Pronunciation of Latin
Three methods of pronouncing Latin are in use in this country at the present time, described
respectively as the English method, the Continental method, and the Roman or Phonetic method.
I. The English Method
In general, pronounces Latin words as though they were English. The tendency of this system
is frequently to obscure the vowel sounds. Thus, before
r final, or
followed by another consonant,
e, i, and
u are
scarcely distinguishable from one another. Between
qu and
rt, a receives a sound like
o—e. g. in
quartus. The quantities of unaccented syllables are not carefully rendered.
The diphthongs
œ and
œ are
sounded like
ē in
be; au, as in
author; eu, as in
neuter; ui, like
ī in
like—e. g.
cui,
huic, etc.
C and
g are pronounced soft (like
English
s and
j) before
e, i, y,
ae, or
oe. Ch is hard, like
k; c, s, and
t, in such words as
socius, militia, Alsium, anxius,
receive the sound of
sh. G and
m are silent before
n (e. g.
Gnaeus, Mnemon); ch and
ph
before a mute (e. g.
Chthonia, Phthia); p before
s or
t (e. g.
Psyche, Ptolemaeus); and
t before
m (e. g.
Tmolus).
The English method is falling into desuetude in this country, and will probably soon be
wholly obsolete. In England, the leading Latinists have long since repudiated it in theory,
but the conservatism of the schools clings to it as being the old historic usage of
English scholarship; whereas it is nothing of the kind, but a comparatively modern
innovation, as shown below.
II. The Continental Method
The Continental Method gives to the consonants in general the same sounds as in the English
method, and to the vowels the following sounds:
a, as in
father; e, like
a in
make; i, as in
machine; o, as in
go; u, like
oo in
moo; y, like
e in
me;
ae and
oe, like
a in
make; au, like
ou in
out. The tendency
of this method also is to neglect difference of quantity in unaccented syllables.
The name “Continental Method” is rather a misnomer, as there is on the
continent of Europe no uniform system, the scholars of each nation pronouncing the consonants
as in their own language. Thus, a German pronouncing
Cicero, says
Tsitsĕro; an Italian,
Chichĕro; a
Frenchman,
Sisĕro; a Spaniard,
Thithĕro,
and so on. Yet the practical identity of the vowel-sounds in all the chief continental
languages and the fact that only a few of the consonants vary in pronunciation, make the
so-called Continental System, as used in this country, one that is easily intelligible to any
Continental Latinist. It is used by the Catholic clergy and in a number of colleges, and is
substantially the system that has always prevailed at the Scotch universities.
III. The Roman or Phonetic Method
The Roman or Phonetic Method aims to reproduce, so far as our present knowledge makes such
a thing possible, the pronunciation used by the Romans themselves in the classical period. It
distinguishes very carefully between long and short vowels, even in syllables where the
natural vocalic quantities are obscured by their position before two consonants.
ā, as in
father; ă, as in
Cuba.
ē, as in
they; ĕ, like
a in
Senate.
ī, as in
machine; ĭ, as
in
pin.
ō, as in
note; ŏ, as in
obey.
ū, like
oo in
moo; ŭ, like
oo in
hood.
ae=ah-ee quickly spoken.
au, like
ou in
out.
ei, as in
eight.
oe=oh-ee quickly spoken.
ui, like
wee in
sweet
(nearly).
eu, as in
feud (nearly).
ȳ, like German
ü;
y, the same sound short.
The pronunciation of the consonants is as follows:
b=b in English; before
s or
t=p.
c=k (always).
ch, as in German.
d=d in English; at the end of words nearly=
t.
f=f in English.
g=g in
get (always hard).
h=h in English.
j （
i-consonant)=
y in
English.
l=l in English.
m=m in English.
n=n in English; but before
c, q, g, or
x=ng in
linger.
p=p in English.
q=q in English. (It is always, in Latin, followed by
u.）
r=r in English with a slight trill.
s=s in
sit.
t=t in English, and never assibilated.
v （
u-consonant)=
w in
English.
x=x in English.
z=z in English.
Our knowledge of how the Romans pronounced their own language is derived
from several sources: (
a) from the statements of the Roman writers
themselves, especially of the grammarians; (
b) from the orthography of
the language, which was, in the main, phonetic (
Quint. i. 7, 11);
(
c) from the way in which the Greeks represented Roman sounds in
Greek characters—spelling by ear; (
d) from a comparison of
all the modern languages derived from the Latin with reference to the points which they
possess in common; (
e) from the spelling of the Latin words taken into
German, Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon at an early period; (
f) from the
traditions of scholars as set forth in the treatises of Erasmus, Lipsius, and others, as
cited below; (
g) from the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church,
which has employed Latin in its rites from the first century to the present time; (
h) from the general principles of the science of phonology. These sources
were very carefully investigated, and the results they yield were correlated by Dr. Wilhelm
Corssen (q.v.) in his great work,
Ueber
Aussprache, Vokalismus, und Betonung der lateinischen Sprache, 2 vols.
(Leipzig, 1858-59; 2d ed. 1868-70), since the appearance of which the ancient
system of pronunciation has made steady progress in gaining the acceptance of scholars all
over the world. In 1859, Professor J. F. Richardson, of the University of Rochester, put
forth an excellent little volume advocating the true method; and in 1872, Professors Munro
and Palmer in England, at the request of the head-masters of the public schools, prepared and
published a condensed statement of the Roman system, entitled
A Syllabus of
Latin Pronunciation (Oxford and Cambridge, 1872), which received the
approval of the two great universities and of all the leading Latinists of England. The Roman
system has now practically supplanted the other two in the leading schools, colleges, and
universities of the United States. This is not due to the greater willingness of Americans to
accept what is new, but to practical considerations that will readily occur to any one. In
the United States, the inconveniences of having no standard system have been very great. New
England, being wholly settled from Old England, long continued the English system of
pronouncing Latin. In the Middle States, the Germans and Dutch introduced their own methods;
in the South and West, the French pronunciation came in quite frequently; and all over the
Union, the Catholic clergy in their schools and colleges have propagated the traditional
usage of their Church. Hence, a Babel of pronunciations and systems existing and practised
side by side in a picturesque confusion such as no European country ever knew; and hence the
general willingness to accept a single method, especially one that is based upon historic
truth.
