Classical or Ecclesiastical

[Aluarus]

Hi there.

Well, even if we can not get the actual way Latin was spoken (I mean, the accent, and so on) but we have been able to identify the different sounds corresponding to ancient Latin (which could, of course vary because of accents of different speakers) we should be aware that THERE IS NOT an "ecclesiastical" pronounciation. At least, not until the 20th century.

The idea of current italian pronounciation being used throughout the Church for centuries is just A wrong idea. You can find that in times before the rediscovery of the roman pronounciation each person used the pronounciation of their native tongues for Latin, or at least, in many, many cases. I remember Justus Lipsius saying he couldn't understand an English scholar who was talking to him in Latin, thinking that he was speaking in his native tongue; or Erasmus saying that the French were the worst Latin speakers of all (you couldn't just understand their vowels).

This, of course, includes the Church, and for centuries the pronounciation of Latin was, well, that of the tongue of the place. The English pronounced Latin like reading English, so did the French, so did the Spanish people. I have heard old Spanish monks and jesuits who used theSpanish pronounciation and which were told to do so by there teachers long ago.

So this "ecclesiastical" thing is something just made up by the italians who want to impose their pronounciation in the Church and everywhere. I can't find it know, because I'm on y mobile phone and it is 3 in the morning, but there is at least a letter from the Pope in 1912 explaining his wish so the Church uses the Italian pronounciation (I'll edit this soon when I have time).

So perhaps Dante could have used the italian (or Tuscan) pronounciation of his century, but English or Spanish scholars of that time (and well into the 20th century) wouldn't.

The funny thing is that italians are not only trying to change the historical pronounciations of our countries and substituting them with their own, but they have also altered the traditional Latin spelling.

As you know, in ancient times there were only i/u, which were written as I/V and didn't differentiate the vowel sound from consonant one. If you take a look to books of modern times (after the Renaissance) you will find the traditional i/u j/v spelling differentiating both vowel and consonant. Well, since italian dropped the use of J for ortographic reasons, they obviously started writing Latin as they wrote Italian, altering the traditional spelling for Latin into i u/v, droppin the use of J to mark the consonant sound of i, which was customary for centuries (again, take a look on books some centuries old).

So that's why many people write "iustitia" as if they were italians, and not "justitia", (or iustitia, but without any v, following ancient patterns).

Use whatever pronounciation pleases you. English, Spanish, the Reconstructed one, or eventhe Italian one, but be sure there is no "unified" ecclesiastical pronounciation.

VALE

[Nesrad]

This is THE major issue of contention among Latin enthusiasts. Each one will defend his choice as applicable to all, which is folly.

The Italianate (or Ecclesiastical) pronunciation is considerably easier. The restored "classical" pronunciation can be very challenging if you intend to speak the way the Romans did, not only because of vowel quantities, but also because of elisions, final m, and a host of other subtle details (Here is a nice example of how the Romans likely spoke: http://youtu.be/TQGk3TBexoQ. Notice how different he sounds from your average Latin teacher). Indeed most people who claim to use the "classical" pronunciation speak nothing like the Romans spoke. They instead use a kind of simplified academic pronunciation, which is fine, so long as there is some kind of consensus as to how it should be pronounced, in order to guarantee mutual intelligibility. But I scoff at people who disparage the Italianate pronunciation for not being authentic when they themselves speak using a perfectly artificial pronunciation.

I like the comment from another user who suggested you learn both pronunciations. I personally prefer reading "modern" Latin using the Italianate pronunciation, but I sometimes switch to something a bit more like the classical pronunciation when reading classical literature, for example.

[Aluarus]

The problem with the “ecclesiastical” pronounciation of Latin is that it has been never used anywhere* outside of Italy until the 20th century, so pretending to read Neo-Latin texts written by non-Italian with the Italian pronounciation is just wrong. Again, that the Italians use the Italian pronunciation doesn't mean that in America Spanish or English or French priests used the Italianate way.

Of course, almost everyone of us will have a different tone or accent or even pronunciation of a foreign language (it even differs among native speakers, an guy from India doesn't sound like a Scottish or a Texan when speaking English).

So, yes, perhaps using the reconstructed pronunciation for modern Neo-Latin texts may be wrong, but, using the italianate one for everything is wrong too. Even if I used the reconstructed one (the proper way, actually) I know it was not the way Latin was pronuounced through the middle ages (because of the different pronounciations at the time, which were, of course, not classical).

