History Main / TheQueensLatin

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' gives most important character British accents for [[KansaiRegionalAccent regional accent conversion]]. Pickham residents, for example, all speak cockney, Princess Minnie speaks with the Royal We, and the owner of the Sabrecat Trust speaks with an upper class RP so ludicrously pompous that it's played for laughs. His assistant Tom speaks...something. Exceptions include Morrie, the eccentric owner of the Monster Arena, who is voiced with an Italian accent and Italian words peppered through his dialogue, the entire city of Baccarat (which is centered around an enormous casino and hotel) is apparently American, and the snowy northern region of Orkutsk is very obviously Russian.

* Probably parodied in ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian''. Sure, it's a British comedy production, so obviously everyone has the accents, but the Jews all have modern-day English names to go with it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePrinceOfEgypt'', all the Egyptians have English accents, and the Hebrews and Midianites sound American. One would think Moses might have realized something was up with his parentage long before Miriam clued him in, given that he had the only American accent in Pharaoh's palace.

This trope leads many Ancient Roman (or Ancient Greek, Trojan, etc.) characters to not only sound but also physically look like Anglo-Saxons rather than Romans (or Greeks, etc.). Historians have speculated that the average Roman man had tan or olive skin, usually dark hair[[note]]This can be deduced from the fact that when the Empire expanded into Gaul, Germany and Britain, the existence of people with blonde and red hair caused a sensation in Rome as nobody had ever seen this before. When the first blonde slaves were shipped back, people competed to own them, driving up their prices, and Roman women frequently shaved the unfortunate slaves for their hair so as to turn it into wigs. Then they discovered bleaching... [[/note]], and stood about 5-foot-6. The Roman Empire reached Northwestern Europe, but Romans weren't ''all'' Northwestern Europeans. (This particular bit of CreatorProvincialism also leads, even more egregiously, to Biblical characters -- ancient people from the Middle East -- looking a lot like Northwestern Europeans in Northwestern European art. Admittedly the artists possibly weren't aware they might have looked rather different, and if they were, the inauthenticity probably wouldn't have troubled artistic sensibilities until fairly recently.) Probably the closest thing to TruthInTelevision for this trope is UsefulNotes/{{Gibraltar}}, which is a British Overseas Territory in Southern Europe near the southern tip of Spain in the Mediterranean, with a large chunk of the population actually being of Italian descent (particularly Genoese) in addition to British, as well as being descended from other Latin Southern Europeans like Spaniards (especially Andalusians), Portuguese and Maltese.

* [[DiscussedTrope Called out by name]] in the [[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-queens-latin/ "The Queen's Latin"]] essays on Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry, which discuss the complexities of historical ancient Roman identity - i.e., if the Romans weren't actually a bunch of Northwestern Europeans with posh accents, what were they really like?

This trope leads many Ancient Roman (or Ancient Greek, Trojan, etc.) characters to not only sound but also physically look like Anglo-Saxons rather than Romans (or Greeks, etc.). Historians have speculated that the average Roman man had tan or olive skin, usually dark hair[[note]]This can be deduced from the fact that when the Empire expanded into Gaul, Germany and Britain, the existence of people with blonde and red hair caused a sensation in Rome as nobody had ever seen this before. When the first blonde slaves were shipped back, people competed to own them, driving up their prices, and Roman women frequently shaved the unfortunate slaves for their hair so as to turn it into wigs. Then they discovered bleaching... [[/note]], and stood about 5-foot-6. The Roman Empire reached Northern Europe, but Romans weren't ''all'' Northern Europeans. (This particular bit of CreatorProvincialism also leads, even more egregiously, to Biblical characters -- ancient people from the Middle East -- looking a lot like Northern Europeans in Northern European art. Admittedly the artists possibly weren't aware they might have looked rather different, and if they were, the inauthenticity probably wouldn't have troubled artistic sensibilities until fairly recently.) Probably the closest thing to TruthInTelevision for this trope is UsefulNotes/{{Gibraltar}}, which is a British Overseas Territory in Southern Europe near the southern tip of Spain in the Mediterranean, with a large chunk of the population actually being of Italian descent (particularly Genoese) in addition to British, as well as being descended from other Latin Southern Europeans like Spaniards (especially Andalusians), Portuguese and Maltese.

