Questions tagged [pronunciation]
Questions regarding the pronunciation of Latin words or syllables, or the history of Latin pronunciation. The desired time period for the pronunciation in question should be added.
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Pronunciation of Ancient Greek sigma as voiced [z] before voiced consonants
Throughout the development of Ancient Greek, was σ ever pronounced as [z], perhaps when before a voiced consonant, as in ἄσβεστος?
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How to define a long or a short vowel in Latin words?
If there appears no macron on a vowel, which is part of a monophthong, then how can I define whether it is a long vowel or a short vowel？
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Was the "U" in Urbs pronounced as "ʊ" in classical pronunciation?
I noticed that on Wiktionary and on Wikipedia it says that the "U" in Urbs was pronounced as "ʊ". I thought that Latin didn't have these kinds of lax vowels? Wouldn't it be ...
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How are the sounds of E (ε) and H (η) different in classical Greek pronunciation?
In Athenaze, the pronunciations of E (ε) and H (η) are given as comparable to the English words get and bed, respectively. Other than H (η) being held longer, in my American English pronunciation ...
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Hypothesis for Umbrian letter ers pronunciation
Umbrian epichoric alphabet (that is, locally adapted from Etruscan alphabet) has a consonant 𐌛, called ers in Unicode Old Italic scripts references. You can see an example of usage of such letter in ...
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What would the general pronunciation of Latin be like in the 600s CE?
In other words what changes from Classical Latin definitely were mainstream by that time: vowels, consonants, regional divergences? I'm aware of certain changes, but not exactly timewise when these ...
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What is the correct Italian Latin pronunciation of "projicias" and "sacrificium"?
When singing Italian music of the 17th century that sets Latin texts, we use an Italian Latin pronunciation. If "projicias" and "sacrificium" were Italian words, then we would not ...
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In Latin, is there a difference between C and Q? [duplicate]
In Latin, what is the difference of sounds made by C and Q? The almost sound the same to me. Is there something, I'm missing here
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How am I supposed to pronounce the "ct" in Church's latin
for example, the word "fructus": should I say fruCTus or just fruTus?
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Any scholarly views about how someone like Ovidius might have pronounced Greek words?
Μετᾰμορφώσεις
In this word, as can be seen, there is a pitch accent on ω, and also it is generally accepted (per Allen, Vox Graeca) that φ was an aspirated P (pʰ), not a fricative (f).
Are there any ...
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Carmina Burana pronunciation?
How do you pronounce the first syllable of the title?
My IPA is sketchy. I have seen both on the inter webs and the last time I performed it the majority opinion was accept on the first syllable.
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Traditional English pronunciation of "dives"?
In the traditional English pronunciation of Latin—the one that gave us Caesar /siːzɚ/, Jupiter /dʒuːpɪtɚ/, epitome /əpɪtəmiː/, felix /fiːlɪks/, and virus /vaɪɹəs/—what should be the pronunciation of ...
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Ancient Greek: how worried do I need to be about "long" and "short" accents?
I've been learning for a couple of months now, from a rather ancient book, which blissfully ignores all questions of accents.
But I recently found out about them (with help from Luke Ranieri among ...
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Short vs long i in inest vs īnsunt
Why is the i in inest short, while the i in īnsunt is long?
As far as I know (see for example https://glosbe.com/la/en/insum, or LLPSI), the conjugation of this verb in the present tense goes like ...
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Recitation of the Iliad
I'm a beginner in Ancient Greek trying to learn about pronouciation. I'm particularly interested in Homer's Iliad.
I'm aware that this is a controversial topic, to put it mildly, so I don't expect ...
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Pronunciation of sedes
I typically pronounce sedes as SED-ays. However, I recently noticed that the "Holy See," meaning the bishopric of the Vatican, comes from Sancta Sedes (the Holy Seat), so if this is being ...
