Traditional Pronunciation of Latin in Spain

[MarcusE]

Can one of the Spanish native speakers tell me what is the traditional pronunciation of Latin in Spanish-speaking countries? Is it to pronounce it as if it were Spanish? Is the long/short vowel distinction observed? How common is the classical pronunciation in schools and universities today?

Thanks.

[loqu]

Can one of the Spanish native speakers tell me what is the traditional pronunciation of Latin in Spanish-speaking countries? Is it to pronounce it as if it were Spanish? Is the long/short vowel distinction observed? How common is the classical pronunciation in schools and universities today?

Thanks.

The pronunciation taught in Spain (at least in my high school) is the classical one, except with no differences in vowel length. Latin is not pronounced as if it were Spanish, I mean, C is always [k], G is always [g], QU is always [kw], etc.

[MarcusE]

Thanks!

[Gonzalo]

Hi,

It has been a lot of time since I don't read the messages here and what a surprise!
I don't have any thing to add to what Loqu has stated. I have no Latin teacher but I know people who do and I have heard that a certain teacher taught a friend of mine to pronounce Latin aspirating the "h" in hæc. Awful, but I suppose it is only a personal mania.

Welcome.

Regards,
Gonzalo

[MarcusE]

I was just curious whether or not the classical pronunciation had caught on since the Italians stick with pronouncing it like Italian from what I understand. Also, I have always thought it interesting that in Spanish, names of ancient Romans are always translated into their modern Spanish equivalent. Why it that? The custom in English is of course to use English versions of a few Latin names (Marcial, Livy, Mark Anthony) but stay latin with all the rest (Marcus Aurelius, etc)

When they subtitled "Gladiator" wouldn't it have lended a sense of period authenticity to keep the latin names latin instead of turning them into Spanish? I realize in Spanish even Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles have Spanish names. I just something I have found hard to get used to.

[Gonzalo]

Well, about "Spanish" pronunciation of Latin I don't know much but I heard some time ago a guy who was dealing about this subject in a radio excursus because there was a controversy amongst the speakers precisely on Latin pronunciation and I remember that he pronounced the group "-tius" as "/-θius/" as in "Propertius" (he said /Propercius/; Spanish, Propercio). That guy is an important Spanish professor of Ecclesiastical History or Ecclesiastical Law, I cannot remember.

As for what concerns to Gladiator. Spanish names as "Julio César", "Marco Antonio", "Marco Aurelio", "Tiberio", "Sempronio", &c., are not in fact very common and such names have a great power even in Spanish.

Regards,
Gonzalo

[quendidil]

aspirating the "h" in hæc. Awful, but I suppose it is only a personal mania.

What do you mean? I thought the usual Classical practice was to aspirate h like English h.

[Gonzalo]

I know that someone could say that Oerberg is not an authority but I use an example from Familia Romana. I have not the book here but I remember a bit of the chapter. It was in a Grammar class that Diodorus (probably the name was another), the teacher, said the students a sentence (Homo manus et oculos habet, if my memory serves me right) to be copied in their tables and one of them had written "Omo manus et oclos habet", so the teacher corrected him by saying "Non semper idem scribimus quam dicimus". Then, the student corrected his table and writes "Homo manus et hoculos habet". And the student -answering his teacher- says finally "Non semper idem scribimus quam dicimus." So, at least what I understand from LLPSI, "h" is not to be pronounced.

On the other hand, excuse me. I was wrong because I have never pronounced the "h". http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronuntiatio_Latina
Can anyone elaborate on this?

Regards,
Gonzalo

[loqu]

In my high school book, it is said that 'h' was silent for most of the speakers and that aspiring 'h' was a sign of low social class or bad speaking habits. I don't know further.

[Gonzalo]

In my high school book, it is said that 'h' was silent for most of the speakers and that aspiring 'h' was a sign of low social class or bad speaking habits. I don't know further.

It seems a bit odd, since low class (often uneducated) people were not able to read, and then they could not be able to read where the "h" are. I guess.
Vicipædia article states: h tantum ab hominibus eruditis [h] pronuntiabatur. ("H" was only pronounced by educated people.)

[loqu]

I think you may be right, and I may have not understood well what the book meant. The literal words are "Aspirar la h era visto como signo de afectación". So maybe it can be understood as a sign of being poshy-snob rather than the other way round.

