Hey Steve,
I got lost trying to find where to post my Italian paper or how to contact a native speaker to record it, should s/he think it’s worthwhile. I could upload it right here if that’s okay, or you could tell me exactly which links to follow to get there.
Thanks,
Djeff
I have just test-listened a beginner’s dialogue Latin uploaded by Mikebond. At school in the 1970-s I learned the old fashioned Latin pronounciation with the strong German accent and I must say that I like very much the “Italian way” of pronounciating Latin, because it sounds very natural for me and like a living language. I am studying Turkish at LingQ (so not Latin) but I would orientate myself on the “Italian way” of pronouncing Latin as I also like the Italian language very much. So Mikebond, please don’t withdraw your excellent Latin lessons here from LingQ, this would make me very sad.
Kind regards,
Fasulye
Thanks, Fasulye. I am glad you like my lessons. I won’t withdraw them but I am unlikely to translate more, at least not until there is a bigger number of students that could justify my effort.
I’m curious, what accent is used for songs like Mozart’s Requiem, Ave Maria, Adeste Fideles, Carmina Burana, etc? I’m assuming it’s generally ecclesiastical, since most of these songs are religious (except Carmina Burana), but I thought I’d ask.
From what I’ve heard, often an ecclesiastical pronunciation is used. There also seems to be a “middle European” pronunciation that is sometimes used for recordings of classical church music. As I recall, it could be heard a generation ago in recordings by the Vienna Boys Choir, say in Mozart. The Russian also have their own regional pronunciation. If you’re interested I can transcribe the “rules” for the Rus. pronunciation, but as far as the other, all I vaguely remember is that “ts” was sometimes used for “c,” as w/ the Russian pronunciation.
. . . Fasulye, perhaps you could describe the German pronunciation for us?
[expanded because I just read Fasulye’s post]
Ernie and others, if you want to hear which kind of Latin pronounciaton I learned at school in the 1970s, then you listen to the (short) podcast “Nuntii Latini Septimanales” broadcasted by “DRadioWissen” (Deutschlandfunk). This podcast is spoken in Latin with a German accent.
Here is the link: http://wissen.dradio.de/nuntii-latini-septimanales.94.de.html?dram%3Aarticle_id=218027
Perhaps people can now understand better, why I like the Italian way so much of pronouncing Latin.
Fasulye
My idea of proper Latin pronunciation is based on Hans H. Ørberg’s audiocourse (supplied with his “per se illustrata” book). Is his way of speaking worth imitating?
Thanks, Fasulye. Very interesting. It isn’t quite what I remember (notably the sound of the letter c), but my memory is probably wrong, or the accent I heard was a variant. Thanks for the link to the broadcasts.
Eugrus, I would say it’s worth imitating. It’s sounds like a rather relaxed form of the “restored” pronunciation. People who favor the ecclesiastical pronunciation would probably not agree with me, however.
Fasulye, that’s a great web site, thanks for sharing!
Pronouncing Latin with a German accent there is one variant which pronounces the letter “c” always as a “k” and the other variant pronounces the “c” as the German letter “z” before “i, e” and as a “k” before “a, o, u”.
Thie first of these two variants is used in the German Latin podcasts (Nuntii Latini Septimanales).
By the way, these Latin podcasts are posted with a Latin transcript and a translation in German on the website of Deutschlandfunk.
Fasulye
Good grief, how many versions of Latin pronunciation are there?
I’ll stick with the classical, because that’s the way it actually was spoken to the best of anyone’s knowledge, and also because it doesn’t change depending on which country decides to bastardize it!
How did c before e and i turn into s or ch in the first place? It makes no sense phonetically.
I once read that the pronunciation of c before e/i as “ts” was a late development of Latin as a living language before it became the Romance languages. It was conserved by the German pronunciation of Caesar as “Tsesar” and Cicero as “Tsitsero”, whereas the word “Kaiser” reflects the older pronunciation of Caesar.
Michele should be aware of the Venitian pronunciation of c before i/e as “ts” instead of “tsh”, or am I mistaken? Likewise the pronunciation of g before e/i as “dz” instead of “dzh”. However this change in pronunciation did not alter the pronunciation of Latin words containing a “g” in German (it’s always pronounced “g”).
How did the pronunciation of c/g change in Latin in late Antiquity? There must have been many influences, some of them quite old. Celts, Germanic people, different Italic languages, Etrurians etc… there must have been a great variety of accents. The written language probably conserved an older form of the language artificially like in other languages (Greek, Arabic). There must have been many kinds of Latin around the Roman Empire. It’s normal for languages to change over time. (k > kj > ts/tsh/s - this is called palatalisation, I assume).
I am new to Latin, but I was unaware that there were particular accents. I have only ever been exposed to the Ecclesiastical pronunciation, and therefore I am very happy that lessons are available in an accent that I am familiar with. Thank you for making the typical pronunciation of the Roman Catholic Church accessible to interested learners.