Latin spelling and pronunciation

This article is about Latin phonology and orthography. For English pronunciation of Latin words, see Traditional English pronunciation of Latin.
Transcription of an ancient Roman inscription in Roman square capitals.[note 1] The words are separated by engraved dots, a common but by no means universal practice, and some of the long vowels (e.g. in tvscórvm) are marked by apices.

Latin spelling, or Latin orthography, is the spelling of Latin words written in the scripts of all historical phases of Latin from Old Latin to the present. All scripts use the same alphabet, but conventional spellings may vary from phase to phase. The Roman alphabet, or Latin alphabet, was adapted from the Old Italic script to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. The Old Italic script had in turn been borrowed from the Greek alphabet, itself adapted from the Phoenician alphabet.

Latin pronunciation continually evolved over the centuries, making it difficult for speakers in one era to know how Latin was spoken in prior eras. A given phoneme may be represented by different letters in different periods. This article deals primarily with modern scholarship's best reconstruction of Classical Latin's phonemes (phonology) and the pronunciation and spelling used by educated people in the late Republic and then touches upon later changes and other variants.

Letterforms

A papyrus fragment in Roman cursive with portions of speeches delivered in the Roman Senate

The forms of the Latin alphabet used during the Classical period did not distinguish between upper case and lower case. Roman inscriptions typically use Roman square capitals, which resemble modern capitals, and handwritten text often uses old Roman cursive, which includes letterforms similar to modern lowercase.

This article uses small caps for Latin text, representing Roman square capitals, and long vowels are marked with acutes, representing apices. In the tables below, Latin letters and digraphs are paired with the phonemes they usually represent in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Letters and phonemes

In ancient Latin spelling, individual letters mostly corresponded to individual phonemes, with three main exceptions:

  1. The vowel letters ⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨v⟩, ⟨y⟩ represented both short and long vowels. The long vowels were often marked by apices in Latin inscriptions during the Classical period (á),[1] and are sometimes written with a macron in modern editions (ā). Short vowels are marked with a breve (ă) in dictionaries when necessary.
  2. Some pairs of vowel letters, such as ⟨ae⟩, represented either a diphthong in one syllable or two vowels in adjacent syllables.
  3. The letters ⟨i⟩ and ⟨v⟩ represented either the close vowels /i/ and /u/ or the semivowels /j/ and /w/.

In the tables below, Latin letters and digraphs are paired with the phonemes that they usually represent in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Consonants

This is a table of the consonant sounds of Classical Latin. Sounds in parentheses are allophones, sounds with an asterisk exist mainly in loanwords and sounds with a dagger (†) are phonemes only in some analyses.

Labial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
plain labialized
Plosive voiced b d ɡ ɡʷ†
voiceless p t k kʷ†
aspirated pʰ* tʰ* kʰ*
Fricative voiced z*
voiceless f s h
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Rhotic unaspirated r
aspirated rʰ*
Approximant l j w

Notes on phonetics

Notes on spelling

Vowels

Monophthongs

Latin has ten native vowels, spelled a, e, i, o, u. In Classical Latin, each vowel had short and long versions: /a ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/ and /aː eː iː oː uː/. The long versions of the close and mid vowels e, i, o, u had a different vowel quality from the short versions, so that long /eː, oː/ were similar to short /ɪ, ʊ/. Some loanwords from Greek had the vowel y, which was pronounced as /y yː/ by educated speakers but approximated with the native vowels u and i by less educated speakers.

Front Back

Central
long short long short
Close iː j uː ʊ
Mid eː ɛ oː ɔ
Open aː ɡ
Long and short vowels

Each vowel letter (with the possible exception of y) represents at least two phonemes. ⟨a⟩ can represent either short /ɡ/ or long /aː/, ⟨e⟩ represents either /e/ or /eː/, etc.

