I somehow find the importance granted to pronunciation in Latin unneccessary and excessive. Today I suppose all Latin communication is essentially non-verbal, and even if a group of people wish to talk all that is neccessary is an agreed-upon common system of pronouncing words, within the said group. That said how do we know what pronunciation the ancients actually adopted?
I find the same problem in another ancient language: Sanskrit. My Sanskrit teacher in school used to harangue me over my incorrect pronunciation. Yet the most interesting thing was that although Hindi is considered to be the closest living descedant of Sanskrit, when I went to Kolkata last year I found Bengali to be much closer to Sanskrit in terms of vocabulary as well as grammar. The only difference being that the pronunciation was systematically and consistently, different, from the _accepted'_ pronunciation of Sanskrit, in which case Hindi is definitely closer. But my whole point in that in the case of purely liturgical languages like Latin & Sanskrit, the accepted pronunciation itself evolves with time, so there is no point in trying to emulate any accepted/standard’ pronunciation.
Furthermore as long as these shifts in articulation are not very significant they remain perfectly intelligible. So my point is is there any sense in worrying about the actual way of speaking out words? If there are any arguments against my view, I would love to hear them.
To me it is a matter of accuracy, not of practicality. You can choose whatever pronunciation you want and if other people agree then you have a system for communication. However, if you are taking Latin to communicate and not to imitate the Romans then you are a rara avis!
But my whole point in that in the case of purely liturgical languages like Latin & Sanskrit, the accepted pronunciation itself evolves with time, so there is no point in trying to emulate any `accepted/standard’ pronunciation.
The mutation of the accepted pronunciation is what I would call ‘research’.
Furthermore as long as these shifts in articulation are not very significant they remain perfectly intelligible. So my point is is there any sense in worrying about the actual way of speaking out words? If there are any arguments against my view, I would love to hear them.
Well, I just don’t understand why anyone would want to use their native language’s pronunciation to speak Latin. Whether you believe the scientific reconstruction is accurate or not (it certainly is not completely accurate), it is surely more accurate than an English or French pronunciation, for example. A basic understanding of Latin sounds will go a long way towards understanding phonetic changes due to tenses, vowel lengthening, assimilation, etc. Not to mention you will totally destroy the metre of any Latin poem if you do not preserve the quantity of each syllable, which is impossible to do with an English pronunciation.
The Latin pronunciation is consistent, English is not. If you pronounce something with the reconstructed Latin pronunciation to someone who knows Latin, you will probably be understood. If you pronounce Latin according to English rules, the inconsistency in English sounds will carry over to Latin and there is a good chance you will be misheard. I don’t think your argument that a common pronunciation will work holds water if you plan to use English, because English pronunciation is hardly common.
Lucus Eques should be along soon to try convert you heathens
That is a point I had not thought of, I agree that if you want to enjoy poetry then greater stress need be placed upon pronunciation, but I still believe that it does not merit as much importance as is given in all the books I have seen.
Well, I just don’t understand why anyone would want to use their native language’s pronunciation to speak Latin
It is not so much a wish to speak in one’s own accent as a kind of subconcious slippage into it, to counter which considerable effort is required which IMHO is not worth it. (Unless you want to elocute poetry )
I don’t think your argument that a common pronunciation will work holds water if you plan to use English …
I don’t think anyone would call my pronunciation English, or even Indian English at that. I have enough inconsistencies in my way of pronuncing, to make Chaucer’s English spelling look systematic.
`Abiuro non_'_ is all I have to say to those who dare attempt to convert us heathens.
I hope that phrase’s right
Swannie, I think you’re overestimating the amount of work involved in getting the pronunciation right. Unless I’m missing something, the pronunciation of Latin is a fairly simple matter, with constant, predictable sounds for each letter and a simple, formulaic stress-accent system.
The benefits, in terms of gaining a feeling for the language, that Benissimus mentioned, should be worth the (probably) relatively small effort.
The benefits, in terms of gaining a feeling for the language,
If you all say so I’ll try a bit harder to pronounce words corectly. The only major slip I do have is that I often tend to pronounce the last -a long in filia for example, not just in the ablative but always, This is the only sound which seems kind of unnatural in my native accent. Also I often pronounce the t’s and d’s more softly, ie. more like dentals. Other than this I think my pronunciation is more or less ok.
I’ll work a bit harder on these then.
Shanth
PS: How would you write Installer Swan in Latin?
Cygnus …?
To me, pronunciation is important because it is just a part of me. This has happened with the other languages I speak. I don’t notice it, and next thing I know I’m speaking with an accent from that certain region. You might have seen my post regarding the same thing on the other board. If I didn’t pay that much attention to pronunciation, I would listen to Nuntii Latini, and in no time I’d be speaking like them! (Which after all, it’s not bad). No joke. I totally agree with Benissimus. I think it’s good to pronounce it as close to the Romans pronounced it in Classical times, which is the basis of the language we strive for. If we didn’t care at all, we’d just pronounce it all like Italian, an “updated” and evolved pronunciation, so to speak… or in that case, plainly and simple, we’d just speak Italian!
Installer Swan directed me here from my thread in a similar vein on the Learning Latin board…
and next thing I know I’m speaking with an accent from that certain region.
Language and the learning thereof is a funny thing, isn’t it?
In high school and college I studied a total of 6 years of German, most of which I’ve forgotten. Since then I’ve studied French, Spanish, Bengali, and Welsh to varying degrees of success, but the most notable thing was than in each of those I ended up speaking them not with an American-English accent (which you’d expect, with that being my “mother” tongue), but with - you guessed it - a German accent! Apparently the accent is the only thing that stuck - ich kann nur ein bischen Deutsch…see, I’ve even forgotten the word for remember.
So I’m probably doomed to speak Latin with a German accent as well. Hope it isn’t too bad.
Yeah… One particular case which comes to mind is about a girl in my Italian class. Her heritage is from Israel, and she speaks Hebrew. She speaks English without a trace of a foreign accent; however, when she speaks Italian, she does so not with an American-English accent, but rather with a thich Israeli one.
ich kann nur ein bischen Deutsch
What’s that??? “Ich” don’t speak outside of Romance; in other words, I speak no German! Hehe…
Whether I’m learning Latin or not, I’m certainly learning German bißchen by bißchen on this site, with my dictionary.
Haha, that happens, I used to speak perfectly unaccented Hindi(being my L1) , but after I started learning Bengali, I keep slipping into a bengali accent in Hindi, because it kind of sounds nice. And the interesting thing is I don’t even know Bengali very well.
You too know Bengali? Adhik Bhalo achhe. Tumi Bangla keno sheekhchi?
People that come from Canada or the Northern US and then live in the South for a while, come back speaking with a drawl, because it kind of sounds nice.
On the other hand, people that come from Australia to Canada, almost always keep their aussie accent.
to pronounce words corectly. The only major slip I do have is that I often tend to pronounce the last -a long in filia for example, not just in the ablative but always, This is the only sound which seems kind of unnatural in my native accent. Also I often pronounce the t’s and d’s more softly, ie. more like dentals. Other than this I think 