azforeman

azforeman, 2 months ago to linguisticsmemes

@linguisticsmemes

azforeman, 3 months ago to bookstodon

Hey want to see a fun way of reading the Bible?

Here's me reading Deuteronomy 31:24-32:43 in reconstruction, with the prose part done as if it were the early Second Temple and the actual song itself in something pretty archaic, with lateral fricatives and fully preserved diphthongs and everything.

Copious notes are on-screen rather than being consigned to a mammoth thread

@bookstodon @linguistics @histodons @poetry @jewishstudies

https://youtu.be/1bpM9MHsKpc

azforeman, 3 months ago to histodons

Hey want to see a fun way of reading the Bible?

Here's me reading Deuteronomy 31:24-32:43 in reconstruction, with the prose part done as if it were the early Second Temple and the actual song itself in something pretty archaic, with lateral fricatives and fully preserved diphthongs and everything.

Copious notes are on-screen rather than being consigned to a mammoth thread

@linguistics @histodons @poetry @jewishstudies

https://youtu.be/1bpM9MHsKpc

azforeman, 3 months ago to histodons

In which I read Deuteronomy 6:4-6 in in six different reconstructed historical pronunciations of Biblical Hebrew, from the 8th century BCE to the 10th century CE

https://youtu.be/S2l-YLsCY7s

@jewishstudies @linguistics @histodons @medievodons

azforeman, 4 months ago to poetry

Video of me reciting a short poem by Adunis in Arabic and then in English

Prophecy
By Adunis

Out of our thousand-year-old sleep,
Out of our stunted history,
To the country dug grave-like into our lives,
To this drugged, murdered land,
A reverenceless sun arrives
To kill the sheikh of locusts and of sand
And time that grows on its plains
And withers on its plains
Like fungus
Up from behind this bridge comes dawn
Of a death-loving, destroyer sun.

@poetry

https://youtu.be/OX_5fRl-zLc

azforeman, 4 months ago to random

Seriously, what in Apollo's buttcrack is the deal with rightwingers having an absolute normal one over Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce all of a sudden? I don't even like her music but the right wing being such absolute weirdos at her for no reason just makes me want to stan her on general principle.

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

In which I recite the prologue to Romeo and Juliet in early 17th century English pronunciation, about two households /boːθ ələik ɪn dɪɡnɪtəi/

Note the mid-vowel /eː/ in "scene", the lower front vowel /æː/ of "make", the diphthong preserved in "pair", the velar fricative in "nought", the rounded vowel in "grudge", the non-raised TRAP vowel in "hand" and the preserved voiceless "wh" sound

@linguistics @litstudies @histodons @histodon @bookstodon @poetry

video/mp4

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

This is a passage from Romeo and Juliet in the so-called "original pronunciation" i.e. a reconstruction of how London English (or rather a couple varieties thereof) was pronounced in the early 1600s, from your friendly neighborhood historical linguist and poetry nerd. For this one I gave Mercutio a somewhat more innovative accent than Romeo, with raising and monophthongization of the WAIT vowel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTuYBw-RPU0

@linguistics @histodons @litstudies @poetry @bookstodon

azforeman, 4 months ago to linguistics

@linguistics

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read Milton's "Methought I saw my late espousèd saint" in a reconstruction of mid-17th century London pronunciation

@linguistics
@litstudies @poetry
@bookstodon @histodons

video/mp4

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read the villain's opening monologue from Richard the Third in a reconstruction of early 17th century pronunciation. (I used a monophthongized and raised WAIT vowel, unlike some of my other readings)

"Now is the winter of our discontent..."

