[Ansteorra] High Persona

[Quill]

All of /my/ ancestors were fancy talkers! They'd have had to have been!
*grin*

But seriously, Robin is right, and particularly in regards to how people
"speak", there's really no way to tell what anyone sounded like more than a
hundred years ago. The most we might have to go on is description by one
person of another person's mode of speech, and usually this would be
delivered with a serious slant. ("YOU, plebian, speak Latin like a pig. You
must be from Scotland!")

No one can tell you you're not /speaking/ in period. The records we have of
language are purely scholarly, and quite often the way we write and the way
we talk are quite different. If you think your 12th century persona would
have sounded like he came from N'wallins, then by god he probably did! Who's
to say that a medieval "Roman" accent wouldn't have sounded like a modern
French one? Nobody.

I seem to remember some discussion about the use of "Vivat"; what does it
mean, is it period, "oh god what an awful perversion of Latin it is!", etc.
But I feel more a part of the Dream when everyone shouts "Vivat" together,
regardless of documentation for meaning and proper Latin grammar and
pronunciation when the spirit of the occasion rises and sweeps us away, than
I would if someone tried to talk to me in a weird Yorkshire/east London
crossbred accent laced with the Texan "r" while trying to sound as flowery
as Shakespeare. (Spare me!)

A note aside: I would love to meet a historical re-enactor who portrays
Charlemagne. My medieval studies professor last year told us he squeaked and
had a lisp. How can a man (a FRENCH man!) conquer the world while squeaking?
Fascinating...

My whole point being (and as a linguist it feels weird to put it like this)
the /way/ you talk is just one part of your persona, and ultimately not a
huge part of it unless you want it to be. If that's what's keeping anyone
from joining in the persona play, don't let it!

"8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the
earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it
called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the
earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all
the earth." Gen. 11:8-9"


Cuillioc /|\ "Quill"
Amateur Babbler



> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: "Jay Rudin" <rudin at ev1.net>
> > To: "Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc." < ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
> > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:02:28 -0600
> > Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] High Personna
> > Troy Bertram wrote:
> >
> >
> > >I agree with you 100%.  I try to act in a way that my 12th century
> > persona
> > > would.  My problem is that I am too much of a mushmouth to articulate
> > the
> > > way a 12th century persona would.  Something I need to work on... :)
> >
> > Then be a 12th century mushmouth.  You can't have a persona who is more
> > articulate than you are, any more than you can have a persona of a
> > person
> > who fights better than you or be a shoemaker if you don't make shoes.
> >  It
> > is *not true* that all of our forebears were fancy talkers.
> >
> > Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin
> >
> >
> >
>

 --
In service to The Dream and Dreamers all,
Cuillioc /|\ "Quill"
Titled Bard of the Barony of Bonwicke

"It is said that the Devil never crossed the Tamar into Cornwall on account
of the well-known habit of Cornish women of putting everything into a pasty,
and that he was not sufficiently courageous to risk such a fate!"

-From the cookbook Cornish Recipes Ancient and Modern