The advantages of the Roman system, briefly stated, are these: (
a) It
is approximately the system used by the Romans themselves. (
b) It is
more musical and harmonious in sound, and makes the structure of Latin verse clear even to
the beginner. (
c) It is simpler than the English system, giving as it
does but one sound to each alphabetical character, and thus always distinguishing words of
different orthography and meaning by their sounds, while the English system often confuses
them—e. g.
census and
sensus; caedo,
cedo, and
sedo; circulus and
surculus; cervus
and
servus; amici and
amisi. (d) It makes the
connection of Latin words with their Greek cognates plain at once, and renders easier
the study of Greek, of the modern Romance languages, and of the science of Comparative
Philology.
Advocates of other systems have made their chief assault upon the Roman method because of
its dictum regarding the pronunciation of
c and
v. They say that Latin
c must have had a modified sound before
e and
i, because every modern language derived
from the Latin has so modified it.
But it must be remembered that the modern Romance languages are the children, not of the
classical Latin spoken in the days of Cicero, but of the provincial Latin spoken five or six
centuries later. There is no doubt that at this late period Latin
c
had become modified before
e or
i so as to be
equivalent to
s or
z. Latin words received into
German at this time represent
c before
e or
i by
z. But had this modification been a part of the
usage of the classical language, it would have been noticed by the grammarians, who discuss
each letter with great minuteness. Now, no grammarian ever mentions more than one sound for
Latin
c. Again, if Latin
c had ever had the
sound of
s, surely some of the Greeks, ignorant of Latin and spelling
by ear, would at least occasionally have represented Latin
c by
ς—a thing which none of them has ever done, always
using
κ. It is probable that the modification of
c which is noticed in the modern languages was a characteristic of the
Umbrian and Oscan dialects (the Umbrian had a special character to denote the modified
sound), and so prevailed to some extent in the provinces; but there is absolutely not the
slightest evidence to show that it formed a part of the pronunciation of cultivated men at
Rome. On the other hand, words taken into Gothic and Old High German from the Latin at an
early period invariably represent Latin
c by
k:
thus, Latin
carcer gives the Gothic
karkara and
the German
Kerker; Latin
Caesar gives the German
Kaiser; Latin
lucerna gives the Gothic
lukarn; the Latin
cellarium gives the German
Keller; the Latin
cerasus gives the German
Kirsche. Also in late Hebrew, Latin
c is regularly
represented in transliteration by the hard consonant
kôph.
In Latin inscriptions, also,
c alternates with
k, showing it to have had the same sound. Thus we find
Caelius and
Kaelius, Cerus and
Kerus, decembres and
dekembres. (See, also,
Quint.i. 7, 10).
As to
v, the Greeks transliterated it by
ou,
writing
Οὐαλήριος for
Valerius,
Οὐόλσκοι for
Volsci, etc., while it passes easily
into
u in such forms as
cautum for
cavitum, fautor for
favitor, etc.
“It is not always remembered that only very gradually was the true pronunciation
of Latin lost in Europe. Scholars long retained the essential features of it, and by the fact
of their constant intercourse long prevented the growth of local and national variations from
the established method. Great teachers like Erasmus passed from country to country, lecturing
in Latin at the universities of Italy, Germany, Holland, France, and England; teaching pupils
of all nationalities, and being everywhere understood without any difficulty, for Latin was
the
lingua franca of the educated, and one general pronunciation of it
prevailed. Even in England, it was only after that country's isolation, political and
religious, in the sixteenth century, that an ‘English pronunciation’
arose, and this was long protested against—e. g. by Cardinal
Wolsey, by Milton, and as late as the last century by Ainsworth
(1746) and
Philipps
(1750). For the Continental traditions, see Justus Lipsius in his
Dialogus de Recta Pronunciatione Linguae Latinae; and Erasmus,
De Recta Latini Graecique Sermonis Pronunciatione (Basle,
1528). In Scotland, the Continental sound of the vowels was long retained, on which
see the incident imagined by Sir Walter Scott in his novel
The Fortunes of
Nigel, ch. ix.” (Peck).
Bibliography
Besides the works already cited, reference may be made to the following: Haldeman,
Elements of Latin Pronunciation (Philadelphia, 1851); Tafel,
Latin Pronunciation (N. Y. 1860); Blair,
Latin
Pronunciation (N. Y. 1874); Ellis,
The Quantitative
Pronunciation of Latin (London, 1874); King,
Latin
Pronunciation (N. Y. and Boston, 1880); Edon,
Écriture et Prononciation du Latin (Paris, 1882);
Seelmann,
Die Aussprache des Latein (Heilbronn, 1885); and H. T.
Peck,
Latin Pronunciation: a Short Exposition of the Roman Method (2d
ed. N. Y. 1894). See, also, articles by Prof. Max Müller and Mr. Munro in
the
Academy for Feb. 15, 1871; Dec. 15, 1871; Jan. 11, 1872; and by Prof. J.
C. Jones in
Classical Review for February, 1893; and Lindsay,
The
Latin Language (Oxford, 1894).
