Latin Pronunciation Guide: Difference between revisions

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With the great number of differences in pronunciation between Classical Latin and English, a troper may be confused as to how to transcribe [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] or how to read a [[Pretentious Latin Motto]]. This page will help.

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Note, however, that in the Christian religious context, there is an similar different pronunciation guide for it, based largely on the standard modern pronunciation in Rome. This is known as '''Ecclesiastical Latin''' or Church Latin, and is the pronunciation you'll typically hear in [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] (e.g. Mozart's ''Requiem'' or Beethoven's ''Missa Solemnis''). Even there, though, regional variations exist; a recording of, say, the current (German) Pope will sound somewhat different than that of one of the modern Italian popes. The pronunication guide below details only '''Classical''' Latin, not the Ecclesiastical variant.

First off, the biggest difference between Classical Latin and English/Ecclesiastical Latin, '''the letter "V" in Latin is pronounced like the letter "U" or "W" in English.''' The ancient Romans didn't have separate letters for U and V.

It has become the convention in modern printing of Latin works to print "v" where a consonant is indicated, and "u" where is a vowel. Classical orthography made no such distinction, but used "V" in both cases -- thus "VIDEO, AVDIO" (all in caps, by the way, small letters being a mediaeval or perhaps very late-Imperial invention). Inconsistently, modern printing prefers "i" for both consonant and vowel, where older printings substituted a "j" for the former -- thus where Augustus would have written "IVVAVIT", [[Goodbye, Mr. Chips|Mr. Chipping]] would have written "juvavit", and a modern Latinist "iuvavit". It all gets very confusing.

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* Note: The diphthongs ae and oe started to collapse into /ɛː/ and /eː/ pretty early into the Classical period, but it took a while to stick.

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* Note 1: The distinction between c and ch, p and ph and t and th is that the former lack aspiration (like the p in s'''p'''in), whereas the latter have it (like in '''p'''in) <ref>This difference may seem minimal to speakers of English, but is a phonemic distinction in many other languages, speakers of which can spot the difference much more easily</ref>. This wasn't native to Latin, however, and only entered the language via an import from Ancient Greek. Educated speakers made the difference, most didn't.

* Note 2: m and n at the end of syllables probably only indicated nasalization of the preceding vowel, or were only weakly pronounced.

* Note 3: Latin has doubled consonants which were geminated (that is, held longer than simple consonants). This usually gets disregarded today, or is pronounced as two consonants. In this case, compare and contrast ''anus'' (old woman) and ''annus'' (year).

** This distinction also reveals the importance of pronouncing long vowels properly, as ''ānus'' means...well...what it means in English.

* Note 4: "gn" as in ''agnus'' (lamb) was probably pronounced "ngn" as in ''hangnail''. Pronouncing it as "ni" as in ''onion'' is a borrowing from Church Latin (that is, Latin pronounced as though it were Italian).

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[[Category:Useful Notes]]

[[Category:Latin Pronunciation Guide]]