I was browing through some old posts (as such is how i spend my free time 
and someone said “r” is pronounced like Italian r (rolling with the tongue and it seems like most of the recordings that I download are done that way
but I remember last winter when one teacher (who’s been using speaking latin method to his students.. maybe like Assimil) kept telling me “r” is pronounced like an animal’s growling.
What’s called vox canina seems like the closest thing I’ve found so far about this.
Does anyone know if this is “legit” Classical pronunciation and if so,
how does one pronounce r in this way?
This sounds like it could be a description of the Uvular “r”, as in German, or the standard English “r.” In either case, I think he’s pretty thoroughly wrong.
I think it does not matter too much - some people simply cannot trill an r in an alveolar trill to save their lives. But R has to be sounded clearly - whether with a grumbling French palatal/guttural trilled ‘r’ or a nice high class Parisian sharp trill.
If r is not pronounced, closed syllables become open, and long syllables become short, and passive verbs don’t sound like passives, and double r’s become single r’s.
When I speak French, I use the rumbling guttural trill. I use an alveolar trill for Latin, it sounds cleaner.
I am not aware of any evidence for exactly which type of trill was used in Classical times, although there is evidence for the r being trilled per se. Someone else may be able to clarify matters further.
I’m almost certain that I read grammarians in Keil (Grammatici Latini) talking about the animal sound of an “r”, so I wouldn’t say yee0890’s reference is “thoroughly wrong”, Arvid, but is correct (in terms of how it was described in early works). If I had the time, I would have checked Keil, but it’s massive. Metrodorus is right with his practical advice. I don’t think there’s a word for “purring” in Latin. Ainsworth says “felium ablandientium sonitum edere” for “to purr [as a cat]”. So I guess “growling” really just refers to an animal rumbling sound, which could even encompass “purring”. Animals growl (and purr) in many different ways, after all, so the original descriptions of the sound just point you in a certain direction, which is fair enough, isn’t it?
Me credo apud Keilium (Grammatici Latini) “r” litteram secundum animalium modum soni legisse. Itaque auctorem quem citat Yee0890 non fictè sed rectè dicere arbitro, ut olim sonitum describebatur, saltem. Indicium quaesivissem sed otium non mihi erat et opus Keilii ingens, Probè admonet Metrodorus. Quod anglicè cum “to purr [as a cat]” dicis latinè deesse credo (dicit Ainsworth “felium ablandientium sonitum edere”). Latinè “fremere” plus quam “roar” dicere vult et generale sensu fortassè anglicè “purr” circumplectat. Variè fremunt animalia varia. Descriptiones “r” literae sonoris antiquae versùm genus sonorum adnuunt. Nonne satis justum est?
Latin R = Italian R
As for the animal growling thing, Adrianus is right, in this way: the Romans and Greeks represented the sound of an animal’s growl with their trilled, “Italian” R.
I just find it really, really hard to believe that Latin had an “r” pronounced on the back of the tongue like this, when every Romance language descended from it uses an apical trill of one sort or another, or did until French developed the uvular “r” in the 17th century. (We know when that happened because there was a movement at that time among the literati to replace the letter r in most positions with the “more natural” z. It’s pretty obvious that there we’ve caught the point of articulation halfway through its migration from the tip of the tongue to the root.) This flies in the face of the comparative method!
That’s not what I’m saying, Arvid. Just think about the English word “purr” as onomatopoeically representing an “r” trilled with the tip of the tongue. I’m not talking guttural. Indeed, a classical Latin “r” is a trilled Italian one.
Me malè intellegis, Arvid. De dictione anglicè “purr” cogita, quae onomatopoeica est et extremitate linguae “r” modulari ostendit. Sonum ad guttur pertinentem non describo. Ita est, Luce. “R” latinè et classicè sicut italicè modulatione crebrâ variâque sonitur.
Sorry–I misunderstood. I just naturally think of a “growl” as coming from the back of the mouth or throat. I agree: “purring” with the tongue-tip is the only way to go. I’m doing it at my cat right now, and he seems fascinated!
