2006-11-13 20:53:58 · 9 answers · asked by Martin the baby 6 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Classical Latin or Ecclesiastical Latin? There are differences in pronunciation. Of course, The Classical Latin teachers say that Caesar's words sounded like /weni, widi, wiki/, but as a student of the more modern version, it sounds strange.
Latin has been alive for about 2,500 years. Like all languages, it has changed or evolved into the words used by the Church, lawyers, doctors, scientists, etc. today.
We don't have recordings of Pliny, Vergil or any other ancient Roman to compare but Latin is a phonetic language. Each letter sounds the same in all words.
The vowels have been presumably constant..dipthongs have not. The /ae/ in Caesar sounded like the vowel sound in the English words /guy/ or /buy/.
There was no /K/.../C/ was used to make that sound...like cash, crumb, cut, etc. /U/ and /W/ didn't exist either but /V/ was used to make that sound...confused? For Caesar, we say /SI zur/. I have been told that his friend's said /KAI sar/.
Remember Latin was first, the language of a tribe. It was formed from several sources through the influence of Mediterrenean trade and conquest over the years. After several centuries it has been influenced in countless ways. Likewise, English has endured hundreds of changes throughout the centuries. Shakespeare's English pronunciation was much different than Queen Elizabeth's and hers is different than ours. In the English speaking world today, there are several dialects.
Like Latin, which was the language of commerce, law, medicine, and science for the ancients, English is the modern version among the people from all over the world.
Maybe in hundreds of years people will wonder what English dialect sounded like for the Anglos and Saxons. Who will know for sure? I don't think their words sounded like the words we use today.
A good source to Classical Latin follows. Check out the site:
ancienthistory.about.com/od/latinlanguage/qt/latinpronounce.htm
2006-11-13 21:45:52 · answer #1 · answered by tichur 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
They have a pretty good idea how it was pronounced, from ancient texts, studying inscriptions, and how it was translated into other languages (Greek, primarily). In the second century, a Roman author said that the v was being pronounced "with friction", so it was losing the w pronunciation as early as the second century. Inscriptions, especially misspelled ones, are very informative. Often they were spelled as they were pronounced. Pompeii had handwritten graffiti that provided more insight. The Romans slurred letters or left others silent (consul is abbreviated cos, so the n was most likely silent before an s). Hortensius was transliterated into Greek as Hortesios, so the n was silent. They have a lot of ways to aid in determining the actual pronunciation.
2006-11-14 12:49:09 · answer #2 · answered by Jeannie 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
How ancient Latin sounded can be reconstructed by studying a lot of texts, and finding onomatopoeic words and animal's sounds.
For example if you find in the text that sheep makes "Tu Tu" , and you know the sound made by sheep you know the pronunciation of "Tu Tu"(This example is real, but for ancient Greek, and sheep made "Vi Vi" so they deducted that "V" was pronounced "B" and "i" was pronounced "e").
But this is very complex and results are not sure.
2006-11-14 06:44:56 · answer #3 · answered by sparviero 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I haven't heard of any dialects of Latin. Latin was just that...precise and exact. There may have been some inflection differences, but that would have only been individual pronuciation(correctly or not.) The problem was all the different languages being spoken across the empire. Hmmm...sounds familiar.
2006-11-14 05:04:24 · answer #4 · answered by noflacko 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
I don't know, but linguist has determined which dialect of Chinese is closest to ancient chinese, by reading ancient poetry.
The dialect that sounds the best was suppose to be the dialect closest to ancient chinese. I guess they could do the same using roman poetry and songs.
2006-11-14 05:06:56 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
the only link between the Latin language and its accent with the present day is the catholic church that maintained Latin as its official language
2006-11-14 08:31:53 · answer #6 · answered by eratkos7 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Well I can tell you to go to a Catholic Church that reads allowed the real Latin words and you can hear it for yourself, or go to the encyclopedia here for languages and read allowed the words in Latin and hear yourself speak the language. It was choppy and certainly not romantic. When music is put to it like in Church it is a little smoother but mostly abrupt and one and two syllable's for the most part.
2006-11-14 05:04:09 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 4⤋
they hav fairly good guesses;for xampl they know
the germans didn alter the way they
speak as much as other peoples so 'kaiser' is taken
from latin caesar,,,
so the romans probably pronounced caesar as a k sound
2006-11-14 05:42:17 · answer #8 · answered by enigma q 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
The culture that spoke that language recorded it in countless books. It is still spoken today in the ceremonies of the Catholic church. Doctors use it because it is, what they call a dead language, meaning it is unchanging. So you can go to a Catholic church today and still hear prayers chanted in that language just as they were spoken centuries ago.
http://judgeright.blogspot.com
2006-11-14 05:11:09 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 4⤋