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Latin Pronunciation Demystified - Covington …

Latin Pronunciation DemystifiedMichael A. CovingtonProgram in LinguisticsUniversity of GeorgiaLast revised March 31, 2010 Note:Although flattered by frequent requests,the author regrets that he cannot provide Latin translationsor recorded Pronunciation samples free of charge. Theseservices are of course available for a consulting IntroductionThis paper will tell you how to pronounce Latin words and phrases, given only the spellingand the vowel lengths (which you can look up in any Latin dictionary). I am addressing primarilypeople who are not schooled in Latin but need to pronounce Latin words because of their interestin science, history, or Four rivalsThe Pronunciation of Latin becomes much less puzzling once you realize that there are at leastfour rival ways of doing it. The pronunciations you hear in biology or astronomy class don tmatch the ones you learned from your Latin teacher, and guess what? That doesn t mean they rewrong.

Latin Pronunciation Demystified Michael A. Covington Program in Linguistics University of Georgia Last revised March 31, 2010 Note: Although flattered by frequent requests, the author regrets that he cannot provide Latin translations

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Transcription of Latin Pronunciation Demystified - Covington …

1 Latin Pronunciation DemystifiedMichael A. CovingtonProgram in LinguisticsUniversity of GeorgiaLast revised March 31, 2010 Note:Although flattered by frequent requests,the author regrets that he cannot provide Latin translationsor recorded Pronunciation samples free of charge. Theseservices are of course available for a consulting IntroductionThis paper will tell you how to pronounce Latin words and phrases, given only the spellingand the vowel lengths (which you can look up in any Latin dictionary). I am addressing primarilypeople who are not schooled in Latin but need to pronounce Latin words because of their interestin science, history, or Four rivalsThe Pronunciation of Latin becomes much less puzzling once you realize that there are at leastfour rival ways of doing it. The pronunciations you hear in biology or astronomy class don tmatch the ones you learned from your Latin teacher, and guess what? That doesn t mean they rewrong.

2 They just reflect different periods in 1 displays the four main methods. The ancient Roman Pronunciation wasn t accuratelyreconstructed until about 1900. Before that, scholars in every European country pronouncedLatin as if it were their own language. With English this gave particularly comical results becauseEnglish Pronunciation had undergone drastic changes at the end of the Middle Ages. Here s anexample:Julius Caesar= YOO-lee-us KYE-sahr (reconstructed ancient Roman)YOO-lee-us (T)SAY-sahr (northern Continental Europe)YOO-lee-us CHAY-sahr ( Church Latin in Italy)JOO-lee-us SEE-zer( English method )Today, we still use the English Method to pronounce historical and mythological names in En-glish context. The constellation Orion is called O Ryan, not o-REE-on, and Caesar is Church Latin is widely though not universally used in the Catholic Church and Latin Pronunciation is very Church Latin , long and short vowelsare usually not distinguished, and the Pronunciation of some consonants ( ,tin words likedictio) is subject to recommend the northern Continental Pronunciation for unfamiliar scientific terms, since itresembles many modern languages and is, in fact, the Pronunciation used by Copernicus, Kepler,Linnaeus, and other scientific pioneers.

3 Northern Europe is not, of course, perfectly uniform; Igive a compromise between several regional variations. For example, in Germany you will hearoepronounced like German ancient Roman Pronunciation is of course what we use when teaching or seriously speakingLatin. Its biggest peculiarities are thatvis pronounced like Englishw, andaelike Englishaiinaisle. These two sounds were already changing at the end of the classical Do we know how the Romans pronounced Latin ?Surprisingly, yes. The details of the reconstruction are given in W. Sidney Allen,Vox Latina(written in English), Cambridge, 1965. There are several main sources of knowledge: The Latin alphabet was meant to be entirely phonetic. Unlike us, the ancient Romans didnot inherit their spellings from any earlier language. What you see is what you get. Language teaching was big business in Roman times, and ancient Roman grammarians giveus surprisingly detailed information about the sounds of the language.

4 Languages derived from Latin give us a lot of evidence. In fact, many of the letters of thealphabet are pronounced the same way in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Itstands to reason that the original Latin Pronunciation has survived. Spelling errors made by the ancient Romans are very informative. If two letters are oftenmixed up, they must sound fairly similar. Likewise, if two letters are never mixed up, weknow they sounded s an example. In classical times, the natives had no trouble keepingaedistinct frome; if they ever misspelledaeit came outai. Later on, they started changingaetoe. Thatenables us to pinpoint when the sound ofaechanged. Finally, transcriptions into other writing systems, such as Greek and Sanskrit, often pindown the ancient Pronunciation of Latin very Finding the accented syllableFortunately, all four systems agree as to the accented (stressed) syllable. It is always the secondor third from last.

