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"Pronunciation of "Vercingetorix"" Topic


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Pages: 1 2 

John the OFM04 May 2007 5:37 p.m. PST

There is gonna be some weird crossposting on this, baby!

Many years ago, back when the OFM was breaking into miniatures, I was an impoverished grad student at Penn State.
That Great Man Charles Sharp introduced me to miniature gaming, specifically, Ancients.
I was even less concerned about scale compatibility then than I am now, putting Garrison Persians on the same table with Airfix. It bothered me not!

Receiving a tax-free "stipend", rather than a salary (I have no idea if that marvelous tax break still exists), I actually had some spending money. I bought some Minifigs Gauls, including the "Vericngetorix" command figure.

My girlfriend's roommate had a visitor from France, from her Army Brat days. I was also living with my gf (which I have since heard Dr. Laura claim to be bad manners, and I can't say I disagree with her…) at the time. I showed the French lass my painted V-man, pronouncing him "ver-sin JETT-o'rix".
The French lass said, "Oh, you are so funn-ee! You pronounce "vair-sann-zhett-OH-REESE" so funn-ee!"
Nobody likes to be ridiculed by foreigners, even pretty ones. So, from that day onwards, I have hated the French.

Tonight, I have The History(sic) Channel on, for background noise, waiting for "Dogfights", and the Gloucester Gladiator versus the Bismarck.
They have some of their usual fluff on while I am waiting, this time featuring Caesar and the Gauls. They are pronouncing him "ver-sinn-GETT-o'rix". (Hard "G")

GRRRRRRRRRR.

To be honest, I don't really give a damn how to pronounce his name.

Garand04 May 2007 5:53 p.m. PST

If it makes you feel better I pronounce it like the History Channel does. Though it makes me wonder if the "sinn" part should be a hard C instead (i.e. "kinn"). Note that is not based on any scholarly support whatsoever…

Damon.

Some other name04 May 2007 5:53 p.m. PST

I prefer the Goscinny "Asterix" series with their names, myself.

Let see, for the Guals there's Asterix, of course, Obelix the menhir deliverer, dogmatix the dog, Cacofonix the less than musical bard, Vitalstatistix the leader, etc.

You find Romans named Encyclopaedicis Britannicus the governor of Britain, Crismus Bonus, etc.

Augustus04 May 2007 5:58 p.m. PST

As if the man himself is around to dispute it… :)

aecurtis Fezian04 May 2007 6:29 p.m. PST

Yeah, but when you'd get a new cartload amphorae up from Massilia, he'd get so sozzled he couldn't manage to pronounce it himself!

Good times. Good times.

Allen

Dave Crowell04 May 2007 6:30 p.m. PST

were-keen-get-or-ish if my high school Latin is to serve.

IIRC the name is a Latinized transcription of a Gallic name, so who knows what the chap's actual name was.

FABET0104 May 2007 7:02 p.m. PST

Celts are divided by language into two groups. Those that pronounce "C" hard in the British Isle, and Those that pronounce the "C" soft from the mainland. If the Romanized "Vercingetorix" is anything like the original name it should probably use the soft "C".

DS615104 May 2007 7:23 p.m. PST

I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "Vic".
The rest of the letters are silent, as was the fashion at the time with some folks.


Prove me wrong.

DeanMoto04 May 2007 7:29 p.m. PST

Mispronouncing him is like publicly committing a fox pas…

DeanMoto04 May 2007 7:30 p.m. PST

Whores divers anyone?

Sumatran Rat Monkey04 May 2007 7:32 p.m. PST

They have some of their usual fluff on while I am waiting, this time featuring Caesar and the Gauls. They are pronouncing him "ver-sinn-GETT-o'rix". (Hard "G")

Well, I can say that that's how it's pronounced in Clermont-Ferrand and surrounding regions in Auvergne (which is where Vercingetorix lived, is commemorated in numerous plaques and statues throughout the city, and so forth). Hard G, and the x as "cks". Only quibble I'd have, I guess, is the last syllable's more of a "gecks" than a "gicks," but that may just be my ear misinterpreting the accent a little.

- Monk

Highland Guerilla04 May 2007 7:53 p.m. PST

Francois!

Tankrider04 May 2007 8:32 p.m. PST

Our local Gallic warchief goes by the name of

Vercingettinsum

Barmy Flutterz04 May 2007 8:52 p.m. PST

Eh,

Having traveled around a bit, I can say its pretty standard that people from 'here' can't pronounce anything from over 'there' correctly. And vice versa as well, as every 'here' is also a 'there'.

