gangleri2001
Garbage day!!!
I've decided to begin to study with an old French method called Le latin sans peine. This method is appropiote for those who can only study a bit on a daily basis. Let's begin with the pronunciaction
<<<Back to index
The following pronunciation guide is a guide to classical pronunciation. There're many other ways to pronounce it. One of the most used is the ecclesiastical pronounciation.
The latin alphabet
Aa --------> a as in ran
Bb --------> b as in back
Cc --------> c as in coffee. It's always pronounced this way, no matter what vowel follows it. So Caecilia is pronounced Kaekilia.
Dd --------> d as in day
Ee --------> e as in leg
Ff --------> f as in fence
Gg --------> g as in goal. It's always pronounced this way, no matter what vowel follows it.
Hh* --------> the letter h is lightly aspirated. It is, therefore, way softer than the English h as in have. It does not alter the sound of other consontants like c in the group ch (chaos is pronounced like kaos)
Ii --------> i as in idiot
Jj** --------> i as in idiot
Kk** --------> k as in key
Ll --------> l as in lamb
Mm --------> m as in mother
Nn --------> n as in nobody
Oo --------> o as in soft
Pp --------> p as in pork
Qq --------> k as in question
Rr --------> like the r in modern Romance languages. It stands for the alveolar flap (listen) when written alone or at the end of a word (ara --> altar, clamor --> shouting, clamor) or for the alveolar trill (listen) when duplicated or at the beginning of a word (carrus --> chart, radix --> root)
Ss --------> s as in sand
Tt --------> t as in tower
Vu*** --------> oo as in roof
Vv** --------> w as walk
Xx --------> ks as in exit
Yy** --------> like the French u or German ü (sur, Übung). This sound is called the close front rounded vowel (listen). In order to pronounce it, put your lips as if you wanted to oo as in roof but pronounce a i as in idiot.
Zz** --------> z as in zoo
*: I've been told by some latinists that the H was already mute by the time that Latin reached its classical period.
**: K, Y, Z, V and J are not part of the original latin alphabet. Z, K and Y are late borrowings from the greek alphabet. As for the J and the V, they are later appearances which emerged out of "perversions" from the u and i characters. They don't stand for none of the sounds that they may represent in modern Romance languages, but for consonantical i and consonantical u respectively.
***: Keep in mind that V is the capital form of the letter u. In fact, the letter v appeared out of this capital letter.
Diphtongs
Latin has 5 diphtongs. These are:
ae --------> /aj/, it's the pronunciation of a and e within the same syllable. It sounds like the Englsh ie in die.
au --------> /aw/, like the German blau (listen)
ei --------> /ej/, like the English ay in clay
eu --------> /ew/, like the Spanish Europa (listen)
oe --------> /oj/, it's basically o and e within the same syllable (listen)
Long and short vowels
Latin, unlike its Romance descendants, differentiates between long and short vowels. Long vowels are usualy represented with macrons (ā ē ī ō ū
while short vowels are represented with breves (ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ. These signs have always been used for academic purposes only (mainly organizing dictionaries and applied to the study of the language) and we have to keep in mind that we should never use them while trying to write a text in Latin.
Fortunately (that's to say, thanks to the goddess Fortuna), we have a small set of rules that allows us to deduce when a vowel is long or short in many cases. We must also keep in mind that this set of rules it's orientative only, so it's still highly advisable to memorize each word's vowel duration. These rules are:
Stress
It's very important to know what's the stressed syllable in a latin word if we want to pronounce it properly. Just like in vowels, there's a set of rules so we can deduce it. These rules are:
<<<Back to index
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
The following pronunciation guide is a guide to classical pronunciation. There're many other ways to pronounce it. One of the most used is the ecclesiastical pronounciation.
The latin alphabet
Aa --------> a as in ran
Bb --------> b as in back
Cc --------> c as in coffee. It's always pronounced this way, no matter what vowel follows it. So Caecilia is pronounced Kaekilia.
Dd --------> d as in day
Ee --------> e as in leg
Ff --------> f as in fence
Gg --------> g as in goal. It's always pronounced this way, no matter what vowel follows it.
Hh* --------> the letter h is lightly aspirated. It is, therefore, way softer than the English h as in have. It does not alter the sound of other consontants like c in the group ch (chaos is pronounced like kaos)
Ii --------> i as in idiot
Jj** --------> i as in idiot
Kk** --------> k as in key
Ll --------> l as in lamb
Mm --------> m as in mother
Nn --------> n as in nobody
Oo --------> o as in soft
Pp --------> p as in pork
Qq --------> k as in question
Rr --------> like the r in modern Romance languages. It stands for the alveolar flap (listen) when written alone or at the end of a word (ara --> altar, clamor --> shouting, clamor) or for the alveolar trill (listen) when duplicated or at the beginning of a word (carrus --> chart, radix --> root)
Ss --------> s as in sand
Tt --------> t as in tower
Vu*** --------> oo as in roof
Vv** --------> w as walk
Xx --------> ks as in exit
Yy** --------> like the French u or German ü (sur, Übung). This sound is called the close front rounded vowel (listen). In order to pronounce it, put your lips as if you wanted to oo as in roof but pronounce a i as in idiot.
Zz** --------> z as in zoo
*: I've been told by some latinists that the H was already mute by the time that Latin reached its classical period.
**: K, Y, Z, V and J are not part of the original latin alphabet. Z, K and Y are late borrowings from the greek alphabet. As for the J and the V, they are later appearances which emerged out of "perversions" from the u and i characters. They don't stand for none of the sounds that they may represent in modern Romance languages, but for consonantical i and consonantical u respectively.
***: Keep in mind that V is the capital form of the letter u. In fact, the letter v appeared out of this capital letter.
Diphtongs
Latin has 5 diphtongs. These are:
ae --------> /aj/, it's the pronunciation of a and e within the same syllable. It sounds like the Englsh ie in die.
au --------> /aw/, like the German blau (listen)
ei --------> /ej/, like the English ay in clay
eu --------> /ew/, like the Spanish Europa (listen)
oe --------> /oj/, it's basically o and e within the same syllable (listen)
Long and short vowels
Latin, unlike its Romance descendants, differentiates between long and short vowels. Long vowels are usualy represented with macrons (ā ē ī ō ū
while short vowels are represented with breves (ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ. These signs have always been used for academic purposes only (mainly organizing dictionaries and applied to the study of the language) and we have to keep in mind that we should never use them while trying to write a text in Latin.Fortunately (that's to say, thanks to the goddess Fortuna), we have a small set of rules that allows us to deduce when a vowel is long or short in many cases. We must also keep in mind that this set of rules it's orientative only, so it's still highly advisable to memorize each word's vowel duration. These rules are:
- Diphtongs (ae, au, ei, eu and oe) are always long.
- The vowels followed by two consonants, X, Z or J are always long.
- The vowels followed by another vowel (except diphtongs) or an H are always short.
Stress
It's very important to know what's the stressed syllable in a latin word if we want to pronounce it properly. Just like in vowels, there's a set of rules so we can deduce it. These rules are:
- Most words have the stress at the penultimate syllable. Those that are not stressed at the penultimate syllable are stressed at the antepenultimate syllable. Latin words that have the stress at the last syllable are extremely rare.
- The words that have a long vowel at the penultimate syllable are stressed at the penultimate syllable. The words that have a short vowel at the penultimate syllable are stressed at the antepenultimate syllable.
- When a word has only two syllables, its stress is always at the first syllable.
- Monosyllabic words are unstressed.
