Quote Originally Posted by CrackedAxe
So, by your reasoning, I could correctly use the japanese rendering of our prime ministers name, TAWNY BRAIR!
If you were Japanese, I'd have thought the only way you would be able to render it phonetically would be in Japanese script (and even then it wouldn't match exactly the sounds of Englis. The whole problem is the Japanese can't (or find it difficult without training) to reproduce some phonetic elements of the English language, and, I imagine vice versa.

Cool. This would be ok would it? By your use of Boadicea, you're saying its ok (or are you ancient roman? my you're looking good for your age). Its Boudicca, BOO-DICK-A!
I doubt he's ancient Roman, but he is, after all, using a language directly descended from theirs. And, having given us the ancient spelling of Boudicca, you're very confident of how it's pronounced, bearing in mind the original was wrtitten in a language with (AFAIK) no, or effectively no, relation to modern English.

So either Boudicca is the original spelling and it's not pronounced BOO-DICK-AH, or Boudicca is a phonetic rendering and the original spelling was very different, or it's both spelt and pronounced that way and it's all a coincidence of astounding proportions.

Did the Britons (or Iceni) even use a latin alphabet in those days? Or was Boudicca just an attempt to transcribe the name in the latin alphabet before the Romans came along and did their latinizing?