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tongue twisters
Ready for a challenge? Quintilian, a Roman educator from the first century C.E., says kids learning to speak should practice with words with a chain of syllables that crash like ts et vluti confragss). Quintilian calls rocks (sllabs catn these words (chalino), which is Greek for Latin frn. Frn are horse bits. No, not bits of a horse. A frnus is a piece of metal that fits across the horses tongue and teeth. Tie a rope to each side of the frnus and you can steer the horse! These mosaics show famous charioteers holding their horses by the bit. Try the frn nfr. Why do you think the Romans call tongue twisters frn?
d u c I. un u
Focus on pronouncing u cnsonns and long vowels. I came, I saw, I conquered Gaius Iulius Caesar after the Battle of Zela, 47 B.C.E.
gina ma p I pr
gina II scunda p
nia fisset XI. s prcul Prcul Prcul Camp prcul Prcul Prculus pse fret
Focus on pronouncing final syllables. If Proculus home Campania is far away from Proculus, then Proculus himself is far away from Proculus. from a graveyard in Bologna, Italy for St. Proculus who died around 1390 C.E. Campania is 350 miles south of Bologna.
minum nuium mnim m nium nmium m n XII. m n mn minum immnui u u mnimum ulunt u
Focus on pronouncing /m/ and /n/. The smallest mimes of the snow gods hardly want the responsibility of finishing too much wall-wine while theyre alive. from the 12th-14th century Europe, part of a challenge to create the longest sentence with i, m, n, and u. This is what the sentence looks like in a printed book from 700 years ago:
XV. set quntum lctum quntum gmitum rum quntum fltum fctum aud vi quid lacrim
Focus on pronouncing similar sounds. But I heard so much crying, so much moaning, so many tears, so much weeping! Marcus Porcius Cato, a grumpy politician who lived about 2100 years ago
tur mrmota mnax XVIIII. quntum mtriae mteri ri s mrmota mnax mtriam pssit mteri
Focus on vowel length. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Modern