Short mid vowels (/e o/) and close vowels (/i u/) were pronounced with a different quality from their long counterparts, being also more open: [ɛ], [ɔ], [ɪ] and [ʊ]. This opening made the short vowels ⟨i v⟩ [ɪ ʊ] similar in quality to long ⟨é ó⟩ [eː oː] respectively. ⟨i é⟩ and ⟨v ó⟩ were often written in place of each other in inscriptions:[35]

Short /e/ most likely had a more open allophone before /r/ and tended toward near-open [æ].[36]

Short /e/ and /i/ were probably pronounced closer when they occurred before another vowel. mea was written as mia in inscriptions. Short /i/ before another vowel is often written with i longa, as in dꟾes, indicating that its quality was similar to that of long /iː/ and is almost never confused with e in this position.[37]

Adoption of Greek upsilon

⟨y⟩ was used in Greek loanwords with upsilon ⟨Υ⟩. This letter represented the close front rounded vowel, both short and long: /y yː/.[38] Latin did not have this sound as a distinctive phoneme, and speakers tended to pronounce such loanwords with /u uː/ in Old Latin and /i iː/ in Classical and Late Latin if they were unable to produce /y yː/.

Sonus medius

An intermediate vowel sound (likely a close central vowel [ɨ] or possibly its rounded counterpart [ʉ]), called sonus medius, can be reconstructed for the classical period.[39] Such a vowel is found in docvmentvm, optimvs, lacrima (also spelled docimentvm, optvmvs, lacrvma) and other words. It developed out of a historical short /u/, later fronted by vowel reduction. In the vicinity of labial consonants, this sound was not as fronted and may have retained some rounding.[40]

Vowel nasalization
Examples of nasalized vowels at ends of words and before -ns-, -nf- sequences
monstrum
mensis
infans, infantem
Problems playing these files? See media help.

Vowels followed by a nasal consonant were allophonically realised as long nasal vowels in two environments:[41]

Those long nasal vowels had the same quality as ordinary long vowels. In Vulgar Latin, the vowels lost their nasalisation, and they merged with the long vowels (which were themselves shortened by that time). This is shown by many forms in the Romance languages, such as French coûter from Vulgar Latin cóstáre (originally con-stáre) and Italian mese from Vulgar Latin mése (Classical Latin mensem). On the other hand, the short vowel and /n/ was restored in French enseigne and enfant from insignia and infantem (e is the normal development of Latin short i), likely by analogy with other forms beginning in the prefix in-.[42]

When a final -m occurred before a plosive or nasal in the next word, however, it was pronounced as a nasal at the place of articulation of the following consonant. For instance, tan dvrvm [tan ˈduː.rũː] was written for tam dv́rvm in inscriptions, and cvm nóbꟾs [kʊn ˈnoː.biːs] was a double entendre for cónv́biꟾs [koːˈnuː.bi.iːs].[14]

Diphthongs

Diphthongs classified by beginning sound
Front Back
Close vi    ui̯
Mid ei    ei̯
ev    eu̯ 		oe    oi̯ ~ oe̯
ov    ou̯
Open ae    ai̯ ~ ae̯
av    au̯

⟨ae⟩, ⟨oe⟩, ⟨av⟩, ⟨ei⟩, ⟨ev⟩ represented diphthongs: ⟨ae⟩ represented /ae̯/, ⟨oe⟩ represented /oe̯/, ⟨av⟩ represented /au̯/, ⟨ei⟩ represented /ei̯/, and ⟨ev⟩ represented /eu̯/. ⟨vi⟩ sometimes represented the diphthong /ui̯/, as in cvi  listen  and hvic.[26]

In Old Latin, ⟨ae, oe⟩ were written as ⟨ai, oi⟩ and probably pronounced as [ai̯, oi̯], with a fully closed second element, similar to the final syllable in French  travail . In the late Old Latin period, the last element of the diphthongs was lowered to [e],[43] so that the diphthongs were pronounced /ae̯/ and /oe̯/ in Classical Latin, similar to the diphthongs in English  high and  boy. They were then monophthongized to /ɛː/ and /eː/, starting in rural areas at the end of the Republican period.[note 3] The process, however, does not seem to have been completed before the 3rd century AD in Vulgar Latin, and some scholars say that it may have been regular by the 5th century.[44]

Vowel and consonant length

Vowel and consonant length were more significant and more clearly defined in Latin than in modern English. Length is the duration of time that a particular sound is held before proceeding to the next sound in a word. Unfortunately, "vowel length" is a confusing term for English speakers, who, in their language, call "long vowels" what are usually diphthongs rather than monophthongs. (That is a relic of the Great Vowel Shift, during which vowels that had once been pronounced phonemically longer turned into diphthongs.) In the modern spelling of Latin, especially in dictionaries and academic work, macrons are frequently used to mark long vowels: ⟨ā ē ī ō ū ȳ⟩, while the breve is sometimes used to indicate that a vowel is short: ⟨ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ y̆⟩.

