Vocally, Classical or Ecclesiastical Latin?

[Dominicvs]

Salve!

Fellow Latin speakers, as you may know, there are two forms of pronouncing Latin.

-Classical: The traditional/original form, spoken in the times of Ancient Rome.

-Ecclesiastical: The form spoken from roughly the Middle Ages to the present.

The difference of the two is that Ecclesiastical is largely based on the Italian pronunciation of words. Mainly used by the Catholic Church at first and is now the widely accept correct modern form of speaking Latin. Many European nations agreed in the 1960s and 70s that the Ecclesiastical form is the correct for that should be heard. The Classical form is the ancient and original form of Latin, it is less preferred due to its harder sounding consonants and sharper vowels.

Examples of the differences with latin words:

1. Caesar

Classical - like the German 'Kaiser' (kigh-szar)
Ecclesiastical - like the English Caesar (see-szarr)

2. Aegyptus

Classical - (eye-goop-toos)
Ecclesiastical - (ay-g(soft g)yp-tus) like modern 'Egypt'-us preceeded by the Ay sound.

3. Via

Classical - (wee-yaa) v can be a consonant or a vowel, when a consonant in classical latin, it is pronounced as the same as modern english 'w'. As a vowel it represents 'u'

Ecclesiastical - (vee-yaa)

4. Miscēre

Classical - (miss-care-ee)

Ecclesiastical - (miss-chair-ee)

______

For more information and audio to these, visit: http://la.raycui.com/index.html

So, what do you prefer, and use in your Latin vocally? And why?

[Primo]

"Classical - like the German 'Kaiser' (kigh-szar)"
Res Pvblica,
Pronouncing it correctly on german it would be more like "kay-sar"

Generally the Pronouncing of Latin depends on which motherlanguage the speaker has. I generally speak every Latin word the same way as a german word, and saw English doing the same with english pronounciation.

The only real difference -after my opinion - is how you pronounce the c: Either as Z or as K.

Greetings,

NM

[Dominicvs]

Oh, I really never find english speakers speaking Latin like english, traditionally, its spoken ecclesiastically in English, and that is closer to english than classical.

The main differences are:

C - either pronounced like zs or k or even ch
G - hard or soft G

But traditionally, if someone is taught properly, it will either be classical or more likely ecclesiastical. That is what I commonly find in the english speaking world at least.

[Simeon]

I've been taught at school to pronounce Latin the 'classical' way. My mother however has been taught in the 'Ecclesiastical' way. She claims it is an accent from Florence, which heavily influenced pronounciation of Latin in the Roman Catholic Church (she's got expertise on Gregorian chant). Whenever I come across a Latin text I pronounce it the classical way, and feel confortable with it, and she pronounces it in the ecclesiastical way, and feels comfortable with.
Call me a purist, but I feel proud I can speak a language pretty much the way it is believed to have been pronounced 2000+ years ago (rather than an accent adopted by an organisation).

[Col. Tartleton]

I'm of the classical persuasion. It sounds better and it's how it was taught to me in school. Salve is pronounced "Solway".

I also think it should only be written in ALL CAPS.

I still think Latin should be the world language. It's a classic example of an Indo European language and most languages at least have relations to it. Gaelic, French, Occitan, Portuguese Greek, Spanish, Italian, Romansch, Hindi, Arabic, Pashto, Dari, Farsi, etc. etc. etc. And most of the Germanic languages have become caught up in it.

I think it would be smarter if they tried to smooth out a Modern Latin to be simpler and more elegant (whereas classical Latin is all muddled from being a naturally forming language) rather than Esperanto which while well nice and neat is completely conjured out of the blue.

[Copperknickers II]

Salve!

Fellow Latin speakers, as you may know, there are two forms of pronouncing Latin.

-Classical: The traditional/original form, spoken in the times of Ancient Rome.

-Ecclesiastical: The form spoken from roughly the Middle Ages to the present.

The difference of the two is that Ecclesiastical is largely based on the Italian pronunciation of words. Mainly used by the Catholic Church at first and is now the widely accept correct modern form of speaking Latin.

Well not really. Latin has been pronounced with the characteristics of modern Italian since the very beginning of Christianity: in fact even by the time of Cicero and Virgil the current idea of 'Classical Latin' was beginning to die out: for example 'h' was not pronounced in words and 'v' was beginning to be pronounced 'v' or 'b' rather than 'w'.

Having said that I still pronounce it in the Classical way because I like the sound better.

[Dominicvs]

Yer, I know "Ecclesiastical" latin started to form early during the Roman Empire. For me its hard, I have to links to both sides of the argument. I'm Italian (now living in Australia) so the ecclesiastical version sounds nicer, but then again, I love history more then anything, so classical latin makes me feel better, even if words like 'victoria' become pronounced as "wik-tor-ee-ah" or village goes from vicus to "wee-c-oos" The history is why I'm learning it for me. But then again, its not really a case of only choosing one, practice both, its not hard to learn two pronunciations, its like American and British english, it doesn't take long to know the differences and be able to do both.