5 Specifically, if you number the syllables from the end of the word, like this:Tri|{z}4ang|{z}3u|{z}2lum|{z}1 Aus|{z}3tr a|{z}2le|{z}1( the southern triangle, name of a modern constellation), then2the accented syllable is 2 if it contains a long vowel or diphthong, or ends in aconsonant, and is otherwise only way to find out if a vowel is long is to look in a dictionary. The lengths of vowelshave been preserved since ancient times because Latin poetry depends on them, but outside ofdictionaries, very few Latin writers mark the lengths. The ancient Romans sometimes marked avowel long by writing it extra Greek words borrowed into Latin , = e, = e, = o,o= o, and for the other vowels, you mayhave to look in a Greek are double vowels (ae,oe, etc.).What about syllables that end in consonants? The rules are: When dividing a word into syllables, try to make syllablesbeginwith consonants(thusspe-cu-lum, notspec-ul-um).

6 Break up double consonants and other groups of consonants:an-nus,rap-tus. Nonetheless, do not break upng,qu,pr,tr,cr,chr,br,dr,gr,pl,cl,bl, rule tended to confuse even the Romans; thus in late classical timeste-ne-braechanged tote-neb-rae, moving the accent from the first to the second syllable. Treatph th chas single letters. Treatxas two letters because it stands About the alphabetIn classical Latin , the vowelsianducan be pronounced non-syllabically as consonants. Forexample,uiawas not oo-ee-ah but rather wee-ah and is nowadays for a few purists, all Latinists today writevfor consonantalu. This would have puzzled aRoman, who considered U and V to be the same classical times, Latinvcame to be pronounced like Englishv, losing its phonetic resem-blance dictionaries and textbooks often write consonantaliasj, but editions of the classics usuallydo not. Thus you will findJuliusin the dictionary butIuliusin a classical letterwdid not exist in Latin .

7 In northern Europe, beginning in the Middle Ages, scribessometimes wroteworvvto represent the sound of Englishwin non- Latin Accent marksIn Latin dictionaries, long vowels are marked and short vowels are sometimes marked but aremore often dieresis ( ) means that two adjacent vowels do not form a diphthong; instead they are sepa-rate syllables. Thus Horace wanted to write a poem that wasaere perennius( more lasting thanbronze ) and not merelya ere perennius(a-e-re perennius, more lasting than air ).Church Latin books often mark the accented syllable with , as inD ominus vob scum( The Lordbe with you, Dominus v ob scumto a classicist).Renaissance printed books often have a variety of accent marks, especially for a significant longvowel ( ,sub ros a).-FINIS-4 Table 1: Four rival ways of pronouncing (ancient names in(recommended for( Church Latin )English context)scientific use)Vowels aAs infatherAs inplate aAs inaboutAs incat(when accented)orabout(unaccented) eLikeainplateAs incomplete eAs inpetAs inpet As inmachineAs indine As inpit oAs inhome oAs in British (not American)not(similar to obut less prolonged) uAs inruleAs induty uAs input yLike German long uLike Latin (less strictly, like Latin ) yLike German short uLike Latin (less strictly, like Latin )DiphthongsaeLikeaiinaisleLike Latin eoeLikeoiincoilLike Latin eeiLikeeyinheyLikeiinkiteuiLikeooeyingoo eyLikeiinkiteauLikeouinaboutLikeawinlawe uApproximately likeeuinfeudLikeeuinfeud(more strictly, like e urun together)iiNot a diphthong; this is simply twoi s in succession, forming two biological names likeZiphiidae, bothi s are as gen.

8 Sg. or nom. pl. of-ius( ), the firstiis short and the second is , d, f, h,As in Englishk, l, m, n,p, qu, t, x, zcbeforeLikekLikesLikechinchurchLikesi,e ,y,ae,oe(in Germany, likets)celsewhereLikekgbeforeAs ingooseAs ingemi,e,y,ae,oegelsewhereAs ingoosej(consonantali)LikeyinyetAs in EnglishrAlways fully pronounced, as in Scotland or midwestern AmericaAs in English(not absorbed into preceding vowel as in British English)sAlways as insit(not as inrose)As insitAs insit(as inrosewhen(likezin thebetween vowels)suffix- es)v(consonantalu)LikewinwetLikevinveryc hLikek, more emphaticLikekphLikep, more emphaticLikef(postclassically, likef)thLiket, more emphaticLiketAs inthin(postclassically, likethinthin)gnafter a vowelLikengninhangnailLikegninmagnifyLik enyincanyonLikegninmagnifytibetween vowelsLiketzyinritzy(this is postclassical and usage varies)Like Englishsh5


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