63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

Roman authors on colloquial language 25
luminibus utatur, potius poema putandum quam comicorum poetarum; apud
quos, nisi quod versiculi sunt, nihil est aliud cotidiani dissimile sermonis. (Orat. 67;
cf. Jonge 2008: 364–5)
For whatever falls into some measurement by the ears, even if it falls short of being
verse – for that indeed is a fault in oratory – is called measure, in Greek .
Therefore I know some have thought that the language of Plato and Democritus,
even if it is removed from verse, is nevertheless, because it is delivered more rapidly
and with superb verbal flashes, to be considered poetry more than that of the
comic poets; their language, apart from the fact that it consists of verses, does not
differ at all from everyday conversation.
Here the notion that formal prose falls between verse and everyday language
is given something of a twist, since some formal prose turns out
to be more poetic than the verse of comedy. We should, however, be
wary of seeing everything in serious (Greek or Latin) poetry as belonging
to a non-conversational register, in view of Cicero’s contention that
Homer, Ennius, the other poets and especially the tragedians need not
always use the same contentio (here ‘rhetorical style’) but may make
frequent changes and non numquam etiam ad cotidianum genus sermonis
accederent ‘sometimes they may even approach everyday conversation’
(Orat. 109, cf.p.132 below).
In addition to the provision or suggestion of some actual examples of
conversational language or the simple rhetorical style, various authors note
qualities of conversational language or of the style of oratory that comes
close to it.
We have mentioned (section 2.2 above) the four varieties into which the
Rhetorica ad Herennium divides the voice quality sermo: dignitas, demonstratio,
narratio and iocatio. Thesedifferfromoneanotherinpaceandin
the use of pauses as well as in other respects that we would consider to
belong to ‘tone of voice’ (Rhet. Her. 3.24–5). Narratio is itself characterised
by variety of pace and tone (3.24). Although sermo and its various subdivisions
are not intended as descriptions of everyday speaking, the closeness of
sermo to everyday speaking suggests that variation in the use of the voice,
and in pace and the use of pauses, characterised everyday speaking too.
It would, of course, be very surprising if Romans ordinarily spoke in a
monotone.
As regards more narrowly linguistic or rhetorical features, frequent
points are that conversational language and the associated simple style are
unadorned (e.g. Rhet. Her. 4.69, mentioned above), or more specifically
that they lack figures of speech (e.g. Quint. Inst. 9.3.3, mentioned above),
archaisms (Cicero De orat. 3.153, quoted above), neologisms, periphrases