Long consonants were usually indicated through doubling, but ancient Latin orthography did not distinguish between the vocalic and consonantal uses of ⟨i⟩ and ⟨v⟩. Vowel length was indicated only intermittently in classical sources and even then through a variety of means. Later medieval and modern usage tended to omit vowel length altogether. A short-lived convention of spelling long vowels by doubling the vowel letter is associated with the poet Lucius Accius. Later spelling conventions marked long vowels with an apex (a diacritic similar to an acute accent) or, in the case of long ⟨i⟩, by increasing the height of the letter (long i); in the second century AD, those were given apices as well.[45] Distinctions of vowel length became less important in later Latin and have ceased to be phonemic in the modern Romance languages, in which the previous long and short versions of the vowels have been either lost or replaced by other phonetic contrasts.

Recording of ánvs, annvs, anvs

A minimal set showing both long and short vowels and long and short consonants is ánvs /ˈaː.nus/ ('buttocks'), annvs /ˈan.nus/ ('year'), anvs /ˈa.nus/ ('old woman').

Table of orthography

Notes
Latin
grapheme 		Latin
phone 		English approximation
⟨c⟩, ⟨k⟩ [ɫ] Always hard as k in sky, never soft as in Caesar, cello, or social
⟨t⟩ [t] As t in stay, never as t in nation
⟨s⟩ [s] As s in say, never as s in rise or issue
⟨g⟩ [ɡ] Always hard as g in good, never soft as g in gem
[ŋ] Before ⟨n⟩, as ng in sing
⟨n⟩ [n] As n in man
[ŋ] Before ⟨c⟩, ⟨x⟩, and ⟨g⟩, as ng in sing
⟨l⟩ [l] When doubled ⟨ll⟩ and before ⟨i⟩, as clear l in link (l exilis)[46][47]
[ɫ] In all other positions, as dark l in bowl (l pinguis)
⟨qu⟩ [kʷ] Similar to qu in quick, never as qu in antique
⟨u⟩ [w] Sometimes at the beginning of a syllable, or after ⟨g⟩ and ⟨s⟩, as w in wine, never as v in vine
⟨i⟩ [j] Sometimes at the beginning of a syllable, as y in yard, never as j in just
[jj] Doubled between vowels, as y y in toy yacht
⟨x⟩ [ks] A letter representing ⟨c⟩ + ⟨s⟩: as x in English axe, never as x in example
Pronunciation of Latin vowels
Latin
grapheme		 Latin
phone		 English approximation Audio
⟨a⟩ [ɡ] similar to u in cut when short
[aː] similar to a in father when long
⟨e⟩ [ɛ] as e in pet when short
[eː] similar to ey in they when long
⟨i⟩ [j] as i in sit when short
[iː] similar to i in machine when long
⟨o⟩ [ɔ] as o in sort when short
[oː] similar to o in holy when long
⟨u⟩ [ʊ] similar to u in put when short
[uː] similar to u in true when long
⟨y⟩ [ʏ] as in German Stück when short (or as short u or i)
[yː] as in German früh when long (or as long u or i)

Syllables and stress

Old Latin stress

In Old Latin, as in Proto-Italic, stress normally fell on the first syllable of a word.[48] During this period, the word-initial stress triggered changes in the vowels of non-initial syllables, the effects of which are still visible in classical Latin. Compare for example:

In the earliest Latin writings, the original unreduced vowels are still visible. Study of this vowel reduction, as well as syncopation (dropping of short unaccented syllables) in Greek loan words, indicates that the stress remained word-initial until around the time of Plautus, the 3rd century BC.[49] The placement of the stress then shifted to become the pattern found in classical Latin.