Well, except for the few scatter locations that could be classified as 'neither here nor there', but thats another story.

I mean, if that french girl can say 'Patawatomi' or 'Ticonderoga' without sounding like Inspector Clouseau, then I'm open to her criticism.

Then theres places that are spelled nothing like they're pronounced, like 'Vientiene Laos', wich is realy pronounced 'Wien-chone Lao'.

So basicly, i thinks its all just one big in-joke.

highlandcatfrog04 May 2007 9:02 p.m. PST

I'm so happy nobody got this yet – it's pronounced "Throat Warbler Mangrove".

No Name0205 May 2007 12:38 a.m. PST

Ver-sing-get-or-rix

cameronian05 May 2007 3:21 a.m. PST

versin – get-a-life? Who knows? Who cares? Probably not the guy's name anyway. More than likely some Roman made it up 'What's your name then, you barbarian pig? What? Spell it. Forget it. Vercingetorix will do. I can spell that.'

captain arjun Fezian05 May 2007 3:42 a.m. PST

Julius Caesar pronounced it loo-ser

00 Accident prone sheep mk205 May 2007 4:35 a.m. PST

ver-sine-gett-or-eeks

Stavka05 May 2007 5:12 a.m. PST

"Having traveled around a bit, I can say its pretty standard that people from 'here' can't pronounce anything from over 'there' correctly. And vice versa as well, as every 'here' is also a 'there'."

My folks always told me not to trust in heresay.

vtsaogames05 May 2007 5:30 a.m. PST

It's pronounced smith.

vojvoda05 May 2007 6:23 a.m. PST

They have some of their usual fluff on while I am waiting, this time featuring Caesar and the Gauls. They are pronouncing him "ver-sinn-GETT-o'rix". (Hard "G")

Hell I can't even spell it correctly! I saw the same program the other night. We must have been watching the same day.

Funny thing about the British programs is they always can not pronounce English correctly…
VR
James Mattes

TheWarStoreMan05 May 2007 7:00 a.m. PST

I rode with him. We called him 'Vince".

Neal

GildasFacit Sponsoring Member of TMP05 May 2007 7:05 a.m. PST

As the French no longer speak a language related to that spoken by the old guy I hardly think their pronounciation is more relaible that anyone elses guess.

Tony H

DrSkull05 May 2007 7:57 a.m. PST

The dude's name was preserved in Caesar's commentaries, written in Latin.

In first century Latin there was no soft "G", i.e., no "J" sound whatsoever. Also, the C was ALWAYS pronounced as a hard K, never as an S.

So, when his name was written down by Caeser, it would have been pronounced: Wer-kin-get-or-iks

BUT, if you are speaking modern English, it is perrfectly acceptable to pronounce the GET as JET and the KIN as SIN, as we aren't speaking Latin.

I'm teaching Caesar right now, and when the class reads the Latin alound, they are expected to say WER-KIN-GET-OR-IX, but in their English translations, they can say VER-SIN-JET-OR-IX. In other words, it's pronounced differently in Latin and in English, and so it will be pronounced differently in French too, and would have been different in the original Gaulish. I suspect that the Gaulish pronunciation was more similar to Caesar's Latin rendering than any other pronunciation, since he was writing based on actually hearing the name out loud.

Also, by the same token, "Julius Caesar" would have been pronounced "Yulius Kae-sar" (with the ae sounding like the English "eye" or "aye"). But, we have our own English pronunciation that is perfectly good in English.

P.S. when I was in grad school, my "stipend" was taxable, they just wouldn't withold the taxes, so I had to declare the taxes on my return and send it in later, which was a pain in the fundament.

Lucius05 May 2007 8:02 a.m. PST

The guy was stripped nekkid, prostrated, and executed after a parade.

Having his name mispronounced 2000 years later is the least of his problems.

Hundvig Fezian05 May 2007 8:05 a.m. PST

I'm in the History Channel pronunciation camp, personally. That assumes that various teachers and professors over the years weren't pronouncing it wrong themselves…

Space Monkey05 May 2007 11:24 a.m. PST

"Yulius Kae-sar"

So is that related at all to the much much later title of 'Kaiser'?

Florida Tory05 May 2007 11:28 a.m. PST

After a youth misspent taking a degree in classical linguistics, I second Dr. Skull.

