Iceni pronunciation...

[Forbesy]

I've watched dozens of Iceni playthroughs now as I live in the area they ruled and in school we studied them in school.
One thing that has slightly started to annoy me is no one pronounces their name right. The correct name is I-key-ni.
None of the Celtic/Gallic languages have a soft C they pronounced a C as a K. It was the Romans who introduced a soft C.

Now you know.

[Twelvefield]

Originally posted by Richon:

Originally posted by Pira:

Well Ive heard a youtuber say pappy-roos instead of pap-i-rus

That's because that's how one would actually pronounce the word.

I would not. That typeface is dead to me.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Richon:

Originally posted by Sheriff of Nothingham:

So what, "ee - KEH - nee" for traditionalists?

Icēnī

"ih-KAY-nee"

Short "i", long "e" (which sounds like a long "a" in modern English), long "i" (which sounds like a long "e" in modern English)

EDIT: that would be the Latin rendition of the name. I am not familiar enough with old Brythonic languages to tell you exactly how the Iceni themselves would have pronounced it.

Hm! Good to know! You learn something new every day. :)

[CEO do Racismo]

ee-Ke-nee

[Mr. Wiggles]

(Classical) IPA(key): /iˈke:.ni:/, [ɪˈke:.ni:]

[Mr. Wiggles]

Originally posted by Richon:

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Actually in their everyday life (especially the commoners) they used the ecclesiastical pronunciation, this is why it survived and evolved in modern languages and the classical latin no.

We don't really know when the so-called "vulgar" pronunciation came into vogue. We certainly don't have any evidence of it that I'm aware of during the period in which the game is set.

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Also the classical pronunciation is just a reconstruction.

It is an extremely accurate reconstruction based on actual commentaries of Roman grammarians that have been preserved cross-referenced with Greek transliterations of Latin words. We absolutely know what it sounded like.

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Ps the dittongue ae in cAEsar is pronounced e (ecclesiastical, cesar with a soft c) or a-e (classical, kaesar)

As a Classicist with two degrees in both Latin and Greek, I am well aware of the pronunciation rules. The AE in Classical Latin makes the same sound as the English word "eye" or the affirmation "aye" and when teaching those unfamiliar, is best replicated with "ai" for pronunciation, as "ae" in English has more the sound of a long "e" or long "a." So, again, "Caesar" would be pronounced "KAI-sar." No Roman would have pronounced it as we do in English, that is, almost sounding like "Seize her."

Well the game spans more than 300 years, and walking the streets of rome you would have heard the common latin and not the classical one. I've found this one in internet: Plauto (250/255-184 bc) used the everyday latin for his writings, because many jokes would not have had any sense otherwise.

[P_ter]

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Originally posted by mbpoblet:

Wait, the Romans had a soft C? I thought they also pronounced C as a K...

There are two schools of thought, here in italy we pronounce ae as a simple e and c as a soft c and not a k.

italian isnt latin

[Mr. Wiggles]

Originally posted by P*ter:

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

There are two schools of thought, here in italy we pronounce ae as a simple e and c as a soft c and not a k.

italian isnt latin

yeah but latin evolved into italian and spanish etc it is not like latin one day just died. At some point latin was spoken that way, they spoke that way probably for a far longer period than the classical pronunciation which was way too difficult.
Im saying that both pronunciations are correct but in different contexts.

[mbpoblet]

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Im saying that both pronunciations are correct but in different contexts.

Yeah, languages evolve. What I'm interested, though, in this particular case, is how names in the game were pronounced at the time the game is set in (for proper immersion), which seems to be more or less the classical variant / dialect, from what I'm gathering (after all Rome was still relatively small at the time, so there would have been less variation).

(Though, of course, it's a span of around three centuries, so variation must have happened between the start and the end of the game anyway, I assume.)

[Mr. Wiggles]

Originally posted by mbpoblet:

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Im saying that both pronunciations are correct but in different contexts.

