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Latin spelling and pronunciation

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The Roman alphabet or Latin alphabet was adapted from an Etruscan alphabet, to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. The Etruscans, in turn, had taken their alphabet from the Greeks, who adapted it from the Phoenicians. This article deals with modern scholarship's best guess at Classical Latin pronunciation (that is, how Latin was spoken among educated people in the late Republic), and then touches upon other variants.

Contents

List of letters and phonemes

Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.
Since in classical times each letter of the alphabet corresponded very closely with a phoneme, here is each letter (and digraph) in order, with the phoneme it represents, given in IPA).

Precursory note: not all Latin sounds have exact English equivalents, so the English pronunciation examples may not be accurate.
A (short) (as in father)

A (long) (as in father, but longer)

B (as in bone)

C (as in skate, never like c in piece)

CH cake with a breath — aspirated ) used in Greek loanwords to represent the letter Chi (Χχ). Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be pronounced /k/.

D (as in dog, but well-pressed against the teeth, ie, dental). See [link] and [link]

E (short) (somewhat as in bet)

E (long) (as in French été or German Beethoven, but longer. Somewhat like the "e" in they, but without trailing off to i)

F (as in French)

G good). It was pronounced (as in sing) before an "N", for example, agnus ['aŋnʊs]. Never like g in germ.

H (as in happy). This sound was very weakly articulated, and quickly became silent in Vulgar Latin.

I (short) (as in English pit)

I (long) (as in English seed or in machine)

I (consonantal) (as in English yes), see below (1)

K used in a very small number of native Latin words, and is pronounced like C.

L (as in lamb)

M (as in man), see below (2)

N never). Before "C", "G", or "Q", the "N" was pronounced (as in sing), for example, quinque ['kʷɪŋkʷe].

O (short) (as in Spanish poco)

O (long) (as in French eau but longer, somewhat like in go, but without training off to u:)

P (as in spit)

PH pit with a breath — aspirated ) used in Greek loanwords to represent Phi (Φφ). Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be confused with /p/.

QV (somewhat similar to quark, but more accurately a labialized voiceless velar plosive)

R
S (as in still)

T (as in stay, but well-pressed against the teeth, ie, dental)

TH tin — aspirated dental ) used in Greek loanwords to represent Theta (Θ θ). Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be confused with /t/.

V (short) (as in foot)

V (long) (as in food)

V (consonantal) (as in win)

X (as in box).

Y French tu or German über) used in Greek loanwords to represent Upsilon or Ypsilon (ϒυ). Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be confused with or /u/.

Z ds) used in Greek loanwords; eventually reduced to .
AE, OE, AV, EI, EV were diphthongs: AE was /ai/, OE was /oi/, AV /au/, EI /ei/ and EV /eu/

Latin orthography did not distinguish between long and short vowels, nor between the vocalic and consonantal uses of I and V. This article adopts the convention used in many modern editions of classical texts (and for instance in the Oxford Latin Dictionary) of using Ii for both vowel and consonant, and V (upper case) and u (lower case) for both vowel and consonant. Other conventions used Ii and Uu for the vowels and Jj and Vv for the consonants — see below. Most modern editions use Vv for consonantal V, Uu fur vowel V, and Ii for both consonantal I and vowel I.

For the modern use of macrons (āēīōū) to mark long vowels, see below. Consonants written double were pronounced long (BB /bb/, CC /kk/ etc.). For example anus /ˈanus/ (old woman) or ānus /ˈaːnus/ (ring, anus) vs. annus /ˈanːus/(year).

(1) The /j/ sound appears in the beginning of the words before a vowel or in the middle of the words between two vowels; in the latter case the sound is doubled: iūs /juːs/, cūius /ˈkuːjjus/. The compound words preserve the /j/ sound of the element that begins with it: adiectīuum /adjekˈtiːwum/.

(2) Metrical features of Latin poetry would suggest that, by the Classical period, the letter M at the end of a word was pronounced weakly, devoiced, or indeed by simply nasalising the preceding vowel. If it was indeed silent, this would entail the existence of another 12 potential nasal phonemes. For simplicity, and because this is not known for certain, M is just treated as the consonant /m/ here and in other references.

Summary of phonemes

Length of vowels

Length of vowels was more significant and more clearly defined in Latin than in modern English. In Vulgar Latin, there was a difference in quality between long and short vowels (except a) in that short vowels were more open than long vowels ([ɛ] [ɪ] [ɔ] [ʊ] vs. [eː] [iː] [oː] [uː]), but this was less important than the differences in quantity (English also has phonemic length distinction, but quality has become more significant over time). In reading classical Latin, especially verse, it is important to give long vowels their full length.

Distinctions of length became less important in later Latin, and have ceased to be phonemic in the modern Romance languages, where the previous long and short versions of the vowels are represented by differences in quality alone, except for a where the distinction has disappeared.

It has been suggested by some linguists that Latin may have, at one point, been a tonal language, much like Greek[[Citing sources citation needed]]. The arguments for this vary, and are in part based on certain syllabic patterns found in early Gregorian Chants, however, the evidence is uncertain at best.

Syllables and stress

In Latin the distinction between heavy and light syllables is important as it determines where the main stress of a word falls, and is the key element in classical Latin versification. A heavy syllable (sometimes called a long syllable, but this risks confusion with long vowels) is a syllable that either contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or ends in a consonant. If a single consonant occurs between two syllables within a word, it is considered to belong to the following syllable, so the syllable before the consonant is light if it contains a short vowel. If two or more consonants (or a geminated consonant) occur between syllables within a word, the first of the consonants goes with the first syllable, making it heavy. Certain combinations of consonants, e.g tr, are exceptions: both consonants go with the second syllable.

