Re: Languages in Gibson's Passion

On Tuesday, March 9, 2004, at 04:11 AM, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 08:03:28PM -0000, And Rosta wrote:
>> John L. Leland:
>>> I saw this film yesterday and was struck by several things that seemed
>>> to me linguistic incongruities:
>
> This has been discussed in some depth on sci.lang; you might want to
> take a look at that discussion.  The principal thread is available here:
>
>         http://xrl.us/bpzh (Link to groups.google.com)
>
> Basically, the discrepancies were artistic decisions jointly made by
> Gibson and the scholar responsible for the language, one Rev. William
> Fulco, who were fully aware of the historical inaccuracy of some of the
> choices.  Personaly I'm completely boggled by the exclusion of Greek,
> especially from the inscription over the cross,
Well, yes - the exclusion of Greek is very odd. It wouldn't exactly have
been difficult to get the inscription right - copies of the Greek New
Testament are not exactly uncommon!

But we have a drama unfolding in that part of the Empire where Greek had
long been established as the de_facto IAL. It would've been difficult not
to have heard any Greek.

> but I can see where
> having Pilate speak Aramaic and Jesus answer in Latin would be good
> theatre.  "Ha-ha!  I can speak to you in your language!"  "Ha-HA!  So
> can I!"
Might be good theatre - but there is _no_ warranty for it from the Gospel
accounts. Indeed, the picture given surely suggests that such scoring of
points is the last thing that happened.

> The Latin is purportedly Vulgar, and certainly not Classical.
I haven't seen the film, but I understand it's coming to our little market
town round about Easter time, so I can't comment on the Latin.

> given an Ecclesiastical-sounding pronunciation, which is probably not
> correct, but then the Restored Classical wouldn't be either.
The Ecclesiastical pronunciation is certainly not correct for any sort of
Latin round about 30 CE. It would probably not have been too different
from the Restored Classical as long they didn't sound all those silent
final -Ms, and remembered to drop their aitches  :)

Ray
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