LET ME TELL YOU, AS A PERSIAN TO A GREEK…

Did people in ancient times have trouble with foreign languages?

29.07.2024

Alexander and Porus by Charles Le Brun, painted 1673/Wikimedia commons

When you read ancient literature, you often start to feel somewhat inferior. While describing travels in distant lands and encounters with foreigners, most authors in antiquity and the Middle Ages don't mention language problems at all. All their interlocutors effortlessly switch from Greek to Persian, from Arabic to Latin, and everyone understands the most ornate and florid expressions without issue. At most, they might note, ‘His Latin was a bit rough’, suggesting that the person they’d met was a soldier, not a scholar.

Incredibly, these polyglots learned new languages in just a few weeks. There could be many reasons for this, and perhaps languages were just simpler in ancient times, and people's ears were less sensitive to accents and grammatical errors.

Fortunately, a few ancient accounts have survived, demonstrating that things then were precisely like they are today!

Timotheus of Miletus,iAn ancient Greek poet who lived from 450–360 BCEprovides our first piece of evidence. His poem was discovered by sheer accident (as all such finds are) in the early twentieth century on a miraculously preserved papyrus recounting a battle between the Greeks and Persians. Intriguingly, midway through the surviving text, a Persian character shifts from speaking fluent Greek to using a distinct accent. In Mikhail Gasparov's translation, it sounds like this:

‘How me you what?

What matter?

Never back:

Bring me here, my king;

More, Father, no, no,

Never war here,

I sit quiet!

I not you here, I there—

Sardis, Susa, Ecbatana!iThese were ancient Persian cities

Artemis,iRomans and Greeks identified the Persian goddess Ardvi Sura Anahita with Artemismy great god,

In EphesusiA city on the coast of Asia Minorprotection!

The second example is from the Aeneid, the famous Roman epic written by Virgil.iVirgil was a Roman poet who lived from 70–19 BCE.In the text, a passage describes the Trojan heroes dressing in Greek armor to leave their hometown, which was already captured by the Greeks, unscathed. However, on the way, they can't resist joining the battle, and the Greeks identify them partly by their accents. It's important to understand that the Greeks came from different places and had different accents, which is evident even in literature; however, the Trojans were speaking another language altogether, and it's immediately noticeable that they have a distinct foreign accent. Here's what's said in the Aeneid (2.420–424):

‘Even those whom we managed to scatter and disperse
In the dark of night, by cunning,
Reappear here: the shields and false spears
They recognize at once, hearing our strange accent.’

Virgil in a Basket/Wikimedia Commons

However, such examples are exceptionally rare. The fact is, ancient authors were far more concerned with the clarity, precision, and beauty of their text than with authenticity and realism. Any ‘Me no understand you’ scenarios were represented in a polished manner on papyrus and parchment and read instead ‘It has come to my attention, O great king …’

Viktor Sonkin

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