* [[DiscussedTrope Called out by name]] in the [[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-queens-latin/ "The Queen's Latin"]] essays on Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry, which discuss the complexities of historical ancient Roman identity - i.e., if the Romans weren't actually a bunch of Northern Europeans with posh accents, what were they really like?

* In ''Film/ThePrincessBride'', almost every character in the nation of Florin not identified as being from elsewhere speaks with a British accent of some sort. The word "florin" is Italian in origin, although its best known meaning is [[OldBritishMoney a British coin of the 19th and 20th centuries]].

* Parodied in ''Film/{{DeadPoetsSociety}}'', when Keating does impressions of how the students might have seen Shakespeare performed. One is exactly this trope, with characters in ancient Rome speaking with refined British accents: "''O Titus, bring your friend hither ...''"

* In ''Film/ThePrincessBride'', almost every character in the nation of Florin not identified as being from elsewhere speaks with a British accent of some sort, even though the word "florin" is Italian in origin.

This trope leads many Ancient Roman (or Ancient Greek, Trojan, etc.) characters to not only sound but also physically look like Anglo-Saxons rather than Romans (or Greeks, etc.). Historians have speculated that the average Roman man had tan or olive skin, usually dark hair[[note]]This can be deduced from the fact that when the Empire expanded into Gaul, Germany and Britain, the existence of people with blonde and red hair caused a sensation in Rome as nobody had ever seen this before. When the first blonde slaves were shipped back, people competed to own them, driving up their prices, and Roman women frequently shaved the unfortunate slaves for their hair so as to turn it into wigs. Then they discovered bleaching... [[/note]], and stood about 5-foot-6. The Roman Empire reached Northwestern Europe, but Romans weren't ''all'' Northwestern Europeans. (This particular bit of CreatorProvincialism also leads, even more egregiously, to Biblical characters -- ancient people from the Middle East -- looking a lot like Northwestern Europeans in Northwestern European art. Admittedly the artists possibly weren't aware they might have looked rather different, and if they were, the inauthenticity probably wouldn't have troubled artistic sensibilities until fairly recently.) Probably the closest thing to TruthInTelevision for this trope is UsefulNotes/{{Gibraltar}}, which is a British Overseas Territory in Southern Europe near the southern tip of Spain in the Mediterranean, with a large chunk of the population actually being of Italian descent (particularly Genoese) in addition to British, as well as being descended from other Latin Southern Europeans like Spaniards (especially Andalusians), Portuguese and Maltese.

* [[DiscussedTrope Called out by name]] in the [[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-queens-latin/ "The Queen's Latin"]] essays on Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry, which discuss the complexities of historical ancient Roman identity - i.e., if the Romans weren't actually a bunch of Northwestern Europeans with posh accents, what were they really like?

* ''Film/EverAfter'' has British English spoken (including a catastrophic attempt at it by Creator/DrewBarrymore) by people supposedly living in 16th-century France, as well as UsefulNotes/LeonardoDaVinci.

** Rose Tyler asks the Ninth Doctor, "If you are an alien, how comes you sound like you're from the North [of England]?" "Lots of planets have a North!"

* The entire English voice cast of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' are British, leading to this trope. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' takes things to the next level, with every nation in the game depicted with a specific accent: Leftherians have Northern English accents, Ardainians have Scottish accents, Gormotti have Welsh accents, Urayans have Australian accents, Tantalese and Tornans have Southern English accents (with the royalty using RP), the Indoline have Mid-Atlantic accents, and [[LivingWeapon Blades]] all have American accents, as do some of the {{Crossover}} characters such as [[VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} KOS-MOS]] and [[VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX Elma]]. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' continues this trend, with most characters running the whole gamut of British accents but a select few having Australian or American accents.

