Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 February 10

= February 10 =

Was the R in Rome rhotic?
I'm not aware of any LP records having been found in Pompeii, so I know that pronunciation of ancient languages is conjecture. But I'm curious about the word barbarian. Some sources say that it came from making fun of how foreign people talked; like it all sounds like "bar, bar, bar." This sounds similar to how a non-english-speaking, non-rhotic person might imitate how rhotic English sounds to them today. Does this imply that Greek or Latin speakers would not have used a hard R? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C1:8100:900:8CA:15B1:ADFB:DF14 (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2018 (UTC)


 * According to our own Latin pronunciation article, "In Classical Latin, the rhotic /r/ was most likely an alveolar trill [r]. Gaius Lucilius likens it to the sound of a dog, and later writers describe it as being produced by vibration. In Old Latin, intervocalic /z/ developed into /r/ (rhotacism), suggesting an approximant like the English [ɹ], and /d/ was sometimes written as /r/, suggesting a tap [ɾ] like Spanish single r." This is cited to William Sidney Allen, Vox Latina—a Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin, which is originally from 1965. I'm sure there is much more recent scholarship on Latin pronunciation though. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:11, 10 February 2018 (UTC)


 * 2601:1C1:8100:900:8CA:15B1:ADFB:DF14 -- the word "Barbarian" originated in ancient Greek as βαρβαρος, since to Greek speakers, non-Greek speech sometimes sounded as meaningless as repetitions of the syllable bar-bar-bar. Ancient Greeks were not known for learning other languages except under necessities such as trading and communicating with foreign rulers.  The chapter on Greek in Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World has the word "solipsism" in its title. AnonMoos (talk) 21:13, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Spanish pronunciation of Mailen Auroux
Is it [ˈmailen auˈɾuks] in the video? LoveVanPersie (talk) 18:28, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Please cease this disruption. You have hearing and a command of the IPA.  In essence you are asking us to do OR to confirm your OR; the guidelines preclude that.  Once might be tolerable if this weren't literally your tenth live question on how an obscure term is pronounced.  Given your extremely curious similarity to the universally banned User:Fête, your Chinese nationality, apparently questionable English skill, and obsession with French and the /ɛ/ vowel, expect a complaint to WP:ARBCOM to follow your next similar inquiry. μηδείς (talk) 16:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)