Has anyone considered that the pronunciation of the Latin letter V, which we transliterate alternately as ‘v’ or ‘u’, could have been a great deal like the Indian semivowel? In Sanskrit and modern Indian languages, the liquid consonant ‘v’ has the sound of ‘w’ before ‘a’, ‘o’, and ‘u’, but has the sound of English ‘v’ before ‘e’ and ‘i’. As we can see from the Romance languages, and even German, these two palatal vowels often affect the consonants to which they are near, so is it conceivable that this Indio-European trait in the semivowel ‘v’ was also present in Latin?
I’m not sure about Latin but being a native Hindi speaker I can say that the Hindi V is a labiodental approximant which is somewhat between the english v and w but always consistently pronounced the same way. ie it’s like an English w but the lips are not rounded as much and it is articulated between the lower set of teeth and the upper lip. Contemporary Sanskrit pronunciation is the same and I’m pretty sure that ancient sanskrit had the same pronunciation of this letter.
Where did you get this info from?
Shanth
Well explained, ji! The information regarding certain aspects of Indian pronunciation? I have experience learning numerous Indian languages (none of them very extensively, unfortunately) as well as a good deal of discussion with many Indian friends of mine.
Well then, that considered, might the consonant as Shanth thoroughly described have been similar to what Latin had? It would make sense considering the vulgate’s need to distinguish two consonants later on.
w always has a tendency to go v, much like b to v and i to y. Besides, Latin and Sanskrit both come from PIE, so this is expected, is it not?