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Hi. I'm new, so hope this goes OK. To all those who have been speculating on Latin pronunciation, a few short observations. 1. The pronunciation with hard C is the Classical pronuncation. 2. The Classical pronunciation began a modification process (similar to the self-modification process that changed Middle English to Modern English in the 15th century) about the beginning of the Common Era, or about 1 BCE / 1 AD and continued over a couple hundred years. 3. After this process, Latin had a somewhat different pronunciation in which C was soft (i.e., like ch in church) before I and E and the diphthong AE, hard (like K) before A, O, U and the other diphthongs; along with other changes, principally in the pronunciation of diphthongs -- AE (pronounced like eye in Classical Latin) became either eh (short) or like a in hay (long). Hence, the famous phrase "Caesare certior facto" was pronounced in late Latin Chesare chersior facto. 4. This is the pronunciation used all over Europe, with some minor variations in some areas, during the dark ages and through the Middle Ages right up past the Renaissance. It is still in use in the Catholic Church, and is actually spoken today in the Vatican, since this became what is known as "Church Latin". 5. Do we really know how Latin was pronounced 2000, or 1000 years ago? Yes, we do. There were innumerable scholars (and pseudoscholars) employed as rhetors, orators, and teachers of rhetoric (St. Augustine was one)and some of them wrote books. Needless to say, correct pronuncation was covered in such teaching and some has survived. The current (i.e., Late Latin) pronuncation survived on its own; the old (Classical) pronuncation was preserved in earlier teaching texts, and it was those which gave rise to the revival of the Classical pronunciation which we all learned in Latin I in high school or college.
Sorry for the length of this, but maybe it answers some questions. Also demonstrates (at least I think) that the reports of Latin's demise are as erroneous as those of Mark Twain's.
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Welcome to you, Bob.
Thank you for that edifying post. I had wondered about
oral handing-down, myself, but am ignorant on this topic.
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Hi Bob,
Can you point us at some translated references for the pronunciation of Classical Latin? The guys doing the analysis of graffiti half-mentioned and wholly dismissed them. Wouldn't mind having a look.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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There were innumerable scholars (and pseudoscholars) employed as rhetors, orators, and teachers of rhetoric (St. Augustine was one) and some of them wrote books. Needless to say, correct pronunciation was covered in such teaching and some has survived
Hi Bob.
Let me play the devil’s advocate on this one.
Let’s say some of these books have survived. How do you know that your (or whichever scholor you believe) interpretation of the pronunciation is correct? Without a pronunciation “Rosetta stone” to give you parallel inscription in modern languages, everything is subject to interpretation by the reader.
For example, if you cannot speak English and I write that the EA in beaker is pronounced like the EE in feel, reek, seek, it is utterly useless – you have nothing to compare it to. But if you speak French, and I write that the EA in beaker is pronounced like the IE in calomnie, THEN you have something to compare it to and you know that your interpretation is correct. It is a bit of a catch22 situation, in order to correctly interpret the books you speak of, the reader would have to speak Latin.
Thus the changes in pronunciation of the C as time goes by; or as fashion would have it.
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Bel, I'm afraid you missed. Comparing the phonemes to the ones alike in known words has not always been the primary method for teaching pronounciation. I have seen a set of illustrations from XIX-century Polish ABC books for children. They were designed for people living in the German-annexed territories and covered the proper use of the whole vocal apparatus (tongue touching teeth, lips closed/open, etc.) Having been presented such an illustration our English teacher - an American - was the first foreigner I've ever heard pronounce the 'sz' sound properly (which goes pretty like English 'sh', but not exactly). Thus, I believe, it is not needed to know the language 'by your ears' to speak it right. And speaking of differing Latin pronounciation around the world, we here definitely consider your English Latin barbaric (it's not aimed at you, Bel - you francophones manage pretty well  ). Every time I hear an E-speaking actor quoting Latin (sorry, but the only example I can remember of now is Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: TNG) I have to spend some time decoding it. We never, EVER, say 'v' as 'w'! Which probably means the illustrations from Latin ABC were not so accurate we'd like them to be...
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Which probably means the illustrations from Latin ABC were not so accurate we'd like them to be...I have to admit being heavily biased on this issue. I believe that the dynamic nature of languages, and the inevitability of regional accents forming, makes "knowing" how Classical Latin was pronounced almost impossible. I would however be very interested to see some of these illustrated pronunciation guides you referred to. Whether Polish Latin is any more valid than English Latin is probably a whole nuvver question. I did smile at your statement that you would never pronounce "v" as "w" - to an Anglophones ears, Central Europeans don't pronounce "w" as "w", let alone "v." As an aside, there's an interesting passage in one of Anne Mccaffrey's Pern series in which the loremasters are confronted with recordings of their language from millennia ago - entertaining and apposite to this thread. 
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[nodding] Yep, like Max said. You can back-formate  all you want but where are the tapes??? [/nodding]
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Lukaszd, I am not saying that comparing phonemes is the only method of education. Bobyoungbalt brought up the point that there were several books that had been written that covered pronunciation to which I say that it is evident that the books available were evidently not written clearly enough to give an accurate, no-argument, answer as to the pronunciation of words.
This is clearly demonstrated when you say you find the English pronunciation of Latin words barbaric. It is also demonstrated in the fact that some letter pronunciations have changed every so often (witness the C and V). Since everyone is using the same books and no new ones have been found to clarify the situation, neither in the written or graphic format, it is left to the readers (or modern scholars) to interpret. And it is because it is left up to interpretation that we find such variances. There is no way you can prove that YOUR pronunciation is correct, but the English (or anybody else) cannot prove that THEIR pronunciation is correct either.
