LATIN PRONUNCIATION
VOWELS
The main vowels each had a short and a long sound. In Latin as the Romans wrote it, and as it is
usually printed today, the vowel is written the same way whether it is pronounced short or long.
However, in texts written for beginners long vowels are often marked by a straight line over the top.
Ā (long) like a in father A (short) like in sun orin hat
Ē (long) like the first part of the E (short) like e in bed
diphthong ay in day
Ī (long) like ee in see I (short) like i in sit
(when followed by another vowel letter, I normally had the sound of y in yard. In medieval documents
this sound is often written as J, but there was no J in the original Latin alphabet))
Ō (long) like /o/ in Italian O (short) like oin got
Ū (long) like oo in fool U (short) like u in full
(when followed by a vowel letter, U normally had the sound /w/ )
The letter Y, used only in loan words from Greek, originally represented a Greek vowel pronounced
like the French one in `tu’ or the Cantonese one in 書 (i.e. similar to I but with the lips rounded).
Educated Romans pronounced this in the Greek way but others substituted I and the letter itself was
consequently named `I Graeca’. This vowel could also be long or short.
DIPHTHONGS
AE like ie in die [Church pronunciation is. like ay in day or e in bed. This pronunciation is also used
by the readers of Latin news on Finnish Radio (http://areena.yle.fi/1-1931339 ), even though they
follow the original pronunciation for most other Latin sounds]
OE like oi in oil AU like ou in out
EI like ei in day (but often these two letters were pronounced as separate syllables).
EU run together as one syllable UI run together as one syllable
CONSONANTS
These were always pronounced as written, so a double consonant was pronounced as two separate
sounds or as a longer sound than a single consonant. So ille (that) was pronounced il-le
C always like k in cake or king but with less aspiration (accompanying puff of air) than in English.
[in church pronunciation, C has the sound of ch in church when it comes before I or E] CH
was pronounced as C but probably with strong aspiration..1
G normally like /g/ in good or girl but like the `ng’ in `sing’ before an `n’ [in church
pronunciation G has the sound of g in gentle when it comes before I or E]
M when reading Latin today, we nearly always pronounce this like English m. However, the
Romans themselves, at least in poetry, often did not pronounce a final M fully. Instead the vowel
before it was nasalised, that is, air passed out through the speaker’s nose as well as his month.
There are many vowels of this kind in modern French.
P like English but not so strongly aspirated in initial position. PH was strongly aspirated. It was not
pronounced as F until after the classical period.
R described by the Romans themselves as `like a dog growling’ and presumably a rolled or trilled
sound. In contrast to standard British English where the sound only occurs before vowels, a Latin
R is also pronounced at the end of a word and before consonants.
T Always like t in tin but not so strongly aspirated [in church pronunciation, T has the sound of ts
in hats when it is followed by I or E] TH was a strongly aspirated T and not pronounced as an
English `th’ in `this’ until after the classical period.
V like /w/ in we [in church pronunciation, V has the sound of v in very]
(in the Romans’ own alphabet V was just another shape for U and both letters could represent
either the vowel sound u or the consonant w. However, when Latin is printed today, only U is
normally used for the vowel sound and only V for the consonant. An exception is in the letter
combination QU, where we write U but use the pronunciation that QU normally has in English
( e.g. queen, question etc.).
STRESS:
Latin words were never stressed on their final syllable, so in a word of two syllables the stress was
always on the first (this is what usually – but not always- happens with English two-syllable words).
When a word had three or more syllables, the stress was either on the second-to-last or on the third
syllable from the end:
If the vowel in the second-to-last syllable was long OR if it was followed by two or
more consonants, the second-last-syllable was stressed.
If the vowel in the second-last syllable was short and was not followed by two
consonants, the stress was placed on the third syllable from the end.
In using these rules, you need to remember that:
1
The evidence for the pronunciation of C, P, T and CH, PH, TH is discussed in Sidney Allen, Vox Latina: the Pronunciation of
Classical Latin (Cambridge, 1978), pp.12-14 and 26-27. The change in the latter three sounds to a fricative pronunciation (as in
English loch, photo, thermal) took place in Greek at different times in different places and was probably complete in most areas
by about 400 A.D. (see Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: a History of the Language and its Speakers (London 1997), pp.112-113.)
An l or r following another consonant was regarded as combining with that consonant to
form a single sound. Thus combinations like dr, cl etc.did NOT make a short vowel in
front able to take the stress.
The consonant x was really two sounds /ks/, so a short vowel in front COULD take the
stress
The letter h was ignored in counting the number of consonants
Some examples of how this system works are given below. The stressed syllable is shown italicised
and in red:
amō (I love) Two-syllable word, stress on first syllable
amās (You (sing.) love) Two-syllable word, stress on first syllable
amāmus (We love) Three-syllable word, stress on second syllable from the end as it
has a long vowel
contendunt (They struggle) Three-syllable word, stress on second syllable from the end as the
vowel, although short, is followed by two consonants
synaxis (gathering) Three-syllable word, stress on second syllable from the end as the
short vowel is followed by x, which counts as two consonants
corrigunt (They correct) Three syllable word, stress on third syllable from the end as the
second vowel from the end is short and there is only one
consonant after it.
cathedra Three syllable word, stress on third syllable from the end as the
second vowel from the end is short and is followed by dr, which
counts as only one consonant
dominus (lord) Three syllable word, stress on third syllable from the end as the
second vowel from the end is short and there is only one
consonant after it.
You can hear the standard classical pronunciation of a basic vocabulary, in the `talking dictionary’ on
the Book II page of the Cambridge Latin course site:
http://www.cambridge.org/cambridgelatincourse/cambridge-latin-course-4eint/book-ii/