Yeah, languages evolve. What I'm interested, though, in this particular case, is how names in the game were pronounced at the time the game is set in (for proper immersion), which seems to be more or less the classical variant / dialect, from what I'm gathering (after all Rome was still relatively small at the time, so there would have been less variation).

From the little I know patricians and intellectuals kept the archaic latin alive using it for their writings and speeches but if it is true that Plauto wrote in vulgar already in the 250-180 bc then we would have a partial answer. I think it is quite sure that the two variants co existed for a long time

[Richon]

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Well the game spans more than 300 years, and walking the streets of rome you would have heard the common latin and not the classical one. I've found this one in internet: Plauto (250/255-184 bc) used the everyday latin for his writings, because many jokes would not have had any sense otherwise.

Source? The language of the commoners, like the language of the elite, changed over time. Do you have actual evidence that in the 3rd century BC people were already pronouncing the "v" like a modern "v" for instance? I study this language for a living. This is literally what my degrees are in and what I do on a regular basis. While it is absolutely true that Plautus and Petronius wrote in a "common" dialect of their time, that doesn't mean they were already using pronunciations we now associate with the so-called "Vulgar" or "Ecclesiastical Latin" which developed more in the Late Imperial era.

Shakespeare wrote in the common dialect of his day, and yet his vowels sound nothing like modern Cockney. Languages change over time.

[Richon]

Originally posted by mbpoblet:

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Im saying that both pronunciations are correct but in different contexts.

Yeah, languages evolve. What I'm interested, though, in this particular case, is how names in the game were pronounced at the time the game is set in (for proper immersion), which seems to be more or less the classical variant / dialect, from what I'm gathering (after all Rome was still relatively small at the time, so there would have been less variation).

(Though, of course, it's a span of around three centuries, so variation must have happened between the start and the end of the game anyway, I assume.)

You're absolutely right. This game begins in the last days of what we call "Old Latin" (which, by the way, is the "common" form of Latin used by Plautus and Terence, not the later "Vulgar Latin") and mostly spans the development and peak of "Classical Latin."

Given that the Romans don't encounter the Iceni until well after the shift from Old Latin to Classical, it is difficult to reconstruct how a Roman in the earlier period of the game might have said the name. However, I can make an educated guess. I don't think the word would have changed too much, but going far enough back, Old Latin still preserved the Proto-Indo-European "oi" ending for the nominative plural in the second declension. This would give us "Icēnoi" rather than "Icēnī" for the name. Old Latin also was far more eager to stress the antepenultimate syllable whenever possible.

So, whereas for Caesar the tribe would be "Icēnī" (ih-KAY-nee), had a Roman encountered the tribe at the beginning of the game's era, they may have called them "Icēnoi" (IH-kay-noy).

So it depends on how precise one wants to be. Strictly speaking, in the early game they would be "Icēnoi" or something close (remember, this is my reconstruction based on a brief refresher of Old Latin for the sake of this discussion, not a deeply researched reproduction), and only later be called "Icēnī." If one doesn't want to get that nit-picky, sticking with the standard Classical form of their name as "Icēnī" for the whole game would be fine, given that it is a form of the name we actually have preserved for us and that Classical Latin is more commonly known these days than Old Latin and generally easier for modern speakers to pronounce.

[mbpoblet]

Originally posted by Richon:

(...)

Fascinating and informative, thanks!

[Mr. Wiggles]

Originally posted by Richon:

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Well the game spans more than 300 years, and walking the streets of rome you would have heard the common latin and not the classical one. I've found this one in internet: Plauto (250/255-184 bc) used the everyday latin for his writings, because many jokes would not have had any sense otherwise.

Source? The language of the commoners, like the language of the elite, changed over time. Do you have actual evidence that in the 3rd century BC people were already pronouncing the "v" like a modern "v" for instance? I study this language for a living. This is literally what my degrees are in and what I do on a regular basis. While it is absolutely true that Plautus and Petronius wrote in a "common" dialect of their time, that doesn't mean they were already using pronunciations we now associate with the so-called "Vulgar" or "Ecclesiastical Latin" which developed more in the Late Imperial era.

