or hinder a study?

zhte415 12y ago
> Would that help or hinder a study? I imagine it would help. If evidence for that mispronunciation happened consistently, it would be taken as a dialect, class, geographical or cultural thing (or subculture). If it happened consistently over a very short space of time (and there was surviving evidence) it could be confused as a blip, or fashion. Example: I'm constantly perplexed why 'where' is spelt as 'were' by so many, but I imagine there are a sufficient number of English-speakers' accents (or a sufficient amount of speakers of a single accent to be significant) where the two words sound similar enough to spell them out on a keyboard as the same.
schoen 12y ago
I see some hand-written signs by native Spanish speakers in my neighborhood that interchange b and v (and sometimes k and c, and sometimes c and s), which would make for good evidence for a future historical linguist that these were homophones or near homophones in certain contexts. For example, I think I've seen "besino" written by a native speaker for "vecino" 'neighbor'.