* The entire English voice cast of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' are British, leading to this trope. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' takes things to the next level, with every nation in the game depicted with a specific accent: Leftherians have a Northern accent, Ardainians have a Scottish accent, Gormotti have a Welsh accent, Urayans have an Australian accent, Tantalese and Tornans have RP, the Indoline have a Mid-Atlantic accent, and [[LivingWeapon Blades]] all have American accents, as do some of the {{Crossover}} characters such as [[VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} KOS-MOS]] and [[VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX Elma]]. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' continues this trend, with most characters running the whole gamut of British accents but a select few having Australian or American accents.

* Subverted in the Roman section of ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Back and Forth''. The Roman characters start off speaking in The Queen's Latin until an officer arrives who congratulates them on practicing the local (British) language and then continues in actual Latin. RuleOfFunny applies, as the actual local language at this time would be akin to an archaic form of Welsh.

In any case, using The Queen's Latin makes a series or film commercially viable in the US. It alleviates the need for subtitles, while maintaining the appearance of historical authenticity. It's ''just'' [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign foreign and exotic enough]] (many British actors already [[PlaysGreatEthnics Play Great Ethnics]]). It's also commonly used because Ancient Rome is a very influential civilization in the Western world and [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire there is an empire in Europe that's just as famous and widespread as the Romans]]. The usage of British accents for Roman characters is no doubt inspired by productions of [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]'s plays set in Ancient Rome. Remember: Romeo might have been Italian, but he's not ''realistic'' [[TheCoconutEffect unless he talks like a proper British toff]]. Which is doubly ironic, since in Shakespeare's own time, typical English accents sounded different from today's "standard British accent" (officially called "Received Pronunciation"), being some kind of cross between Irish, Mid-Atlantic American, and even stereotypical ''{{Pirate}}'' accents (the last is in fact closely resembles the accent of the English city of Bristol)[[note]]It's called Original Pronunciation and, thanks to the serious efforts of many dedicated professionals, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqmgeth4tFY&ab_channel=DivisionofHumanities%2CUniversityofOtago has been reconstructed]] and is occasionally being used in productions of Shakespeare today.[[/note]].

In any case, using The Queen's Latin makes a series or film commercially viable in the US. It alleviates the need for subtitles, while maintaining the appearance of historical authenticity. It's ''just'' [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign foreign and exotic enough]] (many British actors already [[PlaysGreatEthnics Play Great Ethnics]]). It's also commonly used because Ancient Rome is a very influential civilization in the Western world and [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire there is an empire in Europe that's just as famous and widespread as the Romans]]. The usage of British accents for Roman characters is no doubt inspired by productions of [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]'s plays set in Ancient Rome. Remember: Romeo might have been Italian, but he's not ''realistic'' [[TheCoconutEffect unless he talks like a proper British toff]]. Which is doubly ironic, since in Shakespeare's own time, typical English accents sounded different from today's "standard British accent" (officially called "Received Pronunciation"), being some kind of cross between Irish, Mid-Atlantic American, and even stereotypical ''{{Pirate}}'' accents[[note]]It's called Original Pronunciation and, thanks to the serious efforts of many dedicated professionals, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqmgeth4tFY&ab_channel=DivisionofHumanities%2CUniversityofOtago has been reconstructed]] and is occasionally being used in productions of Shakespeare today.[[/note]].

