The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #168419 Message #4068844
Posted By: Lighter
19-Aug-20 - 12:52 PM
Thread Name: BBC-NI Early English, Old Norse 'sonic footprints"
Subject: RE: BBC-NI Early English, Old Norse 'sonic footprints"
> "Can we bring back to life for modern audiences the original expressive power and immediacy of those ancient voices?" he asked.
Obviously not. All you can do is try to imitate the "voices" (i.e., phonetics), and present them via speakers trying hard to reproduce reconstructed accents they've never heard before, for modern audiences whose heads are filled with all kinds of post-medieval associations, while lacking the medieval cultural ideas that the original sources took for granted.
"Immediacy" is hearing the real thing, not listening to what you know is a reconstruction made 1500 years later, and having to read a printed translation, to boot.
The project does sound like fun, though. At least they're trying.