# Gladiator movie question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2001, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156 "2001-04-07T15:23:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2001, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/1 "2001-04-07T15:23:36Z")
During the movie at the beginning and end and a few times throughout, there is a woman singing a song. It sounds kind of like a nice, soft folksong in a foriegn language. Does anyone know what language its in? When I put captioning on the DVD it just describes it as “Woman singing in foriegn language.” Thats not much help. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2001, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/2 "2001-04-07T16:27:12Z")
The piece you’re referring to is entitled “The Wheat,” presumably because it’s usually played when Maximus (Russell Crowe) is dreaming of being back at his farm. The composer and vocalist on that track is Lisa Gerrard. ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2001, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/3 "2001-04-07T16:48:07Z")
Yes, that is the track. Thanks. Any idea for the language? ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2001, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/4 "2001-04-08T00:50:30Z")
I will give this one little bump back up. I am suprised…nobody that has read this yet knows the language? I don’t feel so dumb after all 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Goo_Fee)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2001, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/5 "2001-04-08T01:21:07Z")
Rather than posting a new thread, I thought I would just ask this here. You know the part of Gladiator just before the final fight where the Emperor meets with the Gladiator and he hugs, then stabs him in the back? The thing he stabs him with seems TINY and it doesn’t seem to really affect Gladiator too much but then later he dies-- seemingly from that knife wound. I got the impression that the knife was poisoned. Did anyone else get this idea? Am I missing something?? ---
**Author:** ![Dagger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/41988e/32.png) [@Dagger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dagger)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2001, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/6 "2001-04-08T01:57:51Z")
Hmm The emperor stabbed Maximus with a stiletto. A small melee weapon but he did thrust it (apparantly) into one of the general’s kidneys. I can imagine that would ruin his day, as the internal bleeding that resulted would be more than adequate to kill Maximus in short order. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2001, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/7 "2001-04-08T04:14:52Z")
I did a search and couldn’t find what language “The Wheat” was in… but I did find sites indicating that new age composer/vocalist Lisa Gerrard has made several recordings in Breton, a language spoken only in the French region of Brittany. MAYBE “The Wheat” is sung in Breton… though I couldn’t vouch for that. I haven’t seen the movie in quite a while, and never made out any lyrics, so I couldn’t even GUESS what language she was singing in. Truth to tell, I saw the movie last summer with a bunch of friends, and we treated it like “MST3K”, making “Pizza pizza” and “Say Billy, you like gladiator movies?” jokes from start to finish. We enjoyed it as silly, campy fun… but would have scoffed at the notion it would win the Oscar as Best Picture! ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2001, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/8 "2001-04-08T17:20:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doctor Goo Fee \* > \*\*Rather than posting a new thread, I thought I would just ask this here. > > You know the part of Gladiator just before the final fight where the Emperor meets with the Gladiator and he hugs, then stabs him in the back? > > The thing he stabs him with seems TINY and it doesn’t seem to really affect Gladiator too much but then later he dies-- seemingly from that knife wound. > > I got the impression that the knife was poisoned. Did anyone else get this idea? Am I missing something?? \*\* He got stabbed in a kidney. In the DVD version, with the Directory commentary by Riddly Scott (sp?) he mentioned that briefly. > [@](#): > > \*\*I did a search and couldn’t find what language “The Wheat” was in… but I did find sites indicating that new age composer/vocalist Lisa Gerrard has made several recordings in Breton, a language spoken only in the French region of Brittany. > > MAYBE “The Wheat” is sung in Breton… though I couldn’t vouch for that\*\* Sounds possible to me. Unless someone comes up with a different answer, I will run with it. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2001, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/9 "2001-04-09T13:50:22Z")
Lisa Gerrard is the singer formerly with **Dead Can Dance**. This was a group that did various kinds of world music (with touches of Middle Eastern, Celtic, African, and Indian sounds). Lisa made up her own nonlanguage to sing in. It was essentially vocalise, but with more vowels and consonants than in the usual vocalise, so it sounds like a language. Azam Ali of the group **Vas** does the same thing. It’s different from scat singing in that it’s all composed ahead of time instead of being improvised. “Nonlanguage” is the word I coined for this phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2001, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-movie-question/61156/10 "2001-04-09T22:26:48Z")
I recall from an interview that I read that Lisa Gerrard described the wordless singing that she does as “melismatic.”