I have done syllabification but I need confirmation that is done right:
splendidus - splen-di-dus
candidus - can-di-dus
moneo - mo-ne-o
militia - mi-li-ti-a
saluber - sa-lu-ber
maiores - ma-i-o-res
proelium - proe-li-um
pulcher - pul-cher
pulchrorum - pul-chro-rum
aër - aër
aes - aes
modo - mo-do
caecus - cae-cus
seu - seu
aut - aut
fortitudo - for-ti-tu-do
geographia - geo-gra-phi-a
symmetria - sym-me-tri-a
Yes, two vowels/syllables in “?ēr,” in fact that is why the ‘e’ carries a diaeresis (which is not an accent, but a mark to indicate that the vowels are pronounced separately, not as a diphthong).
“m?j?rēs” has three syllables, and three vowels. That particular ‘i’ is not a vowel, but a consonant (confer with the name Julius/Iulius). Some texts replace this with ‘j’, as I do for clarity. Most texts will, asymmetrically, only mark ‘v’ for consonantal ‘u’ — I disapprove of this asymmetry.
Let this demonstrate to all the advantages of writing ‘j’ in addition to ‘v’ for consonantal ‘i’ and ‘u’, respectively. Had the text with which Boban was conferring written the ‘j’, there would have been no unnecessary confusion.
I couldn’t agree more, Lucus.
Prorsùs, Luce, tecum concino.
Bah! When has convenience ever outweighed the golden juggernaut of orthographical convention?
Mm, but were they not commonly the same once? Could they be again?
Are they already 
Actually, every time there has been an imposed spelling reform. Haven’t there been quite a few in the last few thousand years? What’s convenience to one might be inconvenient to another, though. But it definitely benefits you if you’re the one who runs the juggernaut, which is what Lucus is driving at, I think.
Certó, verum est omne occasione ubi orthographia correcta est, ut millenniis proximis frequenter accidit. Quamvis non omnes eadem mirantur amantque. Ut insinuat autem Lucus, meliùs semper illi qui Goliath gubernat.
Exactly my point! It is inconvenient for me to spell Latin some new way, regardless of how convenient novices might find it for the distinction between /i/ and /j/ to be represented in the orthography. It will, however, be inconvenient for those same novices when, (having leaned on the crutch of j-and-i all through their studenthood, perhaps never really understanding the relationship between the two sounds) as they crack the covers of a Latin text, they will be distracted and confused by the lack-of-j that has been popular, if not logical, for the last few hundred years. Especially for the study of something like Latin, which involves so much reading of that which is old, suggesting adherence to a single standard, especially one that is not fully or even commonly represented in the corpus of study, is likely to be counterproductive.
As far as chatting on internet fora in Latin goes, however, you, as an experienced Latinist with, no doubt, wads of Indo-European historical linguistics under your belt, can spell things however you wish — as can I. De gustibus non disputandum, after all.
I see your point, Twpsyn, on ‘j’ acting like a crutch, and then when a student reads texts without them he might be somewhat bewildered.
But what if I wrote, as was the custom in Middle English, ioyous, iolly, Dwight and Iim, or Iack of All Trades; Truth and Iustice in the court, where coniecture is not deemed evidence, or iabber on for a iaunt, or iust a iourney in Iuly. I think the reader would make the transition rather easily. And would know these are consonants — and not vowels.
Well, I love your point and how you make it, Twpsyn. However, I think that “so much reading of that which is old” will be different for future generations, and machine-readable texts require the adjustments we’re talking about. I’m designing synthetic voices for machine-readable Latin texts and it’s what I need, anyway.
(You’re teasing me with the “experienced Latinist”. I’m late into Latin and compose hesitatingly.)
Scrupulum tuum, Twpsyn, admiror et quomodò enuntiatum. Ut opinor autem, generationes dehinc aliter legabunt quanta vetusta quae legenda sunt. Scripta accomodata ut dicamus requirent quae instrumentis legi possunt. Ego ipse saltem talia advoco qui voces syntheticas fingo, latinè legere atque loqui capaces.
(Tu me ludis cum peritum latinistam dicis. Pauculos annos linguam disco et cunctanter locos adhuc compono.)
And I love your point and how you make it, Lucus.
Scrupulum tuum, Luce, etiam admiror et quomodò enuntiatum.
The consonantal quality of the semi-vowels usually happens so naturally and is so easy to understand that I don’t see why people think it should be spelt differently.
Lucus,
Why not just use a diaeresis?
iämbus, Iäson, iëns
I think it goes too far to spell the majority with j instead of i, just to indicate that the i is pronounced seperately in a small minority.
In manuscript writing of the Middle ages, the marks ‘i’ and ‘j’ were interchangeable, albeit in a different convention (nothing to do with consonantal ‘i’). Scribes would often chose to write an initial ‘i’ as a ‘j’ in a word or a final ‘i’ as a ‘j’ in numbering, as in ‘iij’ = 3.
Caligraphiâ medio aetate, ‘i’ et ‘j’ signa inter se commutare poterant, etsi alio conventu (quod ‘i’ consonantem non videt). Saepè in dictionibus scriptor ‘i’ initiantem cum ‘j’ scribere optaverit, vel in numeris ‘i’ terminantem cum ‘j’, ut ‘iij’ pro 3.
I know Lucus will reply to you, Essorant.
Certò Lucus, Essorant, te resequetur.
