Did you know AI speaks ancient languages?

Let’s make time travel real! For my latest project I’ve been working a lot (as in… a LOT) with Google Veo — and I stumbled upon something fascinating: When I asked characters to speak a language that no longer exists… they actually said something. I’m a massive history nerd so I had to run a little experiment.

Disclaimer: Don’t take it too seriously and obviously I know AI output like this is riddled with mistakes. This is for fun and people who love languages and history!

🧪 The Experiment

I started by selecting a set of extinct or rarely spoken languages. Then I generated historically inspired character portraits — fixing or photoshopping some obvious inaccuracies (AI loves old Hollywood clichés). Finally, I fed Veo a simple video prompt template:

static camera shot of the person saying directly into the camera in [language]: “Greetings, I am [typical culturally appropriate name], and this is my attempt at speaking [language].”, then the person smiles, no music

Here’s the LATIN version

Prompt:
static camera shot of the person saying directly into the camera in Latin: “Greetings, I am Marcus Licinius Macer, and this is my attempt at speaking Latin.”, then the person smiles, no music

Veo’s output:
Salvete, ego sum Marcus Licinius Macer, et hoc est conamen meum Latine loquendi.

❌ Issues

• Pronunciation mistakes (e.g., “hoc” sounds like “hos”)
• Ecclesial/Italian accent (still better than English accent!)
• Roman naming conventions originally ignored by LLM (manual adjustment)

✅ Things that actually worked

• Syntax surprisingly close to correct
• Tone felt natural — even if imperfect

💬 I’d love your input

Do you know someone who might enjoy analyzing this further?

And what interesting use cases could this unlock?

Which other languages do you want to hear?