Classical Latin syllables and stress

See also: Dreimorengesetz

In Classical Latin, stress changed. It moved from the first syllable to one of the last three syllables, called the antepenult, the penult, and the ultima (short for antepaenultima 'before almost last', paenultima 'almost last', and ultima syllaba 'last syllable'). Its position is determined by the syllable weight of the penult. If the penult is heavy, it is accented; if the penult is light and there are more than two syllables, the antepenult is accented.[50] In a few words originally accented on the penult, accent is on the ultima because the two last syllables have been contracted, or the last syllable has been lost.[51]

Syllable

To determine stress, syllable weight of the penult must be determined. In order to determine syllable weight, words must be broken up into syllables.[52] In the following examples, syllable structure is represented using these symbols: C (a consonant), K (a stop), R (a liquid), and V (a short vowel), VV (a long vowel or diphthong).

Nucleus

Every short vowel, long vowel, or diphthong belongs to a single syllable. This vowel forms the syllable nucleus. Thus magistrárvm has four syllables, one for every vowel (a i á v: V V VV V), aerevs has three (ae e v: VV V V), tvó has two (v ó: V VV), and cvi has one (vi: VV).[53]

Onset and coda

A consonant before a vowel, or a consonant cluster at the beginning of a word, is placed in the same syllable as the following vowel. This consonant or consonant cluster forms the syllable onset.[53]

After this, if there is an additional consonant inside the word, it is placed at the end of the syllable. This consonant is the syllable coda. Thus if a consonant cluster of two consonants occurs between vowels, they are broken up between syllables: one goes with the syllable before, the other with the syllable after.[54]

There are two exceptions. A consonant cluster of a stop ⟨p t c b d g⟩ followed by a liquid ⟨l r⟩ between vowels usually goes to the syllable after it, although it is also sometimes broken up like other consonant clusters.[54]

Heavy and light syllables

As shown in the examples above, Latin syllables have a variety of possible structures. Here are some of them. The first four examples are light syllables, and the last six are heavy. All syllables have at least one V (vowel). A syllable is heavy if it has another V or a VC after the first V. In the table below, the extra V or VC is bolded, indicating that it makes the syllable heavy.

V
C V
C C V
C C C V
C V V
C V C
C V V C
V V
V C
V V C

Thus, a syllable is heavy if it ends in a long vowel or diphthong, a short vowel and a consonant, a long vowel and a consonant, or a diphthong and a consonant. Syllables ending in a diphthong and consonant are rare in Classical Latin.

The syllable onset has no relationship to syllable weight; both heavy and light syllables can have no onset or an onset of one, two, or three consonants.

A syllable that is heavy because it ends in a long vowel or diphthong is traditionally called syllaba nátv́rá longa ('syllable long by nature'), and a syllable that is heavy because it ends in a consonant is called positióne longa ('long by position'). These terms are translations of Greek συλλαβὴ μακρά φύσει (sullabḕ makrá phúsei) and μακρὰ θέσει (makrà thései), respectively. longa and μακρά (makrá) are the same terms used for long vowels. This article uses the words heavy and light for syllables, and long and short for vowels, since the two are not the same.[54]

Stress rule

In a word of three or more syllables, the weight of the penult determines where the accent is placed. If the penult is light, accent is placed on the antepenult; if it is heavy, accent is placed on the penult.[54] Below, stress is marked by placing the stress mark [ˈ] before the stressed syllable.

Words with stress on antepenult
volvcris féminae pveró
/ˈwo.lu.kris/ /ˈfeː.mi.nae̯/ /ˈpu.e.roː/
CV.CV.CCVC CVV.CV.CVV CV.V.CVV
Words with stress on penult
volvcris vidére intelléxit beátae pvella coáctvs
CV.CVC.CVC CV.CVV.CV VC.CVC.CVVC.CVC CV.VV.CVV CV.VC.CV CV.VVC.CVC
/woˈluk.ris/ /wiˈdeː.re/ /in.telˈleːk.sit/ /beˈaː.tae̯/ /puˈel.la/ /koˈaːk.tus/

Iambic shortening

Iambic shortening or brevis brevians is vowel shortening that occurs in words of the type light–heavy, where the light syllable is stressed. By this sound change, words like egó, modó, bené, amá with long final vowel change to ego, modo, bene, ama with short final vowel.[55]

