I’ve heard that there are several types (or kinds) of latin: traditional, classical, and others. Can someone explain what’s the difference (afair only pronunciation) and tell what latin people usually study?
Most people study the classical Latin of ancient Rome; that is what you will find in almost all Latin textbooks. You can find out about the different kinds of Latin and the history of the Latin language in this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin
Thanks for your reply. And how people know that they pronounce words correctly? It seems to me that in each country they simply pronounce words with their native accents (as Latin sounds were the same as their mother tongues).
There are research that with pretty good accuracy can tell how latin once was pronounced and a man named Sidney Allen wrote a book he called Vox Latina about what a century of scholars work concluded. How the sounds were pronounced can be seen by looking at how Latin words were represented in Greek and other languages, borrowings into other languages and they way the romans themselves described the sounds. One can also se how different sounds evolved differently in the various romance languages.
Interesting. Thanks a lot!