logoalt Hacker News

vunderbatoday at 2:04 AM3 repliesview on HN

He's also (to my knowledge) one of the only major Hollywood actors to ever star in a movie filmed entirely in esperanto. I've heard that the pronunciation is rather rough around the edges though I have no way of corroborating that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_(1966_film)


Replies

eucyclostoday at 6:29 AM

I'd heard of this movie before and had to check it out - the scene I watched where he was speaking to who I assume is the female lead sounded like an American and an Italian both speaking perfectly passable Esperanto. If I were to nitpick his i's were a little soft - Esperanto i's are canonically pronounced ee - but Esperanto was made to accommodate lots of different accents without losing comprehensibility and it did that here. I actually found his Esperanto easier to follow than the girl's, but that's probably because I learned Esperanto from people speaking it with Canadian accents.

jimbokuntoday at 5:23 AM

Shatner speaks Esperanto with a perfect native accent. Everyone else is pronouncing it wrong.

show 2 replies
peatmosstoday at 3:51 AM

When I watched Incubus I remember him sounding very much like he was trying to speak Italian. My only basis for comparison are some podcasts in Esperanto I've listened to, and completion of the duolingo course (I've forgotten everything).