How do you pronounce Humanae Vitae?

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masondoggy

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I’ve looked online and can’t find a pronunciation key. Sorry, I don’t speak Latin, lol. :o

Are there any online sites that give pronunciations to Catholic words or words from the Bible?
 
masondoggy said:
I’ve looked online and can’t find a pronunciation key. Sorry, I don’t speak Latin, lol. :o
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cf. [post=2457144]Re: Psalm 150 in Latin - Pronounciation[/post]
masondoggy said:
Are there any online sites that give pronunciations to Catholic words or words from the Bible?
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Lots of them, some more flawed than others (and many flawed in trying to communicate pronunciation using only text, as does the above post). Search google for ecclesiastical latin pronunciation.

🤓
tee
 
Basic problem with Latin is that no one really speaks it anymore. Even in the Church, most modern scholars believe that the pronunciation has shifted quite a bit since ancient times.

I believe the pronunciations given here reflect the current church pronunciation quite well. The ancient pronunciation (from my college latin class) would have been something along the lines of Humani Witi with the ending i’s being pronounced as I.

–
Bill
 
Since it is a Church document, the ecclesiastical pronunciation would be correct, not the classical pronunciation.
 
There are several different patterns of pronunciation in Latin.

/humane vite/ - traditional of classical scholars, these days near extinct except some regions where it’s preserved

/humane vite/ - Ecclesiastic - will sound more Italian than the above (softer, for one)

/humanai vitai/ - “Latina restituta” - the language of those people who live in a virtual world of the late republic and early empire 😉

The strong -ay variations are the way Latin was traditionally pronounced by Anglo-Saxons. Using this pronunciation is the equivalent of talking English. Note that British people will likely start from -/hiu/ because of their regional accent (compare “new” or “dune” or “duke” in various British and American accents - it differs from place to place). Please note that reading Latin the English way, using Anglo-Saxon sounds, will not be obvious to other people, if you’re in a multinational group. It would be the equivalent of talking English.

Personally, I prefer the first way I cited, which is the traditional late-Roman pronunciation. It seems to be the most logical and offers logical ties between the writing and the speech, as well.
 
Stumbled across this old thread, and just had to post:

A few weeks ago I was listening to a program on Catholic radio. I *know *the speaker was some expert on the subject of sexual morality, but he kept referring to a document he called Human-ay Veet-eye (rhymes with: play, ply, respectively).

Either pronounce it Ecclesiastical (preferred, to my ear): Human-ay Veet-ay or pronounce it Classical Human-eye Weet-eye, but to mix it up the way he did just made him sound dumb, to my Latin ear. :rolleyes:

:twocents: 🤓
tee
 
masondoggy said:
I’ve looked online and can’t find a pronunciation key. Sorry, I don’t speak Latin, lol. :o

Are there any online sites that give pronunciations to Catholic words or words from the Bible?
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Sort of like Bhagavad Gita.

CDL
 
I think the ‘ae’ is usually said ‘ay’ by english speakers, but in actual proper church latin it is more of an ‘ayee’ sound, a dipthong. Not particularly important…but unmentioned as of yet.

Uman-ay-ee Veet-ay-ee (except the ay-ee is all run together…ayyee, aiieeeee)
 
muffinmojo said:
I think the ‘ae’ is usually said ‘ay’ by english speakers, but in actual proper church latin it is more of an ‘ayee’ sound, a dipthong. Not particularly important…but unmentioned as of yet.
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Incidentally, while the “e” doesn’t correspond to the “y” per any post-classical rules, for which reason English speakers of post-classical Latin sound very unique to everyone else, the correct way of pronouncing the same ending in classical Latin is in fact close to “ay”. It would also be written “ai”, like in Greek, in classical Latin. Hence “puellai pulchrai” (pretty girls), “salus reipublicai” (the good of the commonwealth), “servus dominai” (the lady’s servant).

Church Latin is very close to late-Roman pronunciation. It doesn’t really suffer from madiaeval European deviations, although it isn’t exactly what the late Romans spoke, either.

Generally, the “ae” (or “ai”, although actually writing it as “ai” would be archaic) sound is a diphthong. Not two separate sounds, not a single sound, but a diphthong. Pretty much every form of Latin pronunciation I can think about makes it a diphthong, although in casual fast speech the distinction may be lost.
 
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