The pragmatic difference is that for most users of it, Latin is an unfamiliar language, and it’s harder to do the mental arithmetic for converting one spelling to another, especially when one has parsing the sentence on one’s brain. The linguistic difference is that the phonological relationship in Latin between /i/ and /j/ is much closer than that in English between /i/ and /dÊ’/ (the two letters represented by and in that old-style fashion).
Now, about the scansion. As you point out below,
Lavinjaque venit litora
is an abnormality. But it is for that very reason that we ought not mark it, since it is apt later to trip up an inexperienced scanner who assumes that the word Lavinia, and words of similar form, always make their prevocalic is into glides. Anyone who is proficient at scansion must, by necessity, be conversant enough with Latin word-forms, and know vowel quantities well enough, to render orthographical hand-holding of this nature superfluous. If they do need help with such things, then they’re not ready to scan well; and changing the spelling of abnormal forms to reflect their abnormality will only confuse them when they see the normal, fully-syllabled form later, be it in poetry (where their misconception will make them scan wrong, alas!) or in prose (where they will pronounce the word wrong).
In summary: I don’t care how you write, and I hope you don’t care how I do. But let’s expose those more inexperienced with Latin to every convention that they are likely to encounter, rather than grasping at one and pretending that the others don’t exist. (Actually, it was I, not you, who introduced the subject of pedagogy into this, and I apologize for shifting the subject to something different though related.)
So you’d rather use a complex diacritical mark that obscures the ability even then to place a long mark over the vowel, as is necessary in the latter two cases?
Moreover, a diaeresis is used for indicating vowels that do not make a diphthong, rather than for telling us that a vowel is not a consonant. That’s a misuse of the diaeresis.
As for “going to far,” can you explain then why the Renaissance to 19th century convention of using ‘j’ and ‘v’ had been in majority practice for so long? How can you justify placing ‘v’ as not “going too far” ? Or do you opt for u/i universally?
You can respond too, Adrian. 
Heh, well if you’re being taught parsing as primary then you’re already going to have a hard time enough to render the rest of this irrelevant.
The linguistic difference is that the phonological relationship in Latin between /i/ and /j/ is much closer than that in English between /i/ and /dÊ’/ (the two letters represented by and in that old-style fashion).
This would make it easier to acquire, not harder.
Now, about the scansion. As you point out below,
Lavinjaque venit litora
is an abnormality. But it is for that very reason that we ought not mark it, since it is apt later to trip up an inexperienced scanner who assumes that the word > Lavinia> , and words of similar form, > always > make their prevocalic > i> s into glides.
And why would that happen? Why would this be so when the student ought already to know exactly who Lavinia was?
Heh, and surely the student up to this point would be pronouncing “patria” with three syllables and not gliding two, and familia with four not three. It’s an obvious irregularity, when spelled with a ‘j’ — but a damned mystery (as it was to me for some time) for those who already know hexametre and find themselves befuddled with no ‘j’. And in the very next line of the Vergil stands “Italiam” — not “Italjam” — thus the student assumes nothing, and learns everything.[/quote]
Perhaps you mean something different by ‘parse’ than I do. I meant ‘parse’ as in ‘work out the meaning of a text’.
The linguistic difference is that the phonological relationship in Latin between /i/ and /j/ is much closer than that in English between /i/ and /dÊ’/ (the two letters represented by and in that old-style fashion).
This would make it > easier > to acquire, not harder.
Would make what easier to acquire? A knowledge of Latin phonology? Well, that depends on the student. A conversance with Latin orthographical conventions? No, because you’re ignoring half of them. A good Roman accent? No, only talent and practice can do that.
And why would that happen? Why would this be so when the student ought already to know exactly who Lavinia was?
You mean where Lavini_um_ was. Anyway, your point that the average student will be used to -i + vowel endings as disyllabic is taken. Still, it all comes back to being conversant with the Latin orthography that is common in texts, and as of the 21st century, just about everyone, in my experience, dispenses with the j. As I said above, for a scanner of reasonable ability irregularities like this are no problem, because they are run-of-the-mill and because the rhythm of the metre should guide them. For novice scanners, I would argue that keeping the line difficult will be instructive, and will help them improve their scanning ability. After all, the confusion of seeing a word spelt differently from how one is used to can be just as disorienting as seeing a problem with the metre. Since the majority of poetic texts do not help out the reader like this (learners’ texts* generally explain metrical problems in their notes, rather than ‘correcting’ them in the text), and since issues like these plague Latin poetry, I should think it more helpful to train novices to take metrical problems in stride — an essential skill for sight-scanning.
And as I have said before, and shall, to avoid unpleasantness, repeat, my remarks only apply to teaching theory, and not our own choices about how we write Latin, which must be guided by æsthetic and not pedagogical considerations. Can we end this argument? It’s stupid, and I don’t think we disagree with each other as much as we think we do.
*Actually, the ‘Lavinia’ line is a rather sticky example for us to be using in this discussion: Pharr’s annotated text, for example, gives simply ‘Lavina’, as an alternate form of the word that appears in some manuscripts.
Not in my experience, Twpsyn, and I’m in the 21st century.
BTW Lavinia, after whom Lavinium was named, was Aeneas’s wife (though the word in the text is Lavinus -a -um/Lavinius -a -um).
I seem to recall that the “i” in “ius” and “ia” in Latin proper names was frequently spoken consonantally (said quickly either way amounts to the same thing, I suppose).
In saeculo vicesimo primo vivo, et usum saepè video exercitoque.
Obiter, Lavinia uxor Aeneae fuit cuius nomen ad terram commodatum est.
Obscurè memini “i” in “ius” atque “ia” quod propria nomines Latina terminat consonante sermo soneretur.