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View Full Version : The 64,000 denarii question



Lord of the Isles
08-31-2004, 15:20
And the question is:

How do you pronounce "denarii" (and while we are on the subject, how do you pronounce "triarii")?

When I first heard them in game videos, they were denar-ee-eye and triar-ee-eye. I thought these sounded awful but, if my searches on the net are to be believed and I've understood the notation they use, denar-ee-eye is the correct pronunciation.

Nelson
08-31-2004, 16:30
Classical Latin pronunciation is dee-NAR-ee-ee and tree-AR-ee-ee.

The Latin "I", when used as a vowel, was pronounced like an English long "E" or sometimes a short "I" but never like an English long "I". The letter "I" was also a consonant as in Iulius Caesar, which was pronounced Yoolius Keye-sar. The dipthong "AE" is an English long "I", sounding like "eye".