Tuesday, October 8, 2024

18.12.24: Level 1; D’Ooge; Colloquia Latina [1]: listening

Listen to the recording and fill in the blanks with the words listed below.

Puella et mātrōna

P: [1] __________ est Galba?

M: Galba, puella, [2] __________ est.

P: [3] __________ in Ītaliā?

M: [4] __________, Genāvae est.

P: Ubi [5] __________ Genāva? [6] __________in prōvinciā Rōmānā est?

M: Minimē vērō, [7] __________ Helvētiā Genāva est.

P: Estne via [8] __________ [9] __________ Genāvam dūcit longa?

M: Via longa est et [10] __________ angustiās et silvās dūcit.

P: [11] __________ lingua incolārum est?

M: Lingua incolārum in memoriā meā [12] __________.

ad; est; estne; in; minimē vērō; nōn est; nōnne; per; procul; quae; quae; ubi

Note on pronunciation

In this little recording there is a feature that is worth noting although, if you’re still at an early stage, you don’t need to “copy” it: elision. Elision is where two vowels – one at the end of a word and one at the beginning of the next word – “fuse”, either by the omission of one of the vowels (which is a very obvious feature in CL poetry) or by slurring the vowels. That isn’t unusual because French does it all the time: ce + est > c’est; je ne + ai pas > je n’ai pas; the same feature is in Italian e.g. dov'è? And you would sound “peculiar” in everyday English if you said “she is going to the shops” because 99.99% of speakers would say “she’s”, “he’s”, wouldn’t they?

Listen in particular to how he pronounces:

Ub[i e]st Galba?

Nōnn[e i]n provinciā Rōmānā est.

Via long[a e]st.

This elision also applies to words ending in -m and followed by a vowel since, with strong evidence (including graffiti on the walls of Pompeii) that it was pronounced as a nasal as in French bon and Portuguese bom

Quae lingua incolāru[m e]st?

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