So, yes once again. One may use the pronounciation that pleases him more, but we must acknowledge that there isn't only a dichotomy between “classical/restored” and “ecclesiastical”, or at least not being “eclesiastical” the Italian one.

I don't know why English speaking people should use the Italianate one when reading Newton's texts, when Newton himself would have used the traditional English pronunciation or some kind of reconstructed/ erasmian one (not the current).

Nota bene for comments on traditional pronunciations, see: http://avitus.alcuinus.net/schola_latina/soni_en.php

[Nesrad]

The dichotomy between restored/ecclesiastical is quite real, because they are the only two pronunciations that are in common use.

[Aluarus]

Erm, I didn't say it wasn't. I just said that the italiane pronounciation has never been used outside of Italy until the second half of the 20th century. But well, at least I do know that the pronounciation I currently use wasn't used everywhere for centuries.

[bedwere]

As a devout Roman Catholic, born and schooled in Italy, it is just natural for me to use the Italian pronunciation for everything. That comes very handy whenever I serve the Traditional Latin Mass, as I did this morning. These days priests who have not studied in Rome generally have thick accents, but they always use the ecclesiastical pronunciation. There was a curious exception in early 20th century England: the great liturgist scholar Fr. Adrian Fortescue, who, far from being an ultramontanist, made the restored pronunciation the standard of his parish!

The orientalist of Letchworth

[Scribo]

People claim my Latin is Italianate, by which they mean I've got a Mediterranean vowel quality, I stick to hard consonants etc in accordance with current philology. I also find it useful for teaching. Incidentally my Italian educated friends also use Reconstructed-Classical so we can understand one another. Oddly, I don't speak Italian too well.

I don't think there's a strong dichotomy between the two. I mean if you're a Classicist, in a university, using Ecclesiastical, well then you've got no auctoritas when it comes to philological matters and I think it would be odd for a priest to use reconstructed.

Incidentally, when we matriculated at Oxford the (vice?)-chancellor intoned the Latin lines....in an English accent. So people still stick to the vernacular.

[Nesrad]

There was a curious exception in early 20th century England: the great liturgist scholar Fr. Adrian Fortescue, who, far from being an ultramontanist, made the restored pronunciation the standard of his parish!

At what time was this happening? In 1903, St. Pius X made the "Roman" (i.e. Italianate) pronunciation the standard for liturgical use, though I don't know if his motu proprio had force of law on this issue.

[bedwere]

There was a curious exception in early 20th century England: the great liturgist scholar Fr. Adrian Fortescue, who, far from being an ultramontanist, made the restored pronunciation the standard of his parish!

At what time was this happening? In 1903, St. Pius X made the "Roman" (i.e. Italianate) pronunciation the standard for liturgical use, though I don't know if his motu proprio had force of law on this issue.

Fr. Fortescue died in 1923. As I said, he was definitely not an ultramontanist but kept doing what he wanted to do in his small parish.

Some interesting images of his diary (in Latin).

[Bedell]

Fortescue was a notoriously eccentric polymath. He was the exception to many rules.

Two anecdotes spring to mind.

Firstly, he designed his own parish church (and mostly paid for it too out of his personal resources) and declared it to be the only thing worth looking at west of Constantinople.

Secondly, his bishop at some point became concerned that his clergy might be letting their studies slip and organised some examination sessions on general topics to evaluate the situation. Fortscue attended an exam in which there was only one question: Write what you know about the Arian Crisis. Most priests were out in less than two hours, but Fortescue wrote on and on ... and on. The examiner knew lunchtime was approaching and pinned his hopes on the candidate bailing out then, but to his dismay, Fortescue produced a packet of sandwiches and carried on writing. After five or six hours the elderly canon could stand no more and interrupted the writer's progress, "When will you finish?" he almost cried. "My good fellow," replied Fortescue, "I am only now completing the introduction!"

[Nesrad]

Some interesting images of his diary (in Latin).

"Interesting" is an understatement. Looks like an illuminated medieval manuscript, complete with hebrew, gregorian chant notation, and even a poem composed in Arabic. Amazing find.

[scotistic]

The original poster said: "I haven't found any good audio in ecclesiastical."

