History questions not worth their own thread IV

[MagisterCultuum]

That's a question for Dachs or Bill. I thought the hard C was a Greek thing. I didn't realise it was also in Latin. I knew of the hard C replacing the letter G (as in Gaius becoming Kaius) but not of it replacing the soft C.

In Classical Latin, the letter C was always hard, never soft. (The same goes for the letter G.)

In Church Latin, the letter C is palatalized (turns into a Ch sound) when followed by ae, oe, e, i, or y, but is still supposed to be hard otherwise. Similarly, the letter G is soft (like J) before front vowels.

(The Ecclesiastical pronunciation was standardized in the 19th century, based on contemporary Italian pronunciations. Before that, Churchmen tended to pronounce Latin like they did their native languages, which could cause all kinds of confusion. Ecclesiastical pronunciation is much better than the traditional English pronunciations of Latin, but can still be a bit confusing. The big problem is not the palatalization, but the fact that the diphthongs AE and OE are both pronounced the same as the letter E. It can be hard to guess which is being used, which can significantly change the meanings of some words. You don't get such confusion in Classical Latin, where the sounds are very distinct.)


In Archaic Latin, the letter C (which was derived from the Greek Gamma) was pronounced like the letter G (/g/). By the 3rd century, the letter K (derived from the Greek Kappa) was falling out of favor (although it continued to be used, at least when followed by the letter A, to transcribe foreign words or sometimes just make something seem exotic) and the letter C came to be used for both sounds. The (/g/) and (/k/) sounds were practically used in free exchange for a while, but the C (/k/) sound was more common. The letter G (called "C cum linea," or "C with a line") was a variant of C invented for cases when they wanted to be sure that the old voiced G (/g/) pronunciation was used.

(The letter C continued to be used in abbreviations of words, mostly proper names, even after almost everyone used the letter G when writing them in full. For example, C. denoted the praenomen Gaius and Cn. denoted Gnaeus. I believe that C also remained more common on public engravings while G was used more in manuscripts.)

Historical accounts credit Spurius Carvilius Ruga (a former slave who around 230 BC started the first school in Rome that was open to the public for a modest fee) with inventing the letter G (perhaps because he got tired of people mispronouncing his name, which was written RVCA), but some archeological evidence shows it was occasionally used before his time. He may have popularized its use though, or perhaps been the first to consider it a distinct letter rather than treating the line as a diacritical mark. He is said to have eliminated the letter Z from the Latin alphabet in order for the new letter to have a place in the alphabetical order. (Z was never used in native Latin words, and some say the Censor Appius Claudius had already expunged it from the list.) Z was borrowed back from Greek centuries latter, once transcribing foreign words became more important. The letter Y ("I-Graeca" or "the Greek I") had already been introduced by then.



Caesar was probably pronounced with a G sound originally, but I'm pretty sure it had a hard C (so it was pronounced like the Gernam Kaisar) by the time of C. Julius Caesar. It is possible that some rustic dialects retained the G sound though, as they tended to be more conservative.

 

[Agent327]

I imagine it would. G did not exist in Latin. Gaius Julius Caesar is traditionally written CAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR

C's are always hard in Latin, and Æ should be pronounced as in "eye". So I imagine it would be pronounced kaɪz.eɹ.ɪk or ik, but I'm not sure; my area of interest is not Latin.

Correct. (Hence the derivation of both the German Kaiser and the Russian Czar from Caesar. As MC explains, pronunciation evolved in the post-Roman era away from the original.)

 

[r16]

sometime in the future ı hope to keep on with my regular rant , but it's ...

since one can't quote quotes , this post adds somewhat to #2020 . Somewhat , as it's a regular wall of pointless text .

any proper discussion of history should be based on evidence , preferably documents accessible for all . Without that claims inevitably remain claims . Even when fully documented events might still be conjectural or any other similarly nice words . Afterall , how can a remark be proved or otherwise if it's that some really important Israeli person said that the best looking girls in the country would be available for pilots -as far as such things can be arranged- and this was an important element in the Israeli success in dogfights with the Arabs ? Because manly desires and a guarantee for them to be fullfilled would attract those with ambitions like fireflies to a electric light on a dark night , just like those youth all over the world who applied to the Airforce Schools of their respective countries after seeing Top Gun , envisioning to be with some Kelly McGillis in the years to come . In the case of Israelis , those who failed to match the very high standarts required were automatically available for tanks , providing a mass of recruits with drive and stuff , very suitable for the armoured dash the Israelis were particularly renowned in 1967 . It's very subjective and so on .


me ? Seeing Top Gun 14 and a half times before buying the DVD , McGillis wasn't particularly noteworthy . See , the first time ı saw a Tomcat was a morning in 1982 or 1983 maybe ; a school kid who would regularly run outside at the sound of jets , there was one overhead , wings swept halfway and a second in the distance flying over the factory that produces animal feed ; the two possibly on a TARPS mission in some NATO exercise , the probable target the nearby civilian airfield . Do you ever read me saying anything negative about the F-14 ?

