Latin phonemes
The Roman alphabet is an adaptation of the Greek alphabet to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. The Greeks, in turn, had taken their alphabet from the Phoenicians. This article deals with modern scholarship's best guess at Classical Latin phonology, and then touches upon other variants.
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2 Inconsistencies 3 Latin pronunciation today |
Since each letter of the alphabet corresponds very closely with a phoneme, here is each letter (and digraph) in order, with the phoneme it represents, given in IPA):
A /a/ (as in father, but shorter)
A /a:/ (as in father)
AE /ae/ (as in eye)
B /b/ (as in bone)
C /k/ (as in cake)
CH /x/ (as in loch) used in Greek loanwords to represent the letter Chi (Χχ). Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be pronounced /kk/.
D /d/ (as in dog)
E /e/ (as in bet)
E /e:/ (as in bet, but longer)
F /f/ (as in French)
G /g/ (as in good)
G /ŋ/ (as in sing) called agma. Some say that "G" was pronounced this way before an "N", e.g. agnus /aŋnus/.
H /h/ (as in happy) this sound was very weak, and quickly became silent in Vulgar Latin.
I /i/ (as in English see, but shorter)
I /i:/ (as in English see)
I /j/ (as in English yes) this sound occurs when the I is short and unstressed before another vowel.
K /k/ used in loanwords from Greek to represent Kappa (Κκ), and is pronounced like C.
L /l/ (as in lamb)
M /m/ (as in man) * see below
N /n/ (as in never)
O /o/ (as in or, but shorter)
O /o:/ (as in or)
OE /oe/ (as in boy)
P /p/ (as in plumb)
PH /φ/ (bilabial fricative, like a slurred /p/ sound, reminiscent of /f/) used in Greek loanwords to represent Phi (Φφ). Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be confused with /f/.
Q /k/ (as in quiet) always followed by a V pronounced /w/.
R /r/ (pronounced with a tap of the tongue against the upper gums, like the "R" in Italian, or the "T" between vowels in American English. When double (/rr/), pronounced as a rolled "R", like "RR" in Italian)
S /s/ (as in still)
T /t/ (as in tea)
TH /θ/ (as in thin) used in Greek loanwords to represent Theta (Θθ). Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be confused with /tt/.
V /u/ (as in boot, but shorter)
V /u:/ (as in boot)
V /w/ (as in win) when short and unstressed before another vowel.
X /ks/ (as in box).
Y /y/ (as in French tu or German übermensch) used in Greek loanwords to represent Upsilon or Ypsilon (ϒυ) Not a native Latin phoneme, so it tended to be confused with /i/ or /u/.
Z /dz/ (as in suds) used in Greek loanwords; eventually reduced to /z/.
* The way rhymes worked in Latin poetry would suggest that, by the Classical period, the letter M at the end of a word was pronounced weakly or indeed simply nasalised the preceding vowel. If it was indeed silent, this would entail the existence of another 12 potential nasal phonemes. For simplicity, and because this is not known for certain, M is just treated as the consonant /m/ here and in other references.
Latin has a small number of inconsistencies between its letters and the phonemes they represent.
Minimal pairs:
/anus/ 'old woman' - /a:nus/ 'ring, anus' - /annus/ 'year'
/palam/ 'public' - /pa:lam/ 'spade (acc. sg.)' - /pallam/ 'woman's robe (acc.sg.)'
Being what is termed a dead language, when Latin words are spoken today, there is little or no attempt to pronounce them as the Romans did. Myriad systems have arisen for pronouncing the language — at least one for each language in the modern world whose speakers learn Latin. In most cases, Latin pronunciation is adapted to the phonology of the person's own language.
Latin words in common use in English are fully assimilated into the English sound system, with little to mark them as foreign (indeed, people do not generally even think of Latin as being a foreign language), e.g. cranium, saliva. Other words have a stronger Latin feel to them, usually because of spelling features such as the diphthongs ae and oe (occasionally written æ and œ) which are both pronounced /i:/ in English. In the Oxford style, ae is pronounced /eɪ/, in "formulae" for example. Ae in some words tends to be given an /aɪ/ pronunciation, e.g. curriculum vitae.
French, Spanish, German, etc. all have their own corruptions of the Latin phonological system, often even taught at school during Latin classes as though they were the correct pronunciation. This is especially true of Italians, who learn that Latin was pronounced exactly like modern Italian. Below are the main points that distinguish Italian Latin pronunciation from Classical Latin pronunciation.
It should be taken into account that Latin never actually died: it was merely changed through centuries of use and from this was born the great diversity of the Romance languages. The end of the political unity of the western Roman Empire accelerated the process, sending western Europe into an economic depression and curtailing the mobility of the population, making it less likely for a proto-Romance speaker to need to speak to someone from a distant locality, and encouraging the divergence of local dialects. Moreover, written Latin, like written English, was always to some degree an artificial literary language, somewhat different in grammar, syntax, and lexicon from the vernacular. Today's differences can be quite striking. Indeed, some have dubbed Castilian the son of Latin, and Portuguese and French the daughters of Latin, due to the masculine and feminine sound of them, respectively.
Even in Classical times, we know that the people in the street did not speak the formal, Classical tongue. They spoke what is known as Vulgar Latin, which was already very different from its sibling, mainly because of simplifications in its grammar and phonology. It is this Vulgar Latin that became modern French, Italian, etc.
Key features of Vulgar Latin and Romance include:
For further details, please refer to the relevant articles.
List of letters and phonemes
Summary of phonemes
Inconsistencies
Double or geminate consonants (e.g. /bb/, /kk/) are consistently indicated by doubling in the spelling (e.g. BB, CC.)Latin pronunciation today
Pronouncing a dead language
This Latin with an Italian accent was adopted by the Catholic church, notably by the monks of Solesme Abbey for their Gregorian chant, and is known as ecclesiastical Latin. It has also had great influence on English pronunciation of Latin, with many English speakers making /tS/ sounds when quoting Romans (e.g. Veni, uidi, uici.) or singing in choir or other musical performances, even though they pronounce C as /s/ in Latin words they use in English (e.g. Caesar).
Another example is the recent Passion of Christ film, recorded in Aramaic and very ecclesiastical Latin. The sons and daughters of Latin
and many other aspects of pronunciation, not to mention grammar and vocabulary.