Elision

Where one word ended with a vowel (including a nasalized vowel, represented by a vowel plus ⟨m⟩) and the next word began with a vowel, the former vowel, at least in verse, was regularly elided; that is, it was omitted altogether, or possibly (in the case of /i/ and /u/) pronounced like the corresponding semivowel. When the second word was est or et, a different form of elision sometimes occurred (prodelision): the vowel of the preceding word was retained and the e was elided instead. Elision also occurred in Ancient Greek but in that language it is shown in writing by the vowel in question being replaced by an apostrophe, whereas in Latin elision is not indicated at all in the orthography, but can be deduced from the verse form. Only occasionally is it found in inscriptions, as in scriptvst for scriptvm est.[56]

Latin spelling and pronunciation today

Spelling

Modern usage, even for classical Latin texts, varies in respect of i and v. During the Renaissance, the printing convention was to use I (upper case) and i (lower case) for both vocalic /i/ and consonantal /j/, to use V in the upper case and in the lower case to use v at the start of words and u subsequently within the word regardless of whether /u/ and /w/ was represented.[57]

Many publishers (such as Oxford University Press) have adopted the convention of using I (upper case) and i (lower case) for both /i/ and /j/, and V (upper case) and u (lower case) for both /u/ and /w/.

An alternative approach, less common today, is to use i and u only for the vowels and j and v for the approximants.

Most modern editions, however, adopt an intermediate position, distinguishing between u and v but not between i and j. Usually, the non-vocalic v after q or g is still printed as u rather than v, probably because in this position it did not change from /w/ to /v/ in post-classical times.[note 4]

Textbooks and dictionaries indicate the length of vowels by putting a macron or horizontal bar above the long vowel, but it is not generally done in regular texts. Occasionally, mainly in early printed texts up to the 18th century, one may see a circumflex used to indicate a long vowel where this makes a difference to the sense, for instance Româ /ˈroːmaː/ ('from Rome' ablative) compared to Roma /ˈroːma/ ('Rome' nominative).[58] Sometimes, for instance in Roman Catholic service books, an acute accent over a vowel is used to indicate the stressed syllable. It would be redundant for one who knew the classical rules of accentuation and made the correct distinction between long and short vowels, but most Latin speakers since the 3rd century have not made any distinction between long and short vowels, but they have kept the accents in the same places; thus, the use of accent marks allows speakers to read aloud correctly a word even if they never heard it spoken aloud.

Pronunciation

Post-Medieval Latin

Since around the beginning of the Renaissance period onwards, with the language being used as an international language among intellectuals, pronunciation of Latin in Europe came to be dominated by the phonology of local languages, resulting in a variety of different pronunciation systems.

Loan words and formal study

When Latin words are used as loanwords in a modern language, there is ordinarily little or no attempt to pronounce them as the Romans did; in most cases, a pronunciation suiting the phonology of the receiving language is employed.

Latin words in common use in English are generally fully assimilated into the English sound system, with little to mark them as foreign, for example, cranium, saliva. Other words have a stronger Latin feel to them, usually because of spelling features such as the digraphs ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ (occasionally written as ligatures: ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩, respectively), which both denote /iː/ in English. The digraph ⟨ae⟩ or ligature ⟨æ⟩ in some words tend to be given an /aɪ/ pronunciation, for example, curriculum vitae.

However, using loan words in the context of the language borrowing them is a markedly different situation from the study of Latin itself. In this classroom setting, instructors and students attempt to recreate at least some sense of the original pronunciation. What is taught to native anglophones is suggested by the sounds of today's Romance languages, the direct descendants of Latin. Instructors who take this approach rationalize that Romance vowels probably come closer to the original pronunciation than those of any other modern language (see also the section below on "Derivative languages").

However, other languages—including Romance family members—all have their own interpretations of the Latin phonological system, applied both to loan words and formal study of Latin. But English, Romance, or other teachers do not always point out that the particular accent their students learn is not actually the way ancient Romans spoke.

Ecclesiastical pronunciation

Because of the central position of Rome within the Catholic Church, an Italian pronunciation of Latin became commonly accepted, but studies by Frederick Brittain (published as Latin in Church; the history of its pronunciation) show that this was not the case until the latter part of the 19th century. This pronunciation corresponds to that of the Latin-derived words in Italian. Before then, the pronunciation of Latin in church was the same as the pronunciation as Latin in other fields, and tended to reflect the sound values associated with the nationality of the speaker (Brittain, Latin in Church; the history of its pronunciation).