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Which letters of celebrētur are trilled in this Bervoets recording
Which letters of celebrētur are trilled in this recording? https://www.stilus.nl/ce-geluid/PlinMinEp-VI-16.htm? Bervoets doesn't just trills both R's but the letters near the two R's too! I've noticed ...
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Knowing the two quantities of 'est'
There are several forms of ĕsse and ēsse (= edere) that only differ by the quantity of the initial vowel, perhaps the most common one being ĕst/ēst.
How do we know this difference in quantities?
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S at the end of Present Active Participle Pronunciation
I've noticed that we tend to pronounce the "s" at the end of present active participles (e.g. navigans) as /z/. But in ancient Roman times, would it really have been pronounced this way, /...
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Minimal pair for hidden quantity
Is there an example where the quantity of a vowel makes a difference in a syllable that is heavy by position?
For a concrete example, this does happen in Finnish (where long vowels are written as ...
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When pronouncing latin taxonomy names is there a rule when the letter p is voiced?
Pterodactyl -- Is the p voiced? tero- dactyl
Pteridology -- Is the p voiced? teri- dology
Dyropteris (genus name) - Is the p voiced? Dryo- pteris
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Why are some sounds differently pronounced to how they are written?
I am trying to start learning Latin because it sounds like a fun language to learn. It will also help me with English words and prefixes, among other things. This means that I know literally nothing ...
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Does the pronunciation of 'gn' depend on the environment?
I have heard different pronunciations of 'gn': [ŋn], [gn], [ɲ:].
Given a fixed era and dialect, is 'gn' always pronounced the same way or does the pronunciation depend on the environment?
My ...
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When did "ae" become [e]?
I know about the differences between Reconstructed and Church pronunciation. I have wondered when they arose. I have already researched it on StackExchange where "V" had already become [v] ...
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Littera Canina in Classical Latin and Old Latin
Ancient Romans called the letter R littera canina as the R in Classical Latin was trilled to sound like a growling dog! Was the letter R trilled to sound like a growling dog when the ancient Romans ...
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Resources for pronouncing Greek
Similar to our question about the pronunciation of Latin, I believe it would be very useful for users to have a single question to reference for resources for pronouncing Greek. Greek, as with Latin, ...
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how would Caeser say "hodiē iānuae domuum sunt ātrae"?
this post has been editted to use macrons, using html eg ā is & amacr ; without the spaces as html, similarly the other vowels. But this trick cannot be used in comments. I suppose what you can do ...
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How did Caesar pronounce Latin overlined vowels?
I am a beginner with Latin and am confused about the overlined vowels.
The textbook I have explains these via vowels of English words, but I think that is unsatisfactory, because when learning other ...
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What is the name of the thing that the tongue does on the trī part in the word patrī?
What is the name of the thing that the tongue does on the trī part in the word patrī? The word is at the 5:06 mark of this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdQawsU2RFg&t=308s
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Pronunciation of aspiration in ἔδεισεν δ᾽ ὁ γέρων
This example occurs in Iliad 1.33. In running speech, when there are no pauses between words, I'm able to articulate this as "edeisend ho." However, I would imagine (possibly just because I'...
user3597
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Pronunciation in medical terminology
I have been arguing about this with quite a number of people and it seems we all cannot find the answer (med students, duh😅)
My question is: Where should the stress on words like mastoideus and ...
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What was the most common pronunciation of the interjection "io" in Classical Latin?
Wiktionary lists two pronunciations for io:
/ˈi.oː/, [ˈioː]
Was one more common than the other? And just so I'm clear, the first would sound something like ee-oh in English, and the second yo?
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Frequency of conventions regarding whether to pronounce ω more open than ο, more closed, or the same
<boring background> I've been doing some recordings of language drill in Homeric Greek (1, 2, 3), in which my pronunciation has been chosen based on a certain set of criteria: (1) They're meant ...
user3597
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How has the pronunciation of the letter "c" developed?