Anyway you assume that aspirating 'h' can only have the source of reading, when also it may have been a reminiscence of a lost 'h' sound. Don't know if I'm making myself clear.

These are all speculations, and by the way I don't trust the Wikipedia article because it speaks of palatalization of c and g, which I had never heard of before.

[Gonzalo]

Hi,

Such a palatalization about which it deals about could be from Ecclesiastical or Italian pronounciation. Well, of course, Wikipedia is not always reliable and is not an authority either.

If litteral words are "Aspirar la h... signo de afectación". It could be, provided that initial Greek spiritus was pronounced [in Greek] and so, if you pronounced the "h" people could think that you knew Greek. In the Spanish bilingual edition of Vergil's Full Works (Ediciones Cátedra) something about such an affectation is said in the Preface.

[quendidil]

The palatalization they mention in Wikipedia refers to how c /k/ became /tj/ and then into different consonants depending on the dialect of Vulgar Latin. The English Wikipedia has more info on this.

By the second century AD, the time of Lingua Latina, aspiration was probably already lost in normal speech but during the Classical period, it was still pronounced. Like Marcus, some speakers added it where it didn't belong and took it away when it was needed. etc "Arena" instead of the older "harena" and "humidus" instead of "umidus".

[Gonzalo]

Many thanks for the info and the link. I am very intriguated about aspiration because I have always believed that no Latin word experimented such a phænomenon. So, I need to read more on the subject.

[Amadeus]

When they subtitled "Gladiator" wouldn't it have lended a sense of period authenticity to keep the latin names latin instead of turning them into Spanish?

Keeping the Latin names may sound more authentic in English, but in the Spanish-speaking world that would just sound horrible. Changing the names make the characters, and the Romans in general, appear closer to us hispanoparlantes. [As an aside, I believe there is a region in Southern Spain where the people consider themselves direct descendants of the Romans and, therefore, true Romans. Is there some truth to this, Gonzalo?]

aspirating the "h" in hæc. Awful, but I suppose it is only a personal mania.

¡Herejía! You better start aspirating that H, Gundisalve, if you are going to read the "affected" and erudite Latin authors.

[Gonzalo]

When they subtitled "Gladiator" wouldn't it have lended a sense of period authenticity to keep the latin names latin instead of turning them into Spanish?

Keeping the Latin names may sound more authentic in English, but in the Spanish-speaking world that would just sound horrible. Changing the names make the characters, and the Romans in general, appear closer to us hispanoparlantes. [As an aside, I believe there is a region in Southern Spain where the people consider themselves direct descendants of the Romans and, therefore, true Romans. Is there some truth to this, Gonzalo?]

aspirating the "h" in hæc. Awful, but I suppose it is only a personal mania.

¡Herejía! You better start aspirating that H, Gundisalve, if you are going to read the "affected" and erudite Latin authors.

Hi,

My dear Amadeus, I don't know exactly what you refer to but as you know, the process of Romanization in Spain took centuries and then Spanish people of that epoch were deeply Roman (Quintilianus, Seneca, Martial,... do I follow? ).
I am getting really confused with the "h". I am reading now Terence (today I have Heautontimorumenos) and Martial (random epigrams) as a complementary reading to Roma Æterna and I go mad with those "h". At this very moment I am not going to aspirate them till I read more on the subject. It is an identity crisis.

Regards,
Gonzalo

[tienyew]

Haha, this reminds me of Catullus 84...

Chommoda dicebat, si quando commoda vellet
dicere, et insidias Arrius hinsidias,
et tum mirifice sperabat se esse locutum,
cum quantum poterat dixerat hinsidias.
Credo, sic mater, sic liber avunculus eius,
sic maternus avus dixerat atque avia.
Hoc misso in Syriam requierant omnibus aures:
audibant eadem haec leniter et leviter,
nec sibi postilla metuebant talia verba,
cum subito affertur nuntius horribilis:
Ionios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius isset,
iam non Ionios esse sed Hionios.