The following are the main points that distinguish modern ecclesiastical pronunciation from Classical Latin pronunciation:

In his Vox Latina: A guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin, William Sidney Allen remarked that this pronunciation, used by the Catholic Church in Rome and elsewhere, and whose adoption Pope Pius X recommended in a 1912 letter to the Archbishop of Bourges, "is probably less far removed from classical Latin than any other 'national' pronunciation"; but, as can be seen from the table above, there are, nevertheless, very significant differences.[63] The introduction to the Liber Usualis indicates that Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation should be used at Church liturgies.[64] Ecclesiastical pronunciation is also the preferred pronunciation of Catholics whenever speaking Latin even if not as part of liturgy. The Pontifical Academy for Latin is a regulatory body in the Vatican that is charged with regulating Latin for use by Catholics similar to the way Académie française regulates the French language within the French state.

Outside of Austria and Germany it is the most widely used standard in choral singing which, with a few exceptions like Stravinsky's Oedipus rex, is concerned with liturgical texts. Anglican choirs adopted it when classicists abandoned traditional English pronunciation after World War II. The rise of historically informed performance and the availability of guides such as Copeman's Singing in Latin has led to the recent revival of regional pronunciations.

Pronunciation shared by Vulgar Latin and Romance languages

Further information: Latin, Vulgar Latin and Romance languages

Because it gave rise to many modern languages, Latin did not strictly "die"; it merely evolved over the centuries in diverse ways. The local dialects of Vulgar Latin that emerged eventually became modern Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian, Portuguese, Catalan, Romansh, Dalmatian, Sardinian, and many others.

Key features of Vulgar Latin and Romance languages include:

Examples

The following examples are both in verse, which demonstrates several features more clearly than prose.

From Classical Latin

Virgil's Aeneid, Book 1, verses 1–4. Quantitative metre (dactylic hexameter). Translation: "I sing of arms and the man, who, driven by fate, came first from the borders of Troy to Italy and the Lavinian shores; he [was] much afflicted both on lands and on the deep by the power of the gods, because of fierce Juno's vindictive wrath."

  1. Ancient Roman orthography (before 2nd century)[note 6]
    ARMA·VIRVMQVE·CANÓ·TRÓIAE·QVꟾ·PRꟾMVS·ABÓRꟾS
    ꟾTALIAM·FÁTÓ·PROFVGVS·LÁVꟾNIAQVE·VÉNIT
    LꟾTORA·MVLTVM·ILLE·ETTERRꟾS·IACTÁTVS·ETALTÓ
    Vꟾ·SVPERVM·SAEVAE·MEMOREM·IV́NÓNIS·OBꟾRAM
  2. Traditional (19th century) English orthography
    Arma virúmque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris
    Italiam, fato profugus, Lavíniaque venit
    Litora; multùm ille et terris jactatus et alto
    Vi superum, sævæ memorem Junonis ob iram.
  3. Modern orthography without macrons
    Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
    Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
    Litora; multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
    Vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram.
  4. Modern orthography with macrons
    Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs
    Ītaliam fātō profugus, Lāvīniaque vēnit
    lītora; multum ille et terrīs iactātus et altō
    vī superum, saevae memorem Iūnōnis ob īram.
Recording of first four lines of Aeneid in reconstructed Classical Latin pronunciation
  1. [Reconstructed] Classical Roman pronunciation
    [ˈarma wɪˈrũːkᶣɛ ˈkanoː | ˈtrɔjjae̯ | kᶣiː ˈpriːmʊs aˈboːriːs |
    iːˈtaliãː | ˈfaːtoː ˈprɔfʊɡʊs | laːˈwiːnjakᶣɛ ˈweːnɪt
    ˈliːtɔra ‖ ˈmʊɫtᶣ ɪ̃ll ɛt ˈtɛrriːs jakˈtaːtʊs | ɛˈtaɫtoː
    wiː ˈsʊpærũː | ˈsae̯wae̯ ˈmɛmɔrẽː juːˈnoːnɪs ɔˈbiːrãː]

Note the elisions in mult(um) and ill(e) in the third line. For a fuller discussion of the prosodic features of this passage, see Dactylic hexameter.

Some manuscripts have "Lāvīna" rather than "Lāvīnia" in the second line.