Modern pronunciations of Latin actually vary quite radically depending on which part of Europe the speaker is from. You can notice this in a concert performance of a mass or other classical choral piece with Latin lyrics. The usual convention is to pronounce the Latin in the modern version as pronounced in the home country of the composer. There are distinct west European, north European and east European variations.

Rick

Lord Assur05 May 2007 11:44 a.m. PST

"So is that related at all to the much much later title of 'Kaiser'?"

Yes, also 'Tzar'

Personal logo Parzival Supporting Member of TMP05 May 2007 1:40 p.m. PST

And Csar.


Back to the topic: Some French chick with no background in historical scholarship or Latin pulls the "superior European knowledge" routine and tries to tell you how to pronounce a word which isn't French to begin with?!?

Feh. The French don't know how to pronounce anything anyway— even in their own language. Who in their right mind spells something C-H-A-L-E-T and pronounces it "shalay?" Why the heck did you use the "C" if you're going to pronounce it as an "S?' Why include the "T" if you're not going to say it at all?!?

Lesson one in speaking French: drop the last four consonants and make a sound like a goldfish puking. Congratulations— you can now pronounce any French word.

wink, of course.

And I'm in the wer-kin-GETT-or-iks and Yule-ee-us Kie-zar camp if I'm feeling all Latiny. Otherwise, it's ver-sin-GETT-or-iks and Jule-ee-us See-zer.
And you say all the Bleeped text consonants, Bleeped text-it.

John the OFM05 May 2007 3:11 p.m. PST

Parzival, she was too small and pretty to punch out. The French get away with a lot that way.

I have since found that the French like to slur everything together so that foreginers have a hard time understanding them.
Germans spit out every syllable, every single letter. Whether this is to make it easy for foreigners, I will not venture to say.

And, I am stunned that no one caught me out on my major Factual Error. It was the Fairey Swordfish, not the Gloucester Gladiator.

Jeremy Sutcliffe05 May 2007 3:32 p.m. PST

"In first century Latin there was no soft "G", i.e., no "J" sound whatsoever. Also, the C was ALWAYS pronounced as a hard K, never as an S."

Interesting.

So sisero was kickero

Jeremy Sutcliffe05 May 2007 3:33 p.m. PST

"And, I am stunned that no one caught me out on my major Factual Error. It was the Fairey Swordfish, not the Gloucester Gladiator."

No, we were just too polite to comment and embarass you.

Barmy Flutterz05 May 2007 6:32 p.m. PST

'Who in their right mind spells something C-H-A-L-E-T and pronounces it "shalay?" Why the heck did you use the "C" if you're going to pronounce it as an "S?' Why include the "T" if you're not going to say it at all?!?'

Well, were not exactly innocent as English speakers in this regard either. I mean, take the word tough. 'Tuff'. Then add an 'H' to make Though. 'The-owe'. What just happened?

My girlfriend is not a native english speaker and when I'm teaching some of this stuff, I dread the 'why' word.

Of course, we could blame the Normans for that, wich is almost as good as blaming the french.

Personal logo Parzival Supporting Member of TMP05 May 2007 8:35 p.m. PST

Of course, we could blame the Normans for that, wich is almost as good as blaming the french.

Yes, but since the French taught the Normans French, it is indeed obviously still the fault of the French, so we can go right on blaming the French. wink

aecurtis Fezian05 May 2007 8:41 p.m. PST

"And, I am stunned that no one caught me out on my major Factual Error. It was the Fairey Swordfish, not the Gloucester Gladiator."

"Twasn't "Gloucester", anyway. The aircraft manufacturer was Gloster--although prior to 1926, it was the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company.

Allen

Barmy Flutterz05 May 2007 8:41 p.m. PST

Yeah, thats where the bread crumbs lead, non?

Heh,

Take care

Pertti06 May 2007 5:05 a.m. PST

"In first century Latin there was no soft "G", i.e., no "J" sound whatsoever. Also, the C was ALWAYS pronounced as a hard K, never as an S."

But in modern latin, that is church latin, both 'c' and 'g' are pronounced soft before an 'e' or 'i'.

DrSkull06 May 2007 8:17 a.m. PST

But in modern latin, that is church latin, both 'c' and 'g' are pronounced soft before an 'e' or 'i'.

Yes, because Latin underwent a "palatization" sometime after the Classical Period (somewhere between the 3rd and 8th centuries I guess)

Because "e" and "i" are made by the tongue far forward in the mouth, it tends to drag a previous sound like "k" or "g" which are made far back in the mouth forward in anticipation.

