First of all, excellent website and forum. You have the potential to bring back the greco-latin culture that now seems lost in our educational system. Kudos.
I’m studying latin by myself using “First Year Latin” by Collar and Daniell (the 1907 edition and the revised edition by Thornton Jenkins), and I’ve stumbled upon a few problems. One of those is pronunciation, since my goal is to read and speak ecclesiastical latin. So how do you pronounce the verb scire (scio, scivi, scitus)? Is it “sh” as in shower, or “sc” as in science", or is it combined?
Also, if I’m not overstepping my bounds, could you help me with this dependent clause?
Brevi autem tempore hostes ita superati sunt ut ex omnibus pugnae partibus trans flumen fugerent.
Brevi autem tempore hostes ita superati sunt ut ex omnibus pugnae partibus trans flumen fugerent.
This would be a relative cause of result. Since the principal clause (hostes superati sunt) is perfect passsive, the result clause takes imperfect subjunctive. It is just rule and after awhile you’ll start to recognize them.
But within a short period of time the enemy forces were so overwhelmed, that they crossed the river from all parts of the battle field.
I have used “enemy forces” because if I use just the literal meaning (enemies) the translation would be unidiomatic. On the other hand if I make enemies singlular, then I get into agreement problems visa-vis-vis the second clause which needs to remain in the plural. Similarly, I have used “battle field” as opposed to “fight” to preserve good English.
Thank you very much for that detailed explanation. Yes, I think the one word which gave me the most problems was “pugnae”; it never occured to me to translate it as “battlefield”. Thanks again.
Anyone else know about the pronunciation of scire (sc as shower or science)?
Salue, Amadi! (you have my middle name! good for you )
Why on earth would you want to speak ecclesiastical Latin? Personally I find it repulsive, a horrific linguistic fossil representing the collapse of the Empire, death, destruction, invasion, and murder.
But besides that, it may be you wish to join the Church or associate with it, though my suggestion would be to learn classical pronunciation first, in order to understand how words were and are formed in Latin (which make absolutely no sense in the eclesiastical pronunciation).
Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation takes on most of the sounds as they became in Italian — they work for Italian, but not Latin, in my opinion. Therefore “ci” or “ce” is as in “church,” “gi” or “ge” as in “George,” identical to Italian. Also identical is the pronunciation of “sci” or “sce,” like “sh,” as you guessed. The ‘s’ sound for “sci” is unique to the English and French mispronunciations of the language. In short, “shower” is the answer you were looking for.
Just in case you didn’t know, Classical Latin’s pronuciation for the same sounds assumes a letter ‘c’’ identical in pronunciation to letter ‘k’ (it is for this reason that ‘k’ was almost entirely dropped from the Latin alphabet by the Romans, since ‘c’ sounded exactly like it and was easier to write). Therefore ‘c’ and ‘g’ always hard, as in “cat” and “good,” never as in "city or “George.” There are many other important subtleties to Classical Latin pronunciation; there is an army of Latinists here who would happily guide you should you be interested.
Oooh, sorry to burst your bubble, but Amadeus is just my username. I could’ve used “Amado de Dios” in Spanish, but prefer Amadeus.
Why on earth would you want to speak ecclesiastical Latin? > > Personally I find it repulsive, a horrific linguistic fossil representing the collapse of the Empire, death, destruction, invasion, and murder.
Well… I may enter a catholic seminary in the near future, and most of the philosophy books my priest has are in latin. Also, the Mass I go to on Sunday is in latin.
… Therefore “ci” or “ce” is as in “church,” “gi” or “ge” as in “George,” identical to Italian. Also identical is the pronunciation of “sci” or “sce,” like “sh,” as you guessed. The ‘s’ sound for “sci” is unique to the English and French mispronunciations of the language. In short, “shower” is the answer you were looking for.
Thanks for your help! And remember, the Middle Ages were a golden age.
)
