Ok, so I am teetering on the edge of believing that I can (albeit slowly) pronounce classical Latin. Here is my final issue: long and short syllables. Now, I know how to tell which are long and short no problem; the issue is how they actually sound. So if a syllable is long by nature I have no problem; I just hold the vowel or diphthong for 2 beats; lets call each beat a quarter note and represent it with a dot.
Exempli gratia:
.—.—.
vi----- num
.—.—.—.—.
pe-cu------ni-am
so the long i in vinum gets 2 beats and the long u in pecuniam gets 2 beats… so far so good.
Now lets say I have a word with syllables that are long by position… which is correct?
.—.—.—.—
sal-----ve
.—.—.—
sal-ve
So I know in verse that “sal” is long, but does that mean when reading aloud I should say sal (pause) vay
or should I say sallll vay? Or is it something in between, like a dotted quarter note (i.e. one and a half times as long)? I have listened to many readings and they just go too fast for me to tell. I read aloud very slowly to ensure that I get the length correct. I am a music teacher and when teaching time signatures, dotted notes, triplets, et cetera I have found that one’s ear needs to hear the slight differences slowly at first to develop the “scaffolding” in the brain to pick up small differences which later become very easy.
I have the same problem with double consonants:
.—.—.—.
pec----ca-re (with a pause like pec…ca.re) or
.—.—.
pecca-re?
This problem is especially hard for me when I run into a double ll, but I digress.
I can see how it takes longer to pronounce the c twice in peccare and that that would make it sound longer, but do I actually make the syllable the exact same length as a syllable that is long by position?
I hope that this makes sense to somebody, it is difficult to explain sans actual speech.
I doubt the Romans were very exact about such things. There are languages today that have both distinctive consonant length and distinctive vowel length… Italian has consonant length, and Japanese has both. But if I compare Japanese and Italian pronunciation, I notice that the Japanese seem to hold their double consonants longer than Italians hold theirs. I find consonant length difficult to discern in Italian, whereas in Japanese it’s usually easy. I imagine different speakers also do it differently in both languages, so you might find an Italian who holds them longer like a Japanese, or a Japanese who holds them shorter like an Italian. So who knows what the Romans did?
As for heavy vs. light syllables, I don’t think you should make any particular effort to hold heavy syllables longer. I think the idea was that they naturally sound a bit longer than light syllables without making any special effort, simply because the resulting consonant cluster takes longer to pronounce.
Although I personally think in terms of time spent, there are better ways to spend your Latin time than in trying to recreate ancient Roman pronunciation, you can certainly find people who have studied this problem in depth. W. Sidney Allen’s book Vox Latina is still widely regarded, and it contains an entire chapter on vowel length, pp. 64-77 in the edition which I happen to have. Most of Allen’s discussion, however, is focused not exactly on pronunciation but on the problem of “hidden quantity,” where vowels in closed syllables are long by position, which renders metrical evidence for the length of the vowel largely useless. In the absence of metrical evidence, scholars have turn to even more speculative evidence regarding length, and Allen goes through the common situations one by one (vowels before ns, vowels before gn, final m, etc.) As for just exactly what the long vowels sounded like (and to what extent there was a difference of quantity as well as quality, esp. nasalization), there really is no solid evidence to rely on, esp. since vowel length (independent of stress) had died out as a phonemic distinction already in proto-Romance.
As furrykef says about syllable length, ethan101097. Also, I would add, read the Aeneid aloud keeping the meter. The double consonants will hopefully fall into place in your speech as a result (“ice cream” and not “I scream” in English). As a music teacher, also, you would enjoy Erasmus’s essay about Latin pronunciation but I don’t know of an online version (English or Latin) to give you as a reference, apart from this http://www.scribd.com/doc/41720886/Erasmus-De-Recta-Latini-Graecique-Sermonis-one.
Syllabarum de quantitate, ô ethan101097, rectè dicit furrykef. Et hoc tibi suadeo: te Aeneadem clarâ voce recitare et metrum constanter continere. Exin modus requisitus ad sonandum consonantes ancipites se ostendet, praedico. Tu obiter musicae magister hoc Erasmi opus ames, De recta Latini Graecique Sermonis Pronuntiatione Dialogus nomine. Ignoro autem ubi in interrete sit versio patens, separatìm in illo uno loco quod suprà cito.
Here is a link that you might find useful. I don’t know if about the origins or transcription, but it seems easier to read. Ecce nexus qui tibi fortasse usui erit. Nescio an transcriptio bona sit, sed facilius lectu mihi videtur.
Edit: Reading this, I’m reminded how much I enjoy reading Erasmus. It’s a shame there aren’t better (or at least easily accessible) editions of his works available. Hoc lecto, recordor quantum opera Erasmi mihi placeant! Me paenitet horum operorum meliores editiones non existant, vel saltem eae quae facile inveni possint.