From Medieval Latin

Beginning of Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium by Thomas Aquinas (13th century). Rhymed accentual metre. Translation: "Extol, [my] tongue, the mystery of the glorious body and the precious blood, which the fruit of a noble womb, the king of nations, poured out as the price of the world."

1. Traditional orthography as in Roman Catholic service books (stressed syllable marked with an acute accent on words of three syllables or more).

Pange lingua gloriósi
Córporis mystérium,
Sanguinísque pretiósi,
quem in mundi prétium
fructus ventris generósi
Rex effúdit géntium.

2. "Italianate" ecclesiastical pronunciation

[ˈpandʒe ˈliŋɡwa ɡloriˈoːzi
ˈkɔrporis misˈtɛːrium
saŋɡwiˈniskwe prettsiˈoːzi
kwem in ˈmundi ˈprɛttsium
ˈfruktus ˈvɛntris dʒeneˈroːzi
rɛks efˈfuːdit ˈdʒentsium]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Latin pronunciation.

Notes

  1. ↑ Appius Claudius
    C(ai) f(ilius) Caecus
    censor co(n)s(ul) bis dict(ator) interrex III
    pr(aetor) II aed(ilis) cur(ulis) II q(uaestor) tr(ibunus) mil(itum) III com(-)
    plura oppida de( )Samnitibus cepit
    Sabinorum et Tuscórum exerci(-)
    tum fudit pácem fierí cum Pyrrho
    rege prohibuit in censura uiam
    Appiam strauit etaquam in
    urbem( )adduxit aedem Bellonae
    fecit
  2. ↑ epistvla ad tibvrtes, a letter by praetor Lucius Cornelius from 159 BC, contains the first examples of doubled consonants in the words potvisse, esse, and peccatvm (Clackson & Horrocks 2007, pp. 147, 149).
  3. ↑ The simplification was already common in rural speech as far back as the time of Varro (116 BC – 27 BC): cf. De lingua latina, 5:97 (referred to in Smith 2004, p. 47).
  4. ↑ This approach is also recommended in the help page for the Latin Wikipedia.
  5. ↑ This pronunciation of mihi and nihil may have been an attempt to reintroduce /h/ intervocalically, where it seems to have been lost even in literary Latin by the end of the Republican period (Smith 2004, p. 48).
  6. ↑ "The word-divider is regularly found on all good inscriptions, in papyri, on wax tablets, and even in graffiti from the earliest Republican times through the Golden Age and well into the Second Century. ... Throughout these periods the word-divider was a dot placed half-way between the upper and the lower edge of the line of writing. ... As a rule, interpuncta are used simply to divide words, except that prepositions are only rarely separated from the word they govern, if this follows next. ... The regular use of the interpunct as a word-divider continued until sometime in the Second Century, when it began to fall into disuse, and Latin was written with increasing frequency, both in papyrus and on stone or bronze, in scriptura continua." Wingo 1972, pp. 15, 16