* The entire English voice cast of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' are British, leading to this trope. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', on the other hand, [[ZigZagged Zig-Zags]] this trope: while the human characters have British accents (aside from the Australian-accented Urayans), the [[LivingWeapon Blades]] all have American accents, as do some of the {{Crossover}} characters such as [[VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} KOS-MOS]] and [[VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX Elma]]. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' continues this trend, with most characters running the whole gamut of British accents but a select few having Australian or American accents.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'', despite being an American {{Creator/HBO}} adaptation of [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire novels]] by an [[Creator/GeorgeRRMartin American author]], stars mainly British and Irish actors speaking with English accents. The relatively few non-Brits required to speak English (rather than Dothraki) do pretty good English accents. The types of accent tend to vary quite widely even among families, but the Starks and other northern families do generally have variations on various northern English accents and fit the 'blunt, tough, uncomplicated' stereotypes (they also tend to be physically buffer than their southern counterparts), while the richest, most powerful southern families like the Lannisters have much posher, highly affected accents [[EvilBrit more associated with villainy]]. This is due to the fact that the series' characters represent a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the British Isles, with accents (and locations -- King's Landing = London, etc) that approximate the geography of the country. The whole tale is a thinly veiled reference to the historic [[UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses War of the Roses]], a power-struggle fought in England between the houses of York and Lancaster (AKA Stark and Lannister). Only Dorne differs with their generally Latin accents, as a FantasyCounterpartCulture of Spain. In Season Two, the show has started to assign specific non-English accents to people from outside Westeros. Shae and Jaqen H'ghar, both from Lorath, are played by German actors, who speak in their native accents. Carice van Houten speaks in her native Dutch accent, although Asshai is on the opposite end of the known world from Lorath. Some characters from outside Westeros do have a British accent however, apparently because they speak the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms without a foreign accent.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' gives everyone in the game British accents in the English dub. Taken to a ridiculous degree in the ''Stormblood'' expansion where there are areas that are basically fantasy counterparts to Japan and China and everyone there also speaks with a British accent. (That said, ''Stormblood'' also deliberately gives an OopNorth accent to Ala Mhigan characters to distinguish them, an improvement from all the extremely French named elezen from ''Heavensward'' sounding like [=BBC=] newscasters.) Y'shtola and Zenos, the representatives of FFXIV in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy2015'', sounds distinct from the other characters with their accents as a result.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has a long, long habit of giving characters from every single historical period and place theatrical English accents.

** One official ''Series/DoctorWho'' short story - "The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up" in ''Short Trips: Past Tense'' - suggests the TARDIS [[TranslatorMicrobes Translation Circuits]] have an odd sense of humour, and give people BBC accents because they think it's funny.

This trope leads many Ancient Roman (or Ancient Greek, Trojan, etc.) characters to not only sound but also physically look like Anglo-Saxons rather than Romans (or Greeks, etc.). Historians have speculated that the average Roman man had tan or olive skin, usually dark hair[[note]]This can be deduced from the fact that when the Empire expanded into Gaul, Germany and Britain, the existence of people with blonde and red hair caused a sensation in Rome as nobody had ever seen this before. When the first blonde slaves were shipped back, people competed to own them, driving up their prices, and Roman women frequently shaved the unfortunate slaves for their hair so as to turn it into wigs. Then they discovered bleaching... [[/note]], and stood about 5-foot-6. The Roman Empire reached Northern Europe, but Romans weren't ''all'' Northern Europeans. (This particular bit of CreatorProvincialism also leads, even more egregiously, to Biblical characters -- ancient people from the Middle East -- looking a lot like Northern Europeans in Northern European art. Admittedly the artists possibly weren't aware they might have looked rather different, and if they were, the inauthenticity probably wouldn't have troubled artistic sensibilities until fairly recently.) Probably the closest thing to TruthInTelevision for this trope is UsefulNotes/{{Gibraltar}}, which is a British Overseas Territory in Southern Europe near the southern tip of Spain in the Mediterranean, with a large chunk of the population actually being of Italian descent (particularly Genoese) in addition to British, as well as being descended from other Latin Southern Europeans like Spaniards (especially Andalusians), Portuguese and Maltese.

* [[DiscussedTrope Called out by name]] in the [[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-queens-latin/ "The Queen's Latin"]] essays on Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry, which discuss the complexities of historical ancient Roman identity - i.e., if the Romans weren't actually a bunch of Northern Europeans with posh accents, what were they really like?