I'd like to know how the pronunciation of the letter 'C' has developed in Latin. All I know so far is that it has changed through the centuries, but I'm interested in specifically what those changes ...
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When does the diphthong υι occur in Greek, and when it is pronounced as [yː]?
I'm a bit confused by the information I've seen online about ancient Greek υι: it seems an original diphthongal pronunciation was replaced at some point in Attic Greek by a monophthongal pronunciation ...
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Arnold and Conway, earlier change of pronunciation of aspirates?
Describing the pronunciation of Greek in schools in the UK, Allen says that a pamphlet by Arnold and Conway, "The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin," pretty much set the standard ...
user3597
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Why do I find it hard not to palatalize the /g/ in digitus?
In latin words such as digitus, I found it hard to pronounce correctly the consonants /k/ or /g/ followed by /i/. I think that this happens especially if these sounds are in the same syllabe.
Is it ...
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Is it possible to make sense of the classical words and pronunciation in Dune, by Frank Herbert?
Dune is a classic science fiction novel by Frank Herbert. There have been attempts to film it, including an upcoming movie version covering the first half of the book. A lot of the names and ...
user3597
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the kiskis and kankan debate: primary sources
There's a very famous story about how in the middle of the sixteenth century the Sorbonne University filed a legal claim to the Parlement de Paris re: the correct pronunciation of qu- in Latin, viz. ...
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Pronunciation of the syllables that are long by position
I have a question about pronunciation of long/heavy syllables:
Should we lengthen the syllable that is long by position (e. g. septem)
Also, should we lengthen the syllable which contains diphtong (...
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How were τὰ φυσικά, φυσικός, and φύσις pronounced in Aristotle's time?
This question occurred to me in the context of a previous question of mine, which concerned the etymology of 'physics'.
τὰ φυσικά is 'the collective title of Aristotle's physical treatises' (OED). ...
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Syllabification of "anhelo"
I'm setting some writing of St. Augustine to music, and it includes the word anhelo ("I long for"). I'm wondering whether an-he-lo or a-nhe-lo is the preferred way to divide it into ...
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Were aspirations pronounced longer in dialects influenced by semitic languages?
In general, /h/ and similar sounds are quite frequent in semitic languages, in Hebrew it even forms the definite article. So, speakers of semitic origin would seem to me more likely to pronounce the ...
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Why is no one pronouncing the final 'm' as a nasal vowel?
I've listened to about 30 modern Latin speakers and except for Luke Ranieri, none of them pronounce the final 'm' as it should be pronounced which is as a nasal vowel, at least during conversation. ...
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Was the 'i' in cuius pronounced as 'j' or did it form a diphthong with 'u'
You can't determine from metrical feet if the 'i' in 'cuius' was pronounced as 'j' or if it formed a diphthong with 'u'. Diphthongs always form long syllables so it could be the 'u' was long and the '...
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What can we say about the pronunciation of Z?
The letter Z was borrowed into the Latin alphabet in order to transcribe Greek loanwords, along with Y.
Presumably, educated Latin-speakers pronounced it like its source, Greek zeta. However, Greek ...
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Does CUM EŌ EO mean I go with them?
If so, the pronunciation of the long vowel Ō is really important?
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Can a same poet use both U/V (vowel/consonant) variants of the same stem?
There are some words that poets use in more than one way. For example the word deorsum, usually 3 syllables (dĕ-or-sum), but sometimes the poets allowed themselves some freedom, and had it as 2 ...
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Was avē truly pronounced with an "unspelled /h/"?
According to the etymology at Wiktionary, avē derived from a Punic word with an initial /h/, and was pronounced as such in the Classical period even though the word was spelt without.
Is this claim, ...
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Pronunciation of intervocalic EV in Greek words in Roman Ecclesiastical
For example evangelium, which in Greek, and hence in Classical, has an ambisyllabic1 [w:], giving [ɛw:a]. How are this and similar words pronounced in (preferrably sung) Roman Ecclesiastical? Is it as ...
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