I just bought John F. Collins’ Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin book and wondered if there are any audio files I can download or buy that pronounces the vocabulary words or the exercises? Perhaps there is a website I don’t know about. Thanks for any links posted. I know Wheelock’s book has a website on the web that you can hear the words but they are pronounced according to Classical pronounciation and would not benefit me with this book. Thanks again.
In most countries, those who speak Latin for liturgical or other ecclesiastical purposes use the pronunciation that has become traditional in Rome, giving the letters the value they have in modern Italian, but without distinguishing between open and close E and O.[1] AE and OE coalesce with E, and before these and I the letters “C” and “G” take the sounds of English CH and J respectively. “TI” followed by a vowel is generally pronounced as /tsi/ (unless preceded by “S”, “T” or “X”). Such speakers pronounce consonantal “V” (not written as “U”) as in English, and double consonants are pronounced as such. No distinction is made between long and short vowels.
I don’t know what pronunciation Pope Benedict uses, but there might be videos of him speaking Latin. I haven’t found anything too handy, but if you can get any of these they may be of some value:
‘Course On the Living Latin Language’ from the Familia Sancti Hieronymi - > http://www.hieronymus.us/ > . Click on ‘Venalia’ on the sidebar and then on Editiones Latine or Anglice, as you prefer. The pronunciation used is one of the ecclesiastical forms and should be more or less what is used in Golgotha Monastery, but it isn’t exactly Roman.
I post the above from another topic. I am quite curious about this course and might eventually buy it. I assume that it would be an ideal companion to any primer on ecclesiastical latin - I assume that one is taught to speak latin in a churchy sort of way.
Look out his podcasts which are aimed at helping priests with limited experience of Latin (i.e.99.99% in English-speaking countries) learn to pronounce the prayers. It won’t be so helpful as neatly packaged sound files for each vocabulary section in Collins, but you’ll get a lot out of it.
It’s not exactly what you are looking for (since it is for a different text), but it might be worth a listen for some basic Latin read the ecclesiastical way (I only learned classical pronunciation, so I can’t comment on the accuracy of these):
This seems to be a part of course which is going on right now and they appear to be only to Chapter VI on the recordings – I don’t know if there are more to come or not.