This trope leads many Ancient Roman (or Ancient Greek, Trojan, etc.) characters to not only sound but also physically look like Anglo-Saxons rather than Romans (or Greeks, etc.). Historians have speculated that the average Roman man had tan or olive skin, usually dark hair[[note]]This can be deduced from the fact that when the Empire expanded into Gaul, Germany and Britain, the existence of people with blonde and red hair caused a sensation in Rome as nobody had ever seen this before. When the first blonde slaves were shipped back, people competed to own them, driving up their prices, and Roman women frequently shaved the unfortunate slaves for their hair so as to turn it into wigs. Then they discovered bleaching... [[/note]], and stood about 5-foot-6. The Roman Empire reached Northwestern Europe, but Romans weren't ''all'' Northwestern Europeans. (This particular bit of CreatorProvincialism also leads, even more egregiously, to Biblical characters -- ancient people from the Middle East -- looking a lot like Northwestern Europeans in Northwestern European art. Admittedly the artists possibly weren't aware they might have looked rather different, and if they were, the inauthenticity probably wouldn't have troubled artistic sensibilities until fairly recently.) Probably the closest thing to TruthInTelevision for this trope is UsefulNotes/{{Gibraltar}}, which is a British Overseas Territory in Southern Europe near the southern tip of Spain in the Mediterranean, with a large chunk of the population actually being of Italian descent (particularly Genoese) in addition to British, as well as being descended from other Latin Southern Europeans like Spaniards (especially Andalusians), Portuguese and Maltese.

* [[DiscussedTrope Called out by name]] in the [[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-queens-latin/ "The Queen's Latin"]] essays on Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry, which discuss the complexities of historical ancient Roman identity - i.e., if the Romans weren't actually a bunch of Northwestern Europeans with posh accents, what were they really like?

* The entire English voice cast of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' are British, leading to this trope. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', on the other hand, [[ZigZagged Zig-Zags]] this trope: while the human characters have British accents, the [[LivingWeapon Blades]] all have American accents, as do some of the {{Crossover}} characters such as [[VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} KOS-MOS]] and [[VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX Elma]].

* Called out by name in the [[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-queens-latin/ "The Queen's Latin"]] essays on Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry, which discuss the complexities of historical ancient Roman identity - i.e., if the Romans weren't actually a bunch of Northwestern Europeans with posh accents, what were they really like?

* ''Film/EverAfter'' has British English spoken by people (including Creator/DrewBarrymore) supposedly living in 16th-century France, as well as UsefulNotes/LeonardoDaVinci.

* ''Series/TheGreat'': Although set in 19th century Russia, most of the characters speak in an English accent.

** {{Averted|Trope}} with Creator/RussellCrowe as Zeus in ''Film/ThorLoveAndThunder'', who uses a Greek accent instead. Just to prove how ingrained this trope is, director Creator/TaikaWaititi was not convinced Zeus having a Greek accent wouldn't be taken seriously, so he directed Zeus's scenes with two takes: one with a British accent, another with a Greek accent. In the end, the Greek accent is what is used in the final film.

* Australian Creator/ChrisHemsworth plays ''Film/{{Thor}}'' in the Marvel Comics films with a rather stylized "classical" English accent (as opposed to, say, a Scandinavian one). Though, granted, this ''is'' true to the source material (see the Comic Books section above). In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', this is PlayedForLaughs when Tony Stark refers to one of Thor's speeches as "Shakespeare in the Park" and proceeds to imitate him.

** All of the Asgardian characters at least attempt an RP accent. American Jamie Alexander said they used Creator/TomHiddleston (who went to Cambridge and is the only one who didn't need to fake it) as their goal reference.

*** That joke requires some creative work with pronunciation to make it work even for an English audience (or at least for the couple of people who haven't seen the play before...) The accent which pronounces "often" as "orf'n" is not only posh, but also a sufficiently old-fashioned version of "posh" that it doesn't correspond with what most people nowadays think of as "the posh accent". So the actors have to perform tricks like turning the "old-fashioned-posh" accent UpToEleven for their preceding half-dozen or so lines in order to make sure the audience are thinking in terms of the right sort of accent when the joke comes along.

[[folder:In General]]
* As mentioned above, virtually every fictional depiction of the Romans usually have British accents even when they're speaking Latin. It's extremely rare to find any work that actually gives period-appropriate accents for the Romans. The same treatment also extends to the Greeks and Egyptians with very few exceptions.
* In most portrayals of the Norman and Plantagenet houses, everyone (including the royal court) will have English RP accents despite both dynasties being French.
[[/folder]]