Shakespeare wrote in the common dialect of his day, and yet his vowels sound nothing like modern Cockney. Languages change over time.

Source? it was written in italian, I can give you the link. https://www.reddit.com/r/italy/comments/3w7aj5/gorgia_toscana_davvero_non_pu%C3%B2_essere_etrusca/
Correct me if im wrong, i posted the classical ipa pronunciation of iceni and I dont think ke: is Kay.
(Classical) IPA(key): /iˈke:.ni:/, [ɪˈke:.ni:]
Edit: you are an expert so it's clear that you know what you are talking about, I'd like to ask you if we know the differences between the 7th bc century latin and the 0 ad latin (for example)?

[Richon]

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Source? it was written in italian, I can give you the link. https://www.reddit.com/r/italy/comments/3w7aj5/gorgia_toscana_davvero_non_pu%C3%B2_essere_etrusca/

Plautus did not write in Italian. The language we now know as "Italian" did not exist in the 3rd century BC. He wrote in Old Latin. This is standard common knowledge. What's more, my Italian may be rusty, but I can't see anything in that source of yours discussing the dialect of Plautus.

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Correct me if im wrong, i posted the classical ipa pronunciation of iceni and I dont think ke: is Kay.
(Classical) IPA(key): /iˈke:.ni:/, [ɪˈke:.ni:]

The "e" in "Iceni" is long. A long "e" in Latin makes a sound roughly equivalent to a long "a" in modern English. Examples of this sound in modern English would be the "a" in "ape" or "spray" or "day." The correct IPA for the "ce" in "Iceni" would be "keɪ." I used "kay" because not everyone knows IPA and I was trying to make the sound accessible to all.

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

Edit: you are an expert so it's clear that you know what you are talking about, I'd like to ask you if we know the differences between the 7th bc century latin and the 0 ad latin (for example)?

Yes, we do know the differences. This is how we are able to classify them separately as "Old Latin" and "Classical Latin." We know these differences in part from inscriptions from each period, in part from archaisms preserved by authors like Plautus and Terence or commented on by later grammarians, and in part from comparisons to related languages (especially Faliscan, which was closely related to Old Latin).

As stated above in my response to mbpoblet, the largest changes between the Classical and Old Latin pronunciations regarding the word "Iceni" would be a shift in accent (on the penult in Classical Latin but antepenult in Old Latin) and the more archaic nominative plural ("i" in Classical Latin but "oi" in Old Latin). So, in Classical Latin (the source of the name, as this was the era in which the Romans encountered this tribe) the name is spelled Iceni and the stress is on the second syllable (the "e"); but had the Romans encountered this tribe at the beginning of the game's era they likely would have called them "Icenoi" with the stress on the first syllable.

The number of visible changes would increase if we were to decline the noun in full and compare that between Classical and Old Latin, but as we are not looking to compose in Latin, but merely to understand how to pronounce the name "Iceni" we should be satisfied with the nominative plural.

In any event, the main point of contention was originally the claim that the Romans invented the "soft c" which is not true. In both Old and Classical Latin, the "c" always made a hard sound like a "k." It was not until the development of Vulgar Latin in the first centuries AD (after the scope of this game) that an alternative sound for the "c" developed in Latin, but even then, the alternate was similar to the modern Italian "c" in words like "ciao" or the name "Francesca." No Roman, not even a speaker of Vulgar Latin, would have pronounced his "c" like the modern English "soft c" in words like "mice" or "celebrate."

Likewise, the "v" sound in both Old and Classical Latin is always a "u" if a vowel and similar to a "w" if a consonant. The "hard v" sound familiar to both Italian and English speakers (in words like "victory" or "Venezia") does not develop until Vulgar Latin in the first centuries AD. It would be utterly alien to any Latin speaker, elite or common, in the Republican Era in which the game takes place.

[Mr. Wiggles]

Ok thank you, all is good except for the ipa pronunciation on the wiki, if the classical pronunciation is kay it must be corrected