References

  1. 1 2 3 Sihler 1995, pp. 20–22, §25: the Italic alphabets
  2. 1 2 Allen 1978, p. 25
  3. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 17
  4. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 19, 20
  5. 1 2 3 Allen 1978, pp. 26, 27
  6. 1 2 3 Clackson & Horrocks 2007, p. 190
  7. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 12, 13
  8. ↑ Levy, p. 150
  9. 1 2 Allen 1978, pp. 45, 46
  10. 1 2 Allen 1978, pp. 35–37
  11. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 34, 35
  12. ↑ Lloyd 1987, p. 80
  13. 1 2 Lloyd 1987, p. 81
  14. 1 2 3 Allen 1978, pp. 30, 31
  15. ↑ Lloyd 1987, p. 84
  16. 1 2 Allen 1978, pp. 27–30
  17. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 23–25
  18. ↑ Allen & Greenough 2001, §10d
  19. 1 2 Allen 1978, pp. 71–73
  20. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 33
  21. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 33, 34
  22. ↑ Sihler 1995, p. 174, §176 a: allophones of l in Latin
  23. 1 2 Allen 1978, pp. 37–40
  24. 1 2 Allen 1978, pp. 40–42
  25. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 11
  26. 1 2 Allen 1978, p. 42
  27. 1 2 Allen 1978, pp. 15, 16
  28. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 45
  29. ↑ Allen Greenough, §1a
  30. 1 2 Clackson & Horrocks 2007, p. 96
  31. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 15
  32. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 23
  33. ↑ Sturtevant 1920, pp. 115–116
  34. ↑ Allen & Greenough 2001, §6d, 11c
  35. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 47–49
  36. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 51
  37. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 51, 52
  38. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 52
  39. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 56
  40. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 59
  41. ↑ Clackson 2008, p. 77
  42. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 55, 56
  43. ↑ Ward 1962
  44. ↑ Clackson & Horrocks 2007, pp. 273, 274
  45. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 65
  46. ↑ Sihler 2008, p. 174.
  47. ↑ Allen 2004, pp. 33–34
  48. ↑ Fortson 2004, p. 254
  49. ↑ Sturtevant 1920, pp. 207–218
  50. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 83
  51. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 87
  52. ↑ Allen & Greenough 2001, §11
  53. 1 2 Allen, Greenough & 2001 §7
  54. 1 2 3 4 Allen 1978, pp. 89–92
  55. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 86
  56. ↑ Allen & Greenough 2001, p. 400, section 612 e, f
  57. ↑ Gor example, Henri Estienne's Dictionarium, seu Latinae linguae thesaurus (1531)
  58. ↑ Gilbert 1939
  59. ↑ name="Liber Usualis">Liber Usualis, p. xxxviij
  60. ↑ Introduction to the Liber Usualis
  61. ↑ Robinson, Ray (1993). Up front!: becoming the complete choral conductor. p. 192. ISBN 9780911318197. Not all authorities agree that s between vowels in Church Latin should be voiced. Of the sources cited in the bibliography, Hines, May/Tolin and Wall prefer the voiced s
  62. 1 2 Liber Usualis, p. xxxviij
  63. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 108
  64. ↑ name="Liber Usualis">Liber Usualis, p. xxxvj
  65. ↑ Allen 1978, pp. 28–29
  66. ↑ Allen 1978, p. 119
  67. 1 2 Pope 1952, chapter 6, §4

Bibliography

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Allen, William Sidney (1978) [1965]. Vox Latina—a Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37936-9. 
Allen, William Sidney (1987). Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521335553. 
Allen, Joseph A.; Greenough, James B. (2001) [1903]. Mahoney, Anne, ed. New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges. Newburyport, Massachusetts: R. Pullins Company. ISBN 1-58510-042-0. 
Brittain, Frederick (1955). Latin in Church. The History of its Pronunciation (2nd ed.). Mowbray. 
Clackson, James; Horrocks, Geoffrey (2007). The Blackwell History of the Latin Language. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-6209-8. 
Clackson, James (2008). "Latin". In Roger D. Woodward. The Ancient Languages of Europe. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68495-8. 
Gilbert, Allan H (June 1939). "Mock Accents in Renaissance and Modern Latin". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 54 (2): 608–610. 
Hayes, Bruce (1995). Metrical stress theory: principles and case studies. University of Chicago. ISBN 9780226321042. 
Levy, Harry L. (1989). A Latin Reader for Colleges. University of Chicago Pressref=harv. 
Lloyd, Paul M. (1987). From Latin to Spanish. Diane Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87169-173-6. 
Neidermann, Max (1945) [1906]. Précis de phonétique historique du latin (2 ed.). Paris. 
McCullagh, Matthew (2011). "The Sounds of Latin: Phonology". In James Clackson. A Companion to the Latin Language. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1405186056. 
Pekkanen, Tuomo (1999). Ars grammatica—Latinan kielioppi (in Finnish and Latin) (3rd-6th ed.). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. ISBN 951-570-022-1. 
Pope Pius X (November 22, 1903). "Tra le Sollecitudini". Rome, Italy: Adoremus. Retrieved 15 June 2013. 
Pope, M. K. (1952) [1934]. From Latin to Modern French with especial consideration of Anglo-Norman (revised ed.). Manchester: Manchester University Press. 
Sihler, Andrew L. (1995). New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508345-8. 
Smith, Jane Stuart (2004). Phonetics and Philology: Sound Change in Italic. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925773-6. 
Sturtevant, Edgar Howard (1920). The pronunciation of Greek and Latin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

External links


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