Latin pronunciation question

[Cojuanco]

I’ve always wondered…

What is the correct ecclesiastical pronunciation of “ll”?

For example, “hæc dona, hæc múnera, hæc sancta sacrifícia illibáta”: Is it the pronunciation of the letters as in Mexican Spanish, like “llantas”, or like the same letters in English, as in “cancellation”?

 

[otjm]

I was taught the latter; but given that there seem to be (or were in the very early 60’s) three different pronunciations, that may not mean a lot.

 

[PazzoGrande]

I’ve always wondered…

What is the correct ecclesiastical pronunciation of “ll”?

For example, “hæc dona, hæc múnera, hæc sancta sacrifícia illibáta”: Is it the pronunciation of the letters as in Mexican Spanish, like “llantas”, or like the same letters in English, as in “cancellation”?

It’s like the English.

I’ve been studying Ecclesiastical Latin for ten years. Mostly Ecclesiastical Latin is the same as English except that whenever c is followed by e or i, it makes the “ch” sound, and a g followed by e or i always makes the j sound; gh and ch will be pronounced as g (as in gun) and k; and gn is pronounced like nyu (like lasagna). Different rules for Classical Latin though.

And yes, Qu is pronounced like kw.

Ecclesiastical Latin resembles Italian more than Spanish, if that helps.

 

[PazzoGrande]

Oh, and and oe and ae would be pronounced like e.

Really complicated, just as the rest of Latin is incredibly complicated. Even many cardinals admit they aren’t very good at Latin.

 

[ProVobis]

Oh, and and oe and ae would be pronounced like e.

Really complicated, just as the rest of Latin is incredibly complicated.

English can get awfully complicated too. That’s why we hire lawyers to read it.

Latin has much simpler pronunciation rules than English, which has lots of irregularities and silent letters. Do you realize there are seven different pronunciations of “ough” alone?

Though it would make life easier if they employed the macron (or accent) more, as the OP does.

 

[otjm]

Oh, and and oe and ae would be pronounced like e.

Really complicated, just as the rest of Latin is incredibly complicated. Even many cardinals admit they aren’t very good at Latin.

I was taught the ae is pronounced as a long “a”, as in hate or Kate.

 

[ProVobis]

I was taught the ae is pronounced as a long “a”, as in hate or Kate.

I would think so. Like saecula saeculorum (SAY-ku-lah SAY-ku-lohr-um) though it’s seclorum on a dollar bill.

 

[PazzoGrande]

I was taught the ae is pronounced as a long “a”, as in hate or Kate.

Well, okay I concede that the e in Latin sounds like ay. Still, whenever in Latin there is the ae or oe, it’s pronounced the way e is in Latin rather than the e in English (I should have said it that way in the first place).

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

I was taught the latter; but given that there seem to be (or were in the very early 60’s) three different pronunciations, that may not mean a lot.

Can you elaborate on these three pronunciations?

I was taught the ae is pronounced as a long “a”, as in hate or Kate.

When he says that the written letters “ae” and “oe” are to be pronounced as “e,” he means that they are to be pronounced as the letter E is pronounced in Latin, not English. You see this in how words containing these letters often shortened to just “e” (e.g. English “penal” from “poena”).

The difference between the Latin E and the long English A is that English A is a diphthong (pronounced “ay-ee”) whereas the Latin E is a simple vowel, more like the vowel in “bet” than in “hate” (so “seckoohlah seckoolohroom”).

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

I think the big difference between “ll” and “l” are that the double L would make the preceding syllable long (which could effect accent) whereas this is not so for the single L. The usual instructions for the “classical” pronunciation are that the pronunciation of a doubled consonant should be split over both syllables (e.g. “bel-lum”), but I’m not sure whether that is necessarily true for ecclesiastical pronunciation.

 

[PazzoGrande]

QNDNNDQDCE, I see we have another Latin student! I hope you’re more successful at it than I am though, I had no idea the grammar was going to be so hard.

 

[losh14]

I’m a statistician, not a linguist, but I was accepted into a doctoral program in linguistics half a lifetime ago.

For a double-LL, it’s like in English, not in Spanish. Remember that double-LL, which is a letter in Spanish, can be pronounced like an unvoiced or voiced sibillant (shay or zhay), like a front rounded vowel (yay), or like a long L (lay), and today the majority of Spanish speakers pronounce it with the middle of the tongue near the palate or immediately behind the teeth, rather than the tip of the tongue near the alveolar ridge (behind the teeth), which is how classical Latin is thought to have pronounced it.

Ecclesiastical Latin resembles Italian more than Spanish, if that helps.

Yes, especially in pronunciation. They are similar in being gendered languages with fewer cases than Latin, though I think Italian has one more case than Spanish.

Well, okay I concede that the e in Latin sounds like ay. Still, whenever in Latin there is the ae or oe, it’s pronounced the way e is in Latin rather than the e in English (I should have said it that way in the first place).

I think this is because of a bias English speakers have towards pronouncing words towards the front of the mouth. It’s just how our language has progressed over the centuries, and many others have also undergone a vocalic shift.

