Latin pronunciation in IPA?

Here you can discuss all things Latin. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Latin, and more.
Post Reply
User avatar
1%homeless
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 440
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:21 am
Location: East Hollywood
Contact:

Latin pronunciation in IPA?

Post by 1%homeless »

Ok, why is it so hard to find latin pronunciation in IPA? The only place I have found it is on the web, but it kind of contradicts some orthodox suggestions. In the book Vox Latina, the suggestions aren't specific enough, especially if you're an american that isn't too familiar with the British Recieved Pronunciation.

Here is the website:

http://www.orbilat.com/Latin/Grammar/La ... ccent.html

The short vowels are the ones that seem kind of unorthodox. Tell me what you think.

Also, I haven't found any IPA in Classical Greek books either... Do classical linguists have a thing against IPA? :-)

mrcolj
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 11:59 pm
Location: AR/UT/CA
Contact:

Post by mrcolj »

Linguists are the only ones who do use IPA. The reason you're not finding it outside of Vox Latina is because it really doesn't exist. Vox Latina is the standard book on how to pronounce Latin, although it's old enough that someone should make a newer standard. If you want to convert that into IPA, that's great, but as you say takes some knowledge of British.

There is always John Traupman's Conversational Latin, which, although written in American, isn't very technical in pronunciation guides. A combination of the two books may get the job done--I think that's what a lot of us have done.

Ditto with Vox Graeca. I'm not sure what else is out there to compete with it, though.

As always, with both languages, most of the stuff out there is either referring to the ecclesiastical version of the language, or the hollywood one...

xn
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2004 8:35 am
Location: Montes Virides

Re: Latin pronunciation in IPA?

Post by xn »

1%homeless: A different source of reconstructed classical Latin pronunciation can be found in the image http://www.omniglot.com/images/writing/ ... iation.gif — its view on various vowels frequently differs from that on the orbilat.com page. If you can note here some of the RP suggestions from Vox Latina, then perhaps their IPA equivalents can be provided.

mrcolj: I suspect that IPA usage by non-linguists is less frequent in the States than elsewhere. Has enough new pronunciation information been discovered over the last 25 years or so to justify the creation of an replacement for Vox Latina? (I know nothing about the state of this art, so I’m quite curious.)

xn

mrcolj
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 11:59 pm
Location: AR/UT/CA
Contact:

Re: Latin pronunciation in IPA?

Post by mrcolj »

xn wrote:Has enough new pronunciation information been discovered over the last 25 years or so to justify the creation of an replacement for Vox Latina?
I'm really not sure if it has. I've seen a lot of theories on pronunciation, but I really don't know if any of them besides Vox Latina were based on any kind of linguistics... Anyone else want to comment?

Post Reply