Accent of Latin

[Boyar Son]

the Romans, and their language latin...

see each country has their own accent and i wondered what was the romans?

Was it like modern italian? or a mix of spanish and italian?

also, everyone pronounces the C like an S when pronounSing "lucius". shouldnt it be pronounced in latin "lukius"? or Kaius or Kaeser?

[Zaknafien]

yes, "C" is always as in 'come, call', never as in "city or civil", except the combination 'ch' is pronounced as an emphesized c: "Cicero" (Kikero), "cena" (Keyna), pulcher (pulKer)

[blitzkrieg80]

wow, I'm glad that question was asked, I knew I was ignorant about Latin but didn't think I was butchering names like Cicero, that's unforgiveable, similar to pernouncing Celts like the Boston basketball team

[bovi]

yes, "C" is always as in 'come, call', never as in "city or civil", except the combination 'ch' is pronounced as an emphesized c: "Cicero" (Kikero), "cena" (Keyna), pulcher (pulKer)

I'm confused. You translate all of those with K, even though pulcher has ch in it? What does "emphasized c" mean exactly?

[abou]

In Latin, C is always a hard C. With an H after it the C becomes aspirated, if that makes any sense. CH is going to sound as it does in loch - as in the Loch Ness monster.

I think that was what Zak meant.

[bovi]

Ah, thanks .

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

While we're at it it's worth pointing out that "V" is more or less "W" in Latin, although it fulfils the role of "U" so Caesar actually said "Weni, Widi, Wici."

For those of you in Germanic countries when I say "W" I mean as in the English "Window" soft, not hard.

[bovi]

Would that then be weni, widi, wiki? I've always thought it was veni, vidi, vitchi...

[Trax]

In Latin, C is always a hard C.

Would it not be more correct to say: In classical Latin C is always a hard C?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well, you can hardly call Medieval Latin & Renaissance Latin proper Latin. The amounts of simply erronous Latin that had crept in prompted scholars such as Erasmus to adopt a "back to basics" approach: hence many a student had to brush up his Latin first before taking courses from Erasmus & co.

Also, I naturally supposed this thread was about the "Accent of Latin" within the EB timeframe? So, I suppose that's pretty much equal to the "Accent of Classical Latin".

[I Am Herenow]

The "vitchi" thing is because of Italian. Because, for example, "ci sono" - "there are" - would be pronounced "chi sono" if you were to write it so that an Englishman might understand how to pronounce it. On the other hand, in Italian a "c" followed by an "h" indicates the same noise that the letter "k" indicates in English - the same sort of "emphasised 'k'" idea, really.

Therefore "Ci sono cinque chiavi sulla tavola" - "There are five keys on the table" - would be pronounced "Chee sono chinkwey kiavee sulla tavola".

[Andronikos]

I know that before "a", "o" and "u" is "c" pronounced like "k" (e.g Caligula, Cornelius, Marcus) and before "e" and "i" it is pronounced like "normal c" - like "z" in german (like Zahn, Zug...) e.g Cicero
Zak, you say that Cicero is pronounced Kikero?
(in my country we have alphabet with 46 letters and each is pronounced in different way)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I know that before "a", "o" and "u" is "c" pronounced like "k" (e.g Caligula, Cornelius, Marcus) and before "e" and "i" it is pronounced like "normal c" - like "z" in german (like Zahn, Zug...) e.g Cicero
Zak, you say that Cicero is pronounced Kikero?
(in my country we have alphabet with 46 letters and each is pronounced in different way)

In Latin C is always K, not S or Z.

Would that then be weni, widi, wiki? I've always thought it was veni, vidi, vitchi...

That is correct, always hard C "Ch" and "Sh" don't exist in Latin.

Trax: Actually we are talking about Golden Latin, which is, more or less, the Latin of our timeframe. Silver Latin is something else again. "Classical" covers a period of some 800 years or so and is far too broad a term.

[mcantu]

So is Cicero pronounced "kikero"?

