Pronunciation of words

[rbaleksandar]

Soo, we have a little problem here Well, it is obvious that the Latin words are being pronounced in a different way than the English. What I want to know is, if there is some kind of transcription like the one in English. Or at least can someone tell me, if the pronunciation is similar to the German for example. In German you say what you read and see - each letter is pronunciation in the same way in nearly all words (there are always exceptions and also foreing word which doesn't count). In English nearly every word "deforms" the pronunciation of the single letters. That's why at the beginning we use all these weird symbols (part of which are I think from Greek alphabet), that "tell" how each word is pronounced.
So which case is the one with Latin - German or English type? Or both?

Thanks in advance

[lgsoltek]

Well, I would say that Latin is German-type, the pronunciation being even much more regular than German. In fact I would say that the pronunciation of Latin (also the stress pattern) is absolutely regular. Each letter stands for a fixed pronunciation, especially if you pronounce in the classic way. You can even read a whole text correctly without knowing what it means.

[thesaurus]

While you'll find that people may pronounce Latin in a wide range of styles (Italian=Church Latin), the classical pronunciation (which also happens to be the predominate one today) is strictly regular and easy to emulate. It's not pronounced like English, though the vowels sound like Italian or a similar language.

The introduction to any grammar you look at should have a guide on how to pronounce each letter.

Here's more than you probably want to know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spel ... ical_Latin

[rbaleksandar]

Thanks.

[thesaurus]

Actually, one relevant difference in punctuation is that "U" represents a "W" sound before vowels, and that an intervocalic "I" represents a "Y" sound. This is why "I" later became written as "J," and why sometimes you'll see certain "U"s written as "V".

uolgus=volgus
ius, iuris = jus/juris (/yus, yuris/ in English spelling).

However, these are all completely regular phonetic changes, so it's still not like learning to pronounce English.

[rbaleksandar]

Is there a way to here classical Latin?
For example streaming audio or similar to that whit source Internet. So that I can hear it with my own years In my langauge each letter has a strict pronunciation (well, there are exceptions but not so many and mostly in foreign words), so it similar to what lgsoltek said - if you learn the alphabet, you can read a text (of course it won't sound very nice, but it's still reading ).

[timeodanaos]

http://latinum.mypodcast.com/ <-- lots of classical pronunciation right there!


Wenn du zu anderen Germanen sprichst, würde ich dir empfehlen, dass du alle Wörter aussprichst als wären sie Deutsche gewesen. Damit hört man einfacher, wie die Wörter geschrieben sind und damit auch womit man zu tun hat! Zu anderen Nationaliteten aber, ist es sehr Empfehlungswürdig, sich mit klassischem Aussprechen zu versuchen, obwohl es nicht besonders leicht ist, indem man Accent und Vokalkvantität scheidern muss.

Sorry for my German, but I had to write something, it's been more than a year since the last time I actually wrote anything in German.

[rbaleksandar]

Good And thanks. Well I don't have problems with pronunciation That's a gift Later, when I begin with the speeking, I would like to speak the classical Latin Well, I'll hear them
Thanks again.

[Flavius_Julius]

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas where I could hear classical Latin spoken correctly.
I had half a year of Latin in high school by a hillbilly teacher that taught us more about the gods than the language, and she sounded like a drunken toothless redneck. LOL

I have listened to some recordings on the net that sounded great. princeton.edu.

I downloaded the latin for beginners textbook recently, and some clips from Latinum. I was all excited. Then I heard this stuff. I was very dissappointed. I thought I had hit the jackpot. This babble was terrible. I assume I will just have to learn the best I can and imitate what I think is good latin.

Any reccomendations? Thanks.

[Flavius_Julius]

Where is my post?

[Brandon0529]

I noticed that vowels usually no mark to tell weather they are long or short. How can I tell if it is long or short without the marking? Thanks

[Hampie]

I noticed that vowels usually no mark to tell weather they are long or short. How can I tell if it is long or short without the marking? Thanks

You can't. You will have to look them up in a dictionary.

[furrykef]

Not always: in the case of poetry, you can often figure out the vowel lengths by scanning the line if you know what meter the line is supposed to be in (though you'll probably still need to know most of the long vowels in the line to do this correctly). If you already understand scansion of Latin poetry, this is trivial; if you don't, well, learn that first and it will be trivial.

[Dominus]

I know how to pronounce Italian, since I speak it. As I am starting off with Latin atm, do you think my Italian would help my classical Latin pronunciation, as I have never heard classical Latin.

[Sinister Petrus]

I know how to pronounce Italian, since I speak it. As I am starting off with Latin atm, do you think my Italian would help my classical Latin pronunciation, as I have never heard classical Latin.

This is probably heresy here, but if you want to pronounce Latin as if it were Italian: go for it. Do what you're going to do, and be consistent. Though I do understand that accentuation rules may be a shade different between the two.

Caveat: If you plan to use Latin as a mean of spoken communication with other people (at mass or conventiculum), you should learn either school or church pronunciation (or even go off the deep end and go full-on restored classical—nasalized m's and all). If you're just learning Latin to read on your own, how much does it matter?

[Dominus]

Well I moved here to Australia when I was 6, so I'm even just as fluent, or even more in English (its probably my first tongue). But I will pronounce Latin with the way d'Oooge describes, and other sources but with my Italian toning. Would that be close in your opinion.

[RobertNesta]

If you plan to use Latin as a mean of spoken communication with other people (at mass or conventiculum), you should learn either school or church pronunciation

Good luck finding a ceremony that is still performed in Latin. I'll check out the above listed podcast, but there have to be more resources for that!

[Anthony Appleyard]

There are occasions when spelling does not exactly represent pronunciation. Scansion in poetry shows these cases:-
"iniciō" as "injiciō"
"eius" as "ejjus"
"hoc" = "this " as "hocc", from a prehistoric form *"hod-ce": for the 'd' compare "id", "illud".

The long 'a' in 'pāstōrēs' is shown by a classical inscription spelling 'PAASTORES'.

[Sceptra Tenens]

Also, -gn- is pronounced like the -ngn- in "hangnail"

"eius" as "ejjus"

It is worth noting that Anthony isn't listing eius as an exceptional case - all intervocalic consonantal Is are doubled: huius is huijus, peior is peijor, and so on. The most significant consequence of this is that all syllables before non word-initial consonantal I are long by position.

Also, I am told (though I know not by what authority) that syncopated forms like illic have irregular accent, being stressed on the ultimate syllable.