then there is the reliability issue . There is "always" an agenda and it can't be helped . Because it's good copy , that reading about aces , the official Israeli claim is -or was at some point- they downed 58 Arab planes for some two losses in aerial combat and (their pilots being supermen) with gunfire so unlike all those Americans and the rest who had to rely on missiles . Which neatly ignores the MiG-21 , brought in by an Iraqi defector and flown in home-defence which was involved in the saga of the single Iraqi Tu-16 which became an American B-47 , suitably right on the night before orders were issued for the attack on USS Liberty . Or the overall scores business . ı have always liked Mike Spick's books , which is another collection promised some time in the future and the Ace Factor -which ı bought myself- has the counter-attack on Iraq . And memoirs of the Israeli pilots clearly indicate at least 3 Israeli planes were shot down in that single engagement .

overclaiming is not limited to any particular nation or culture group . There is an aviation site that originated as a place where people could debate who shot down what . Their recent conclusions suggest the US claims
against Iraq in 1991 , namely 34+ kills with no losses are wrong . The true number is something like 24 or 27 . Seen elsewhere the blood curdling image that was captured by the HUD of a MiG-29 , a Sparrow missile coming straight-on to kill the said MiG , is a fake . For the American pilot was "dogfighting a speck on his canopy" . Strangely in light of the fact that Iraqis didn't claim any victories before 1997 , now 3 American planes are assumed to be shot down air to air . An F-15 damaged by MiG-25s which glided long enough to crash beyond the Saudi border , an F-14 downed by either '25s or Fulcrums and the current gospel truth , Speicher's F-18 by MiG-25 . Hah , the interesting thing will be when they are finally able to "discover" the F-16 that went down late in the war ; where the missile contrails were HARMs fired by other units in the area and the cause were faulty fuses that went on as soon as they got the kick from the ejector racks that carried the bombs the F-16 had just dropped . See , one each from the US "Teens" ... Which is the sole reason of sorts for the F-14 and 15 claims . Iraqis had a "tradition" of breaking away whenever they were illuminated by Tomcat radars , don't know how they would be on that VF-102 jet anyhow . ı will credit them with downing that Iranian defector though ; else any claims for F-14s including those by French exchange pilots in Iraqi service are all "yeah, right."

the Speicher saga is also long-running . Now declared dead , he would be brought up whenever necessary though ı don't know what was that about at all . Afterwards the USN provided F-14 cover for its planes , instead of trusting F-15 CAPs that couldn't be everywhere at the same time and no such thing happened ... Those who killed the US Teens are all Western types , which should have made it a SAM in Speicher's case . ( The Greeks and us have unfortunately have added some to those statistics . Apparently up to 9 aircraft have gone down since 1974 though ı am not sure about the actual numbers or types . )

which once again brings us back to evidence . The evidence tends to be out there in the minutea of stuff , to be discovered -only if somebody sifts through all the stuff . Back in 2008 or so , ı looked up on the web for any reference to HEAT tank rounds in WW2 service . They had to be around , considering the spectacular debut of the Bazooka , but the result was quite a zero . Then somebody wrote an Osprey title on German anti-tank guns and now you possibly can find a hundred threads with solid discussion . Kinda important in explaining why Germans have this reputation being technological wizards with the best tanks and how the Allies eternally sucked in tank to tank . History keeps evolving , even changing . For this one must be thankful to the requirement for the historian to say something , anything new .

which at times can lead to "lively" debates . Some other authors have gone through tons of German records ; an effort of 22 years . As far as ı can see from their title , they did see a few times on official German records that referred to the PzKwPf VII as the Koenigstiger , on loading bills when they were to be railroaded somewhere . Elsewhere the Tiger II is just Tiger II , just like Panther II would be Panther II , had it been fielded before Germany lost the war . But people are already claiming -armed with such evidence- the English name to that Panzer is wrong ; it has to be Bengaltiger instead of Kingtiger , with vehement name-calling as a result . Since the opposition is also well armed documentation that the Germans never called it anything but a Tiger II . Actually it's King's Tiger ...

see , when the original boxy Tiger made its debut , it quickly made an impression ; making necessary sense in that the Japanese could accept it as well . Tasked with an eventual invasion of Japan , the USN studied the implications . American tanks would have to be heavier and larger if they were to face the German "cat" on equal terms , driving up the requirements of the ships that were to carry them overseas , neverminding those LCMs to land them on hostile shores . As a safety factor (since ships that were to fight in 1944 had to be built in 1943 and so on ) possible avenues of development were also considered -on Ernest King's written note of demand . Heavier and sloped armour , larger guns on Axis tanks would have meant similar American response . The US had some 70 ton tanks in development too . Moving forward to '44 the British intel reported the Tiger II , but since the USN CNO was such a staunch Anglophobe , it was deemed unclassy to accept he was right in forecasting such a development . Hence the Royaltiger , which the German intel reported as "Die foolische Britische callingen unserem Panzerkampwagen Tiger II as Koenigstiger" and American intel naturally reported there was something called Kingstiger in German service . " Bengaltiger , what Bengaltiger , can't you read , the captured document says King here ... "

 

[Plotinus]

Moderator Action: Despite the laudable attempt to start a discussion about ancient pronunciation, I think this thread has gone beyond redemption.

I'm going to close it and start a new one. Please don't troll each other in it.