[Foot]

yes, in classical latin. Otherwise it is pronounced sis-ero.

Foot

[Andronikos]

So is Cicero pronounced "kikero"?

And Caesar "Kesar"?

[Moros]

Yup, that's how it would be said.
Tough a small note, a well educated patrician would say Kaesar.
Also Not Keesar. But Kisar, like in "lie".

ae=i
C=k (hard)
v= w or "ou" like in "you".

Edit:
"i" can be like the "y" from "you" or like "ui" in "quick" or "e" like in "me".
example:
ivppiter: youppiter
dies: de-es
inter: inter. (the i is like in quick.)

[I Am Herenow]

Incidentally, what was the language of the Romans of c.600 BC like (so Horatius et al)? Was it still "Golden Latin" or something different?

[Andronikos]

Damn it! At school we were said that we learn classic roman latin. It is a shock for me: kisar, kikero... no /ce:zar/ or /cicero/
I have another questions about languages: do you use authentic ancient celtic, persian, germanic... languages?
I am also interested in the name of slavic light spearmen - Voinu - is in some protoslavic language or have you made it of present slavic languages as I am a Slav and in my language the word "vojna" /voina/ means "war"
/.../ means pronounciation

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I hope you Anglosaxons know now that you are totally alone in the world with your funny "approach" to pronouncing words...

My Latin-teacher told us the K-thing, but said we should make an exception for Caesar and Cicero, because they are just known as Tsaezar and Tseetserow, you know...

[Moros]

Incidentally, what was the language of the Romans of c.600 BC like (so Horatius et al)? Was it still "Golden Latin" or something different?

If I'm not mistaken Horatius was from the first century BC (Homerus was from that time, did you mix the two up?). And that would indeed be the times of the golden latin. (Caesar and Cicero themselves were from the same century.)
600 BC? That would be verry early Archaïc latin I guess. Back then Rome wasn't more than a small town.

[Moros]

Damn it! At school we were said that we learn classic roman latin. It is a shock for me: kisar, kikero... no /ce:zar/ or /cicero/
I have another questions about languages: do you use authentic ancient celtic, persian, germanic... languages?
I am also interested in the name of slavic light spearmen - Voinu - is in some protoslavic language or have you made it of present slavic languages as I am a Slav and in my language the word "vojna" /voina/ means "war"
/.../ means pronounciation

I'm no linguist myself, (I have had latin class that's all) so take this for what it's worth. Most of the languages exept Latin and perhaps greek, aren't really authentic languages. But rather reconstructed languages, many words might date from that area and have been found on stones or whatever, but most languages didn't exactly left us with dictionnaries and grammarbooks.
I'll levae the rest to our historians and linguists, they can tell you much more about this.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Though there are actually Greek dictionaries left. I came across Volume 19 the other day, which is called "Linguarum seu dictionum exoletarum Hippocratis explicatio", written by some Claudius Galenus. (As it happens only Volume 19 is part of the digital collection of texts in which I found the dictionary.) As the title of the book explains, this dictionary aims at explaining the terminology used by Hippokrates & co.

[Boyar Son]

So.. accent anyone?


spanish, italian-spanish...other...

[abou]

Stress accent (with perhaps a little change in pitch) is placed on the penultimate unless that vowel is short. If that is the case, the accent is placed on the ante penultimate.

So in hastatus the stress is placed on the second A. In Triarius it is placed on the A as well because the second I is short. In Princeps it is the I, but in the plural form Principes it changes to the second I.

[Boyar Son]

stress? change of pitch how?

[abou]

Dude, just use Google:

http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Lat...le-Accent.html

[Boyar Son]

Whats this?!?!

EB team member redirects me to google instead of answering?!?!

[abou]

I'm not typing out the full extent of the pronunciation section of Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar just so you can sit in your room mispronouncing things to yourself.

[Boyar Son]

at least it'd be a useful thing to do...

lol abou