"Here Is What Ancient Languages Sounded Like" Topic

" Ancient languages that were once spoken and familiar around the world would have almost disappeared if it wasn't for historians and experts working on learning these complex languages. We are lucky to live in an era with high-performance technology that helps us not only understand these ancient languages but create audio files of what the languages sounded like during the time when they were commonly spoken.

Modern languages are straightforward compared to ancient languages, thus why it is so difficult to understand them and even more difficult to speak them correctly as our ancestors intended. Such intentions are involuntary, as with the evolution of humankind, we seem to tend towards simplifying our language…"

Main page

link

Armand

Interesting

Complete nonsense. There is no way to reconstruct, for instance, the spoken Greek of 400BC Athens or the spoken Greek of 100AD Alexandria let alone how biblical Egyptian sounded. These are dead languages and while we can still often read them we cannot know how they sounded. For instance, the stress markings in ancient Greek are thought to actually direct the intonation of the pronunciation rather emphasizing the weight of the syllable. But how this exactly worked no one knows.

This is ridiculous.

Languages get simpler when greater numbers of people, including non-native speakers, start using them. Not because cool/superior modern people simplify things. (If the Roman system of taxation was more complicated than ours, then no wonder the empire fell!)

Also, I hope they got the Mayan one right, since PEOPLE STILL SPEAK IT!

"Languages get simpler when greater numbers of people, including non-native speakers, start using them."

That certainly isn't the case with English. The vast load of words now considered part of English that were taken from another language (and often mispronounced, misunderstood or misused) makes for an horrendous problem with spelling. Also the mix of grammar from the major users of the language that gets inserted into the others to add further to the confusion.

Actually the grammar gets simplified when new speakers start using it.

And spelling is not language.

Linguistics is actually a fascinating subject that I would encourage everyone to explore!

I don't think this is right either. Ancient languages don't seem to have enough words to carry on a conversation. If Veni, vidi, vici is "I came; I saw; I conquered" its missing the personal pronoun

So "honey I'm going to the bakery" must be transeo pistrina. Like "ugg eat" for cavemen

Louis, the "I"s are there, they are at the end of the word, the case endings. Similarly "I am" is given by the "eo" at the end of transeo, though I am sure there are easier ways to say "going".

"I don't think this is right either. Ancient languages don't seem to have enough words to carry on a conversation. If Veni, vidi, vici is "I came; I saw; I conquered" its missing the personal pronoun,"

Veni, vidi, vici are the first person indicative of the Latin verbs veneri, videre and vincere respectively. The words literally mean I came, I saw, I conquered.

Of course, Caesar would have pronounced the words ueni uidi
uiki…

Deucey – the original was 'non-native speakers', not 'new speakers'. Spelling is part of the usage of language, without some conventions allowing the spoken word to be written down and conveyed with accuracy the language will rapidly become increasingly diverse.
I think you will find that patois & other simplified versions of a language no longer class as the original but become a derivative. It is only relatively recently that we see these derivative languages feeding back into the parent.

Thanks.

Armand

auction

(smile)

Armand

xnay on the ottenre?

Languages get simpler when greater numbers of people

This in an interesting feature of language. The farther back we go in languages the more complex the grammar becomes. Languages have been grammatically simplifying over the past 5000 years. So for instance, the Greek of Homer is more grammatically sophisticated than the Greek of Aristotle which is more sophisticated than Koine Greek. We see the move away from case endings (declension) and towards prepositions as the way to mark out the relationship between nouns. English used to be a declined language like German but gave up its case endings a 1000 years ago.