[Estoniacus Inoriginale]

I vary it, although, Spanish speakers shouln't aspirate the h in Latin as it is in the Spanish letter j. That would be weird. I've heard some do it, thusly taking away the authenticity, while the rest of the pronunciation would be flawless. It is quite certain that in speech, especially if one was not paying attention to the grammarians /conventions, the h was consistently silent, or emreging in the wrong place, if one was habituated to do so. If one were to read poems with a Greek intonation/manner/pitch accent, then why not aspirate the h as it is done in English, only a little bit lighther. I vary it like this; and at times, consciously I don't aspirate my h. I do, however, usually get the vowel lengths and prosaic and poematic rythm completetly correct, even though I've learned Latin only one year, WITHOUT Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata. As for Spanish people not learning vowel lenghts, I can relate to that. A youtube friend of mine posted a video in which he talked Latin and he had a very ideosynchratic rythm. He never said that they don't learn to pronounce vowel lenghts accurately, instead doing it as in the Spanish language. BTW I look forward to learning Spanish from a Russian who knows English, Russian, Spanish and Norwegian.

[MarcusE]

I vary it, although, Spanish speakers shouln't aspirate the h in Latin as it is in the Spanish letter j. That would be weird. I've heard some do it, thusly taking away the authenticity, while the rest of the pronunciation would be flawless. It is quite certain that in speech, especially if one was not paying attention to the grammarians /conventions, the h was consistently silent, or emreging in the wrong place, if one was habituated to do so. If one were to read poems with a Greek intonation/manner/pitch accent, then why not aspirate the h as it is done in English, only a little bit lighther. I vary it like this; and at times, consciously I don't aspirate my h. I do, however, usually get the vowel lengths and prosaic and poematic rythm completetly correct, even though I've learned Latin only one year, WITHOUT Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata. As for Spanish people not learning vowel lenghts, I can relate to that. A youtube friend of mine posted a video in which he talked Latin and he had a very ideosynchratic rythm. He never said that they don't learn to pronounce vowel lenghts accurately, instead doing it as in the Spanish language. BTW I look forward to learning Spanish from a Russian who knows English, Russian, Spanish and Norwegian.

Well the letter H has certainly provoked uncertaintly in English as well. Remember poor 'enry 'iggins lamenting the fact the Eliza Doolittle dropped her H's all over the place and then added a few where they didn't belong. Not to mention the fact that it's the only letter in the English alphabet whose name does not contain it's sound, unless your a Cockney in which case you will aspirate the beginning /heich/ (and other people will snicker at your for doing it)

[Estoniacus Inoriginale]

Thanks for replying. BTW what you just said wasn't in my conscious recollection, but this fact about English people sometimes not pronouncing the h in the way you said, was available as a potentially expressable piece of information LULZ. 'LULZ' should, IMO, be used if 'LOL' doesn't signify real laughter.

[quendidil]

I do, however, usually get the vowel lengths and prosaic and poematic rythm completetly correct, even though I've learned Latin only one year, WITHOUT Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.

Since you speak Estonian vowel lengths aren't much of a big deal for you, you even have trimoraic syllables I hear?

unless your a Cockney in which case you will aspirate the beginning /heich/ (and other people will snicker at your for doing it)

The Irish do too; and some of us relatively recently independent former colonials. Although we do on the whole aspirate the "h"s.

[Estoniacus Inoriginale]

Three vowel/syllable lengths have helped me in Latin. The good thing is that the 2nd and 3rd vowel lenght (long and longest) are sometimes confused in Estonian, especially by Russians whose vowel lengths are like in Italian - dynamic, depending on the stress.

[Lucus Eques]

Di boni! Necesse est nos omnia componere:

Estimado Gonzalo,

Sí, la 'h' de Latín se dice, exactamente como en inglés. Pero no se dice como la 'j' de español — tal sonido no existe en Latín.

The 'h' respresents aspiration. (Keep in mind that Spanish 'j' is not an "aspirant" so much at a "fricative" — like Spanish 'f', 'z', &c.). There is an important difference between "t" and "th" in Latin, and between "p" and "ph," and "c" and "ch." This specifically is that 'c' is exactly like the 'c' in "acomodar" — and "ch" = 'c' + 'h'; so Latin/Greek "charta" is different from Spanish "carta." Latin 't' is just like in Spanish "terminar" — and Latin 'th' is 't' + 'h'; so, again, "Thessalia" differs from Spanish "Tesalia," in that there is the sound of an 'h' following that 't'. And "ph" is 'p' + 'h' (NOT LIKE 'F' !!), making "triumphus" identical in quality to two hypothetical words: "triump hus."

Alatius's youtube videos should be instructive on these examples.

¿Todo tiene sentido ahora, amigo?

[Gonzalo]

[Lucus Eques]

Done, good sir.