In Latin words of two syllables, the stress is on the first syllable. In words of three or more syllables, the stress is on the penultimate syllable if this is heavy, otherwise on the antepenultimate syllable.

Inconsistencies

Latin has a small number of inconsistencies between its letters and the phonemes they represent.

Modern spelling conventions

Modern usage, even when printing classical Latin texts, varies in respect of I and V. Many publishers continue the convention of using I for both /i/ and /j/ and V for both /u/ and /w/. However u is by convention used as the [lower-case] equivalent of V as both vowel and semi-consonant (the ancient Romans did not have lower-case as we know it).

An alternative approach, less common today, is to use I,i and U,u for the vowels, and J,j and V,v for the semi-consonants.

Many books adopt an intermediate position, distinguishing between U and V but not between I and J. Usually the semi-consonant V after Q or S is still printed as u rather than v, probably because in this position it did not change from /w/ to /v/ in post-classical times. This approach is also recommended in the [help page] for the [Latin Wikipedia].

Possibly the most fitting way is to not distinguish between V and U but to use V as the capital version and u as the lowercase version. As V was originally used by the Romans and the lowercase version of that letter originally would have been u.

Textbooks and dictionaries indicate the quantity of vowels by putting a macron or horizontal bar above the long vowel, but this is not generally done in printed texts. Occasionally in inscriptions one may see a circumflex used to indicate a long vowel where this makes a difference to the sense, for instance Româ /ˈroːmaː/ 'from Rome' (ablative) compared to Roma /ˈroːma/ 'Rome' (nominative). Sometimes, for instance in Roman Catholic service books, an acute accent over a vowel is used to indicate the stressed syllable. This would be redundant for one who knew the classical rules of accentuation, and also made the correct distinction between long and short vowels, but most Latin speakers between the IIIrd and XXIst centuries did not make any distinction between long and short vowels, while they kept the accents in the same places, so the use of accent marks allows you to read aloud correctly even words that you have never heard spoken aloud.

Latin pronunciation today

Pronouncing a dead language

When Latin words are spoken in a living language today, there is ordinarily little or no attempt to pronounce them as the Romans did. Myriad systems have arisen for pronouncing the language — at least one for each language in the modern world whose speakers learn Latin. In most cases, Latin pronunciation is adapted to the phonology of the person's own language, although obviously this means that people are not pronouncing Latin the way it was pronounced by Romans.

Latin words in common use in English are fully assimilated into the English sound system, with little to mark them as foreign (indeed, people do not generally even think of Latin words as being foreign), for example, cranium, saliva. Other words have a stronger Latin feel to them, usually because of spelling features such as the diphthongs ae and oe (occasionally written æ and œ) which are both pronounced /iː/ in English. In the Oxford style, ae is pronounced /eɪ/, in "formulae" for example. Ae in some words tends to be given an /aɪ/ pronunciation, for example, curriculum vitae.

French, Spanish, German and other languages all have their own versions of the Latin phonological system, often even taught at school during Latin classes, sometimes without pointing out that these are not the original pronunciation.

Ecclesiastical pronunciation

Over time the pronunciation of Latin, as with any language, evolved into what most people recognize as Latin today. This pronunciation, commonly referred to as "Ecclesiastical" or "Church" Latin was from medieval times the standard pronunciation of Latin, especially as preserved in the Catholic Church and the liturgical rites of the Latin Church. The preference for local phonetic usage is especially true of Italians, who learn Latin as it was pronounced during the low Middle Ages in Italy by the intellectual classes and which was similar to modern Italian. Below are the main points that distinguish Roman Pronunciation from Classical Latin pronunciation:

The Ecclesiastical Pronunciation greatly influenced English pronunciation of Latin. In the 19th century, it was also given notable standardization north of the Alps from its use by the monks of Solesmes Abbey for their reform of Gregorian chant. It is the most commonly recognized pronunciation, and the method which is still most alive today as a living language. A recent example of its use occurred in the motion picture The Passion of the Christ, recorded in Aramaic and very ecclesiastical Latin. However, some contemporary musicians try to produce authentic regional pronunciation as far as possible.

The sons and daughters of Latin

Because it gave rise to many modern languages, Latin never actually died: it was merely changed through centuries of use and from this was born the great diversity of the Romance languages. The end of the political unity of the western Roman Empire accelerated the process, sending western Europe into an economic depression and curtailing the mobility of the population, making it less likely for a proto-Romance speaker to need to speak to someone from a distant locality, and encouraging the divergence of local dialects. Moreover, written Latin, like written English, was always to some degree an artificial literary language, somewhat different in grammar, syntax, and lexicon from the vernacular. Today's differences can be quite striking. Indeed, some have dubbed Castilian the son of Latin, and Portuguese and French the daughters of Latin, due to the alleged masculine and feminine sound of them, respectively.

Even in Classical times, we know that the people in the street did not speak the formal, Classical tongue. They spoke what is known as Vulgar Latin, which was already very different from its sibling, mainly because of simplifications in its grammar and phonology. It is this Vulgar Latin that became modern French, Italian, etc.

Key features of Vulgar Latin and Romance include:

and many other aspects of pronunciation, not to mention grammar and vocabulary.

For further details, please refer to the relevant articles below:

Latin language
Vulgar Latin
Romance languages

See also

References

External links

 

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