AnnaS is right. There are no tapes!
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This is clearly demonstrated when you say you find the English pronunciation of Latin words barbaric.
Oops! It was not meant so seriously! The last statement was to soften the barbarity but somehow didn't manage...
I'd be the last to claim that OUR Latin is more Latin than THEIRS/YOURS. And I can agree on our ignorance of whether today's spoken Latin is correct or not. Just wanted to say: it was possible to preserve Romans' language 'as-it-was', back then, when its soon extinction was becoming clear. Our ancestors, however, didn't think of it much just as we don't about our tongues now.
I currently live, work and study in Gdansk - a city of great history, great architecture (most of it re-built, though) and many, many other virtues. It is placed in the vicinity of a Polish region called 'Kaszuby' (the Kashubes is the correct translation, I think). The Kashubians have their own language (almost unintelligible even to us, Poles), but they're just not using it in everyday life! Only a couple of years ago they suddenly realized that even their children had less and less understanding of it, and started to teach it in schools, print books, etc. Sadly, after its re-introduction I've heard an interview on the topic with an elderly Kashubian, who stated: 'Even now, I have doubts if our grandchildren will speak our tongue the way we are'. Kashubian is of course not as popular as Latin was, but let's hope they will!
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I did smile at your statement that you would never pronounce "v" as "w" - to an Anglophones ears, Central Europeans don't pronounce "w" as "w", let alone "v."
I was referring to English v's/w's, of course. In fact, we don't have 'v' in our alphabet. The only v's you can meet being a Pole are in loanwords and foreign writtten texts. And we pronounce it just like 'w' - it resembles the 'v' of yours but with more sound put into it.
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In reply to:
I was referring to English v's/w's, of course.
I suspected as much, that's why I appended the . I am intrigued by the English pronunciation of "w", as it appears to be unique among the European languages with which I have come in contact. I vonder vhether anybody knows vhere it comes from, or vhy ve say it the vay ve do?
Did your earlier comment mean that English speople speaking Latin pronounce the letter "v" in the same way that they pronounce the letter "w" in English? I have never learned Latin, but the few phrases I have heard with a "v" in them were not pronounced as though they were spelled with an English "w" - "vene, vidi, vici" doesn't come out as "wene, widi, wici". Or do you mean that "v" and "w" have different values in Latin, but are pronounced identically by English speakers of Latin?
I hope that you can bear with me, as this is an interesting subject, even if one that appears to be straining my limited comprehension. Thanks
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Yes, I meant 'v' pronounced as 'w' - I have really heard it somewhere. If the 'where' pops up in my head I'll let you know.
And back to your 'w' - we have a letter representing something very similar. It is the letter begining my first name which is really a 'crossed L'. Imagine an L followed by slash (L/) and then move the slash backwards, to meet the bend point in L - you got it! We pronounce L as L, so it really makes a difference. Thus, my name is 'Woo-kush' rather (stress on the first syllable) than 'Loo-'.
Wookush
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Yes, I meant 'v' pronounced as 'w' - I have really heard it somewhere. Yrch! In that case, you have my total sympathy - that would be an abomination. The only excuse I could imagine for such execrable pronunciation would be a bizarre lisp. I have honestly never heard any English speaker of Latin pronounce "v" as "w" - it would ruin the sound of my all-time favourite pun - from The First War of Indian Independence - "peccavi."
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Can't resist to add my piece to this imbroglio . In old Roman inscriptions there is no letter "U", but "V" stands for the U- and V-sounds indiscriminately (there is no "W" either, of course). And as I learnt it, the English pronounciation of "w", e.g. in well, is sort of a "consonantized u", so this would indicate that Romans also pronounced their "V" in this way in certain positions before vo wels.
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consonantized
Aah! You verbed a novn.
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verbed a novn
And can ve nov talk of vacwm cleaners?
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Trying to kill several birds with one missive, (so I have an excuse for a miss), Lukas did a good job giving an idea of how you can define sounds without hearing them. In the case of Latin, defining sounds of words is easier due to the fact the Classical Latin was almost perfectly phonetic.
To you and Cap Kiwi, I have to apologize for the fact that I can't cite a book or other work with specifics; it's been nearly 40 years since I graduated from college (where I read stuff in Latin almost daily, not because I was a Classics scholar, but because my field was medieval lit. and history, so of course you always had to go to the original text of works which were very often in Latin.
And yes, there are regional variations on Late Latin pronunciation and no doubt always have been, which I'm sure accounts for the fact that Latin morphed into a number of distinct Romance languages instead of into only one. I first became aware of the fact that not all Latin pronuncations are equal when I listened to a recording of the Bach B-min. Mass sung (in Latin, of course) by a choral group from an eastern European country (I forget which, after all these years) who pronounced soft C like TS, which is how C (with no diacritical mark) is pronounced in Serbo-Croat.
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The W sound for Latin V was the classical pronunciation, and so Veni Vidi Vici was pronounced waynie, weedy, weaky. Hard to imagine Caesar talking like Elmer Fudd.
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In reply to:
the English pronounciation of "w", e.g. in well, is sort of a "consonantized u", so this would indicate that Romans also pronounced their "V" in this way in certain positions before vowels.
Ta muchly, wsieber, it's nice to finally find that out. I suspect that there would not be much call for shanks' vacwm cleaners outside Wales.
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Reminds me of a game Johnny Carson used to play, one in which he gave the answer and the players were supposed to come up with a question (a little bit like Jeopardy, I guess.)
It was called Nine-W. To which the question was, "Do you spell your name with a V, Herr Wagner?"
Another one was Holdup. The answer: How does one get very fast service in a bank?
TEd
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