@linguistics
@litstudies
@poetry
@bookstodon
@histodons

video/mp4

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read Sir Thomas Wyatt's poem on the death of Anne Boleyn in a reconstruction of early 16th century pronunciation

@linguistics @histodons @medievodons
@poetry
@bookstodon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kAbEo6GjAI

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read Shakespeare's sonnet 6 ("Then let not winter's ragged hand deface") in a reconstruction of early 17th century pronunciation

@bookstodon @histodons
@litstudies
@poetry
@linguistics

https://youtu.be/WneX9ypFopU

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read Shakespeare's sonnet 6 ("Then let not winter's ragged hand deface") in a reconstruction of early 17th century pronunciation

@bookstodon
@bookstodons @histodons
@litstudies
@poetry

https://youtu.be/WneX9ypFopU

azforeman, 4 months ago to jewishstudies

In which I read Nathan Alterman's poem "Moon" in Hebrew & then in my English translation

"Even an old landscape has a moment of its birth.
The strange, impregnable
And birdless skies.
Under your window, moonlit on the earth,
Your city bathes in cricket-cries...."

https://youtu.be/WB8e1t2ZAC0

@poetry @jewishstudies @languagelovers
@literature
@litstudies

azforeman, 4 months ago to histodons

Ever wondered what it would be like to have Milton's Paradise Lost as an audiobook in mid-17th century pronunciation?

Probably not. But I did that with a part of book 1 anyway.

@linguistics @histodons
@poetry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiqgHoR-yaw

azforeman, 4 months ago to random

Alceste Can't Take No More
(From Molière's "The Misanthrope")
Tr. from French

..........It is no joke, believe you me.
On this point, I let no one off scot free.
Too much has scarred my eyes. All I have seen
In court or town just irritates my spleen.
I fall to dark depression at the view
Of humans interacting as they do.
Everywhere: sycophantic flattery,
Self-interest, cons, injustice, treachery...
I've had it with the bullshit, and my mind
Is set on breaking up with all mankind.

azforeman, 4 months ago to poetry

In which I read Baudelaire's "Correspondances" first in French, then in my English translation

@poetry

video/mp4

azforeman, 4 months ago to linguistics

Table of contents for all the readings of Shakespeare's sonnets in Early Modern pronunciation that I've done so far. Asterisked ones are available publicly. The rest are available to subscribers.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/75623729

@linguistics

azforeman, 4 months ago to italianstudies

"You know this"
By Eugenio Montale
Tr. from Italian

You know this: I must lose you and cannot.
So like a well-aimed shot I feel
Every deed, every cry, even the salt spray
Whelming the quay
That makes spring
Dark on the gates of Genoa.

Country of ironwork & wood of ship-masts,
Like a forest in the dust of eve.
A drone is drawn out of wide open space,
Scraping like a nail on panes. I seek the sign
I have long lost, the one pledge ever mine
from you.
And hell is for certain

@italianstudies

video/mp4

azforeman, 4 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read Shakespeare's sonnet 8 ("Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?") in a reconstruction of early 17th century pronunciation

https://youtu.be/GqzhMrPzjQI

@bookstodon @histodons @linguistics
@litstudies

azforeman, 5 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read the first 201 lines of Beowulf in a reconstruction of how it might have sounded in a dialect of Early Mercian

@linguistics
@medievodons
@bookstodon
@histodons

https://www.patreon.com/posts/dawn-of-things-1-94137461

azforeman, 6 months ago to jewishstudies

Made another recording in a reconstruction of medieval Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation. This reading includes the same psalm read twice, once in a normal albeit very slow speaking voice, and again with "Shaami" cantillation.

@jewishstudies
@medievodons
@linguistics

https://youtu.be/dLgzPeAstlQ

azforeman, 6 months ago to histodons

In which I read Psalm 117 in a reconstruction of Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation. First in a speaking voice, then with cantillation.

@linguistics
@jewishstudies
@histodons

https://youtu.be/kJgG2Z7P2QU

azforeman, 6 months ago to bookstodon

In which I read 2 Samuel 1 (which I call "The Grief of David") in a reconstruction of medieval Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation.

This extinct pronunciation, used by the Masoretes in Early Medieval Galilee, is the one the Hebrew vowel signs were actually designed to record.

@linguistics @jewishstudies
@histodons
@medievodons
@bookstodon

https://youtu.be/L646rpazq6k