This change happened in Latin pronunciation, changing k to s before e and i in Later Latin, but in Caesar's time, the change had not yet happened. We call tell this because Latin names written in Greek during this era, used Kappa, and not Sigma in those positions.

But, it is certainly perfectly correct to use the post-change sound in Church Latin.

Daffy Doug06 May 2007 10:36 a.m. PST

Ver-SING-eh-toricks

Daffy Doug06 May 2007 10:37 a.m. PST

He went by "Rick" though.

Personal logo Virtualscratchbuilder Supporting Member of TMP Fezian06 May 2007 7:47 p.m. PST

I thought it was a title anyway.. something akin to "temporary chief of chiefs cause we got problems".

CooperSteveatWork07 May 2007 1:42 a.m. PST

With my A-level in Latin I concur with DrSkull.

Akejony07 May 2007 2:08 a.m. PST

This is the kind of topic which makes me love TMP :-)

I especially appreciated those two:

>I rode with him. We called him 'Vince".
>Yes, but since the French taught the Normans French, it is indeed obviously still the fault of the French, so we can go right on blaming the French.

I will throw in my two cents.

1 Vercingétorix wasn't his real name anyway, in the sense of a firstname or lastname.
Gétorix was a generic name meaning "leader" by that time. The Eburons had their own Gétorix, the Vénètes (my neighbours) had their Gétorix, and so and so. The father of Vercingétorix was a Gétorix himself.

So I think Neal might be very close from the truth with his "Vince Gétorix".

2 I am a French Breton , living in Brittany, you of course have heard of this part of France where do live Asterix and Obelix (my secondary house is right on the basement of chief Abraracourcix' own house, and I have his parade shield which i found in the garden, in my dinner room).

Bretons have same roots than their celtic big island cousins, we do share some commun words, especially with welsh. We have bagpipes too (but no skirts, Jesus !).

What I mean: speaking breton, I could hardly understand a guy living like from 50 kms far from my area, there were some subtle variations which could alter the sense of the sentence, and the words themselves can be quite different or have different meanings. I will let you imagine what a mess it could be in the ancient Gaul, when it came to all those tribes with their specific sub-langages!

Also and about latin: i learnt latin at college, and I found phonetic wasn't the same than what my father had been taught. I am pretty much convinced that an old latin by -52 would have thought I was speaking some "chinese". (I hear you Dr Skull).

2 Yes french taught norman french, and we (normans/bretons) then tried to learn french to those pesky saxons, this is why you still have so many of our words in your langage. But we had to cut so many tongues that this is the reason why you' re now speaking as if you had some "gelee" in your mouth, so you might consider closing this topic, because whatever efforts you try, you will never ever be able to pronounce correctly the name : Vercingétorix" !! :-)

Brummie Lad07 May 2007 2:12 a.m. PST

"Of course, we could blame the Normans for that, wich is almost as good as blaming the french.

Yes, but since the French taught the Normans French, it is indeed obviously still the fault of the French, so we can go right on blaming the French!"

I really don't think that we as 'Englishmen' have any leg to stand on. I mean, we're in a country that has, as a base for it's language, French (by extension Latin), German, Norse, AND Celtic. I mean, how messed up is THAT??? Still, i agree with the above. Just blame it on the Frogs. S'all good! ;-)

walktapus07 May 2007 1:24 p.m. PST

<< Well, were not exactly innocent as English speakers in this regard either. I mean, take the word tough. 'Tuff'. Then add an 'H' to make Though. 'The-owe'. What just happened? >>

Though, through, plough, dough, cough
bomb tomb
food blood
… :-)

Sane Max08 May 2007 4:51 a.m. PST

"Interesting.

So sisero was kickero"

Indeed he was, and it means 'Chickpea'. Many of the other Cognomen were similarly odd and Nick-namey, makes the Late Republic sound like a classroom of schoolkids, with them all calling each other 'Handsome' (The Guy with the sticky out ears and acne), Bluey, Blondie, Knock-Knees etc.

Au (Claudius, Aurelius) is Pronounced as in OW!, or Cloud. J was Y, w was V… it makes all those Homely Latin Names we all know and love sound so very strange and alien.

Pat

lugal hdan15 May 2007 11:41 a.m. PST

On a related topic, I've often wondered if we're not losing something in the translation to NOT render names such as "Cicero" as "Chickpea".

JJartist16 May 2007 7:30 a.m. PST

V is W in ancient Roman (non-church) Latin. C is K as well.
JeffJ

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