[Londinium]

This is a totally random question coming from someone who's not a classicist (18th/19th century is much more my field) but how did we know how classical Romans pronounced Latin? Are there books for schoolboys or something which inform us how the Romans pronounced their words?

[Dominicvs]

Yes, its a good question, I'll have a shot at answering it.

Classical Latin pronunciation has been decided upon:
-The looked at the ancient Greek pronunciation, as ancient Greek hasn't been influenced by the ages, as it never became a widespread language like Latin. So the ancient Greek pronunciation is what is used to define the Classical Latin pronunciation, even though Classical Latin pronunciation was already dying by the 3rd century AD.
-There are Latin grammar documents from classical times
-There are many ancient Latin grammar documents that translate classical Latin to classical Greek, that allow historians to see which letter corresponds with what.

But still, thats not enough evidence to call it fact, hardly at all. There still is a lot of debate amoung historians as how Latin should be spoken classically, particually whether 'v' makes the sound of a modern english /w/ or just the sound of v. Or the hard or soft G.

Then again, just learn anyway of speaking Latin, that way you have all grounds covered.

[Copperknickers II]

This is a totally random question coming from someone who's not a classicist (18th/19th century is much more my field) but how did we know how classical Romans pronounced Latin? Are there books for schoolboys or something which inform us how the Romans pronounced their words?

Well, we can work a lot of it out from the writing. But in general, the spelling of language reflects how it is pronounced when that spelling was standardised: take English spelling: we take our spelling largely from Mediaeval Middle English so we can say for example that 'English' used to be pronounced with an e at that time.

[ivan_the_terrible]

Well, we can work a lot of it out from the writing. But in general, the spelling of language reflects how it is pronounced when that spelling was standardised: take English spelling: we take our spelling largely from Mediaeval Middle English so we can say for example that 'English' used to be pronounced with an e at that time.

Yes but you don't know for sure exactly how e would have sounded in your example.

It's even more difficult with a dead language, or, more precisely, with a language whose modern living variants have mutated so much. Because with English it's probable that e would have sounded a certain way, if not 1005 certain.

The question remains: how do we know for sure that V was pronounced as W and not as V?

[Copperknickers II]

Yes but you don't know for sure exactly how e would have sounded in your example.

It's even more difficult with a dead language, or, more precisely, with a language whose modern living variants have mutated so much. Because with English it's probable that e would have sounded a certain way, if not 1005 certain.

The question remains: how do we know for sure that V was pronounced as W and not as V?

Well for one thing, there is no such letter as the English 'v' in Classical latin. There is only the English letter 'u', written as 'v'. Surely they'd have had two seperate letters if it was pronounced in two differen ways? The most likely explanation is that it was like the Indian 'v', which is rather flexible in its pronounciation but is pronounced slightly different depending on dialect and position: hence why we have the Spanish and Italian pronounciation difference, and the w/v difference today.

[StealthFox]

I studied Latin in university, so I always pronounce it classically.

[Keyser]

Well for one thing, there is no such letter as the English 'v' in Classical latin. There is only the English letter 'u', written as 'v'. Surely they'd have had two seperate letters if it was pronounced in two differen ways? The most likely explanation is that it was like the Indian 'v', which is rather flexible in its pronounciation but is pronounced slightly different depending on dialect and position: hence why we have the Spanish and Italian pronounciation difference, and the w/v difference today.

The spanish prononciation (like a b) is thought to be because iberic languages lacked a "v" sounds however, like in basque, rather than because of a shift of prononciation.

[ivan_the_terrible]

Well for one thing, there is no such letter as the English 'v' in Classical latin. There is only the English letter 'u', written as 'v'. Surely they'd have had two seperate letters if it was pronounced in two differen ways? The most likely explanation is that it was like the Indian 'v', which is rather flexible in its pronounciation but is pronounced slightly different depending on dialect and position: hence why we have the Spanish and Italian pronounciation difference, and the w/v difference today.

But it did serve a dual function: as a vowel and as a consonant.

Point is we have no way of knowing for certain how the consonant would have been pronounced.

[Dominicvs]

I just thought I'd bring this up, my family are from the Abruzzo region of Italy, and my grandparents pronounce v often as w when speaking Italian.

[Corporal Carrow]

I'm neither a Latin speaker nor Roman scholar, but in my two years of high school Latin, we were taught the Classical pronunciation, and to this day it irks me when people pronounce Caesar as anything but Kai-sar, and so on and so forth. It's the "Wia Appia," not the "Via Appia". I realize that isn't much basis for an argument, but I just thought I'd share my two cents worth.

[Dominicvs]

Well its personal preference really. Pronouncing via appia as "wia appia" is just the classical way. Other prefer the Italian or Ecclesiastical way, which suits the modern tongue better. I only like the classical pronunciation more because I'm a history lover, but the ecclesiastic version sounds far better.

[neoptolemos]

If the OP is acurrate then Ancient Greek and Classical Latin have some similarities in pronunciation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology

[Corporal Carrow]

I didn't mean to imply that pronouncing Via with a "v" is incorrect, I was just trying to state my perspective. Sorry if that caused any confusion and/or consternation!