LATIN: Festum!

[Cesaria]

savone:

Is Brutus into the tufu, again?

Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo.

 

[savone]

Cesaria:

Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo.

You called Nola about my vocabulary?

 

[Marie]

savone:

You called Nola about my vocabulary?

We cannot be sure exactly how the ancient Romans pronounced their Latin, although the discipline of Historical Linguistics has given us a reasonably good idea of their general spoken practice. The early borrowings from Latin into various languages give some idea of the Roman pronunciation, for example Gothic “wins” meaning ‘wine’ was borrowed from Latin “vinum”; this shows the -w- pronunciation of -v- in Latin clearly, at least at the time that the borrowing took place.

In English speaking countries, two problems arise: First, are we to pronounce -v- as -w- is pronounced in English, or like English -v-? And then are we to say -ch- for Latin -c-, palatalizing the consonant before the fronted vowels, as in Italian, or pronounce it like English hard -k-? Teachers trained in the tradition of the Catholic Church will generally use the fricative -v- and the palatalized -ch-, others will use the other sounds, which the majority of modern scholars feels to be more authentic. A great deal of heat, if not light, has been spent on the problem of the “correct pronunciation of Latin”. Probably most students will go with the method that their teachers use., but whichever way you follow, remember that this is a matter of scholarship, not of religion or faith. If there is any overriding parameter of judgment, it should probably be on the side of convenience, but in the last analysis the student who is really concerned with the way Latin may have sounded, as a part of his esthetic appreciation of a poet like Virgil, must try to find out the best way, so far as he can determine it, and follow it.

One person finds it ludicrous to read Virgil with an accent which appeared a thousand years after the poet’s death; but another reads Virgil the way Dante read him, thinking this is good enough for him. Here as elsewhere de gustibus non disputandum est.

 

[savone]

Well, okay…
I’m not sure that I will have a problem, since I’ve never studied Latin. No major reading projects anticipated at this time…
Thanks for the lesson…

 

[Annunciata]

savone:

Well, okay…
I’m not sure that I will have a problem, since I’ve never studied Latin. No major reading projects anticipated at this time…
Thanks for the lesson…

then you don’t know what this means:

Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo

 

[savone]

Annunciata:

then you don’t know what this means:

Nope, or any of the Latin in all the previous posts. I might be able to identify a word or two and guess at its meaning. However, I’m a bit slow on the uptake. Its been awhile since I’ve used Ancient Greek or Hebrew.

The “little grey cells” keep getting smaller…