Here is a recording of the entire Vulgate Psalter: "http://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/ ... -latin.htm" The reading is not perfect, but it's pretty good. If you have an iphone or related device "Biblium" has an app with streaming audio of the Novum Testamentum (the same recordings are probably available elsewhere too); the pronunciation is "ecclesiastical" with a definite American accent.

Librivox has a pretty large and growing collection of Latin audio, mostly with a "classical" pronunciation but in a pretty wide range of accents. Not too long ago the only substantial amount of Latin audio you could get free was Evan Millner's; now his isn't free but there's a lot of other free stuff. It's a good time for Latin listening!

As for the topic at hand, in my view a range of pronunciations is fine and even desirable. I certainly pronounce English differently when I'm reading Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Yeats; if I didn't, as people have pointed out, I couldn't read metrically at all.

[chodorov]

Wow, I haven't checked in here for a while so I didn't realize this thread suddenly got much more active. Thanks everyone!

Nesrad, wow, that guy in the video you linked is unbelievable. I don't know how anyone gets that good at speaking Latin. I caught on to some of it because I've read about the first 30 pages of Gallic War.

Scotistic, thanks a lot for that link. I've been looking for something like that for a long time. And just out of curiosity, how do you change your English pronunciation when you read Chaucer and Shakespeare? I mean, what accent is normal for you (I'm American) and what do you do differently when you read those authors?

[scotistic]

I'm American too, but some of Shakespeare's and Yeats' words have to be pronounced differently than I normally would or else many rhymes, and sometimes the meters, won't work. For Chaucer it's much more drastic, since the accents are placed in different places in many words, many words have fewer (occasionally more) syllables now, and so forth. So just to scan the lines you have to pronounce them differently than you would pronounce the same words in normal conversation. And of course there are a lot of obsolete and french and frenchy words - how do you pronounce those? I find when reading Chaucer I tend to fall naturally into an "antique" pronunciation, guided largely by the phonetics of the old spelling.

[Scribo]

Yes we do change pronunciation for older English verse in school here (the UK). It makes things so much more easier and intuitive.

[metrodorus]

Re: my Latin not being free - there are over 1,000 free Latin videos of mine on YouTube, including complete books, read in Restored Classical. I am no longer producing mp3s, only videos. If the host for my mp3s had not gone bankrupt, they would still be free.

I am currently working on the following projects:

Pexenfelder's 'Apparatus Eruditionis'
Fay's 'Carolus et Maria'
Celsus 'De Medicina' (Interlinear Hamiltonian text)
and various other things as the fancy takes me.....I have a long list of books I want to record, and I produce new material for the YouTube channel I own almost every day.


My index for YouTube can be found at
http://latinum.org.uk

Re Ecclesiastical - Father Reginald Foster holds little hope for the survival of Latin as a spoken language in the Church - he said recently that he thinks there are fewer than 100 fluent Latin speakers left in the entire Catholic Church. There are far, far more Latin speakers who are non-catholic. Most of these speakers use a variant of restored classical pronunciation, American Scholastic, or other non ecclesiastical variant.

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[Nesrad]

Re Ecclesiastical - Father Reginald Foster holds little hope for the survival of Latin as a spoken language in the Church - he said recently that he thinks there are fewer than 100 fluent Latin speakers left in the entire Catholic Church. There are far, far more Latin speakers who are non-catholic. Most of these speakers use a variant of restored classical pronunciation, American Scholastic, or other non ecclesiastical variant.

That's an interesting term, "american scholastic." I'd be surprised if there were more than 100 non-Catholic fluent speakers. And some of the two groups (Catholic and non Catholic) overlap. I assume Mr. Miraglia, who uses the Ecclesiastical pronunciation, is a Catholic at least by birth, but he's no clergyman.

[scotistic]

Metrodorus, thanks for pointing out your youtube videos, which I have not used. Back when your recordings were in podcast form I listened to, I think, all of them; when the podcast went offline I was crestfallen. Not having backed up the files, I happily paid to get a great deal of it back by buying a number of your dvds, so I hope you didn't take my comment as a complaint. I've benefited from your work far in excess of what I paid for it, and I'm very grateful for your efforts.

I do my latin listening while walking the dog or doing chores or driving alone, so mp3s are all I've used. Perhaps I should look into whether I can use your videos too. I'm not likely to actually sit down and watch something - I'd just read a book.