 

[Chatter163]

Ecclesiastical Latin resembles Italian more than Spanish, if that helps.

In terms of pronunciation, yes. But in terms of letters, spelling and stems, Spanish resembles Latin more. The fact that Spanish has j, (OK, the consonant version of i), as well as the letters x and y says something, as Italian must use a* gi *or ge to gain the same sound, as in Gesu and Giulio. Also, where Latin and Spanish have the letters ct together, as in Octavio and Benedicto, Italian has a double t, as in Ottavio and Benedetto

 

[jja619]

As far as the difference between the dipthongs “ae” and “oe”, wikipedia’s IPA chart shows that “ae” has the same value as “e” in Ecclesial Latin (“eh”) whereas “oe” is has the English long vowel sound for “a” (“ay” in “hay”).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Latin

Not that wikipedia is an infallible source, but that chart is what I used as my main reference for pronunciation when I started attending the EF.

 

[GangGreen]

When in doubt use the Italian pronunciation (not Spanish ).

double L = like cancellation.

 

[ProVobis]

In terms of pronunciation, yes. But in terms of letters, spelling and stems, Spanish resembles Latin more. The fact that Spanish has j, (OK, the consonant version of i), as well as the letters x and y says something, as Italian must use a* gi *or ge to gain the same sound, as in Gesu and Giulio. Also, where Latin and Spanish have the letters ct together, as in Octavio and Benedicto, Italian has a double t, as in Ottavio and Benedetto

Spanish also doesn’t distinguish in the sounds between “b” and “v.” Oftentimes this, as well as the silent “h,” causes a lot of misspellings, at least in my limited contact with Spanish-speaking people.

 

[tommydude2112]

I’ve always wondered…

What is the correct ecclesiastical pronunciation of “ll”?

For example, “hæc dona, hæc múnera, hæc sancta sacrifícia illibáta”: Is it the pronunciation of the letters as in Mexican Spanish, like “llantas”, or like the same letters in English, as in “cancellation”?

Ecclesiastical Latin is pronounced nearly identical to Modern Italian so you pronounce it as the latter (cancellation), however, it must be pronounced so that it is visible that there are two l’s; so, for example, end one syllable with the first ‘l’ and the start the next with the next: i.e.
il-li-bá-ta

 

[Brandon_Cal]

As far as the difference between the dipthongs “ae” and “oe”, wikipedia’s IPA chart shows that “ae” has the same value as “e” in Ecclesial Latin (“eh”) whereas “oe” is has the English long vowel sound for “a” (“ay” in “hay”).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Latin

Not that wikipedia is an infallible source, but that chart is what I used as my main reference for pronunciation when I started attending the EF.

I’m sorry but I still notice a difference between the dipthong æ and ‘e’, and though it may be due to me having no training in linguistics, I don’t find that chart very helpful at all. The IPA approximations for both letters are said to be equal (ɛ), but even the English and Latin examples given are contradictory depending on where the English speaker is from!

I was taught that ‘æ’ makes a sound like “ay” as in “say” or “bay”, and ‘e’ makes a sound like “eh” as in “second” or “best” (and this only works if you speak Normal English like we do in California ).

I was also taught as a boy that ‘æ’ and ‘œ’ make the exact same sound (evident in the fact that one can spell it either “Regina Caeli” or “Regina Coeli” and both mean and are pronounced the same).

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

QNDNNDQDCE, I see we have another Latin student! I hope you’re more successful at it than I am though, I had no idea the grammar was going to be so hard.

Latin grammar is not hard! The rules are very simple compared to English. It’s just gaining fluency that’s hard.

I’m sorry but I still notice a difference between the dipthong æ and ‘e’, and though it may be due to me having no training in linguistics, I don’t find that chart very helpful at all. The IPA approximations for both letters are said to be equal (ɛ), but even the English and Latin examples given are contradictory depending on where the English speaker is from!

I was taught that ‘æ’ makes a sound like “ay” as in “say” or “bay”, and ‘e’ makes a sound like “eh” as in “second” or “best” (and this only works if you speak Normal English like we do in California ).

I was also taught as a boy that ‘æ’ and ‘œ’ make the exact same sound (evident in the fact that one can spell it either “Regina Caeli” or “Regina Coeli” and both mean and are pronounced the same).

It is not necessarily correct on the basis of two alternative spellings of the same word that their constituent morphemes are pronounced identically. For example, Claudius and Clodius are the same name, but that does not mean that AU and O are regularly pronoince the same. Similarly, Gaius and Caius are the same name, but G and C are different. Now, I have been told that AE, OE and E are all to be pronounced the same. This seems to me to be correct since AE and OE are both regularly truncated to E in older spellings.

 

[shawnbm]

It does seem that ecclesiastical Latin I hear uses the Italian pronunciation of C and G before i and e, whereas the Latin I learned in school had those pronounced in hard form, such that Cicero is said to be Kikero and Genitori Genitoque would be GHenitori GHenitoque. Is it impermissible to pronounce Latin in the classical form as opposed to the more common ecclesiastical form?