# Romance / Latin H



## MarX

Hello!

As most of us know, the letter *H* is not pronounced in all Neo-Latin languages except Romanian, and I also read that *H* in Latin is not supposed to be pronounced. If this is the case, why did the letter exist in the first place if it was not to be pronounced anyway? Or are the texts that say *H* in Latin is mute wrong?

Saludo


MarX


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

You are the first one I've heard saying that H in Latin was not pronounced. Whenever I hear Latin, letter H is always pronounced. Even in the church Latin H was not ommited.

For example: Homo homine lupus. 

I very doubt Roman people would write letters which were obsolite - they had to be pronounced in a certain period. Otherwise they could start every word with .... a letter tilda ~ for example. ~homo ~homine ~lupus

And yes, I threw away that Talk Now! Latin CD ROM Language Course because of the bad pronounciation by English native speakers. Disguisting!


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## palomnik

The fact is, of course, absent a time machine nobody can know for certain how Classical Latin was pronounced, although there are some highly educated guesses.

In the "Classical" pronunciation, the H is always pronounced - _H_omo, _H_omine.  In the "Ecclesiastical" pronunciation, it is not pronounced at the beginning of a word, but it is in between vowels - (h)omo, (h)omine, but ni_H_il, mi_H_i.


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## CapnPrep

In Catullus 84, the poet pokes fun at someone who pronounces the word "insidias" as "hinisidias", which shows that the letter _h_ could be used to indicate some sound. On the other hand, for metrical purposes, words correctly beginning with _h_ were usually treated like words beginning with a vowel (i.e., they caused elision in the preceding syllable). Quintilian said that Romans did not pronounce the _h_ in "haedos" and "hircos", and he wondered whether _h_ was really a letter…

Have a look at this dictionary entry for "h".


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## shannenms

I think it was not pronounced by the unlearned people back then, or at least by non-native latin speakers. The proof is by St. Augustine in Confessiones book first where he despised whoever didn't pronounce the H, considering them to be unlearned.


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## Testing1234567

MarX said:


> As most of us know, the letter *H* is not pronounced in all Neo-Latin languages except Romanian, and I also read that *H* in Latin is not supposed to be pronounced. If this is the case, why did the letter exist in the first place if it was not to be pronounced anyway? Or are the texts that say *H* in Latin is mute wrong?


You are correct that the Latin "h" has become mute, that no language inherited Latin /h/.

Latin *hōra* > Romanian *oară*
Latin *homō* > Romanian *om*
Latin *habēre* > Romanian *avea*
"h" in Romanian signifies loanwords.



Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> You are the first one I've heard saying that H in Latin was not pronounced. Whenever I hear Latin, letter H is always pronounced. Even in the church Latin H was not ommited.


Those are modern pronunciations not based on linguistic reconstructions.


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## Penyafort

It seems that in Late Latin the pronunciation of H was already considered a sign of affectation by the common people. It is no wonder that Romance languages, mostly descendend from popular Latin, didn't inherit the aspiration.


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## Scholiast

Greetings all round

The standard work on this (in English) is Sidney W. Allen's _Vox Latina_ (of 1965). Unfortunately I have not my copy of this to hand, but if memory serves me correctly, Allen shows that in spoken classical Latin initial 'h' was indeed lightly aspirated (and as CapnPrep remarks (# 4), Catullus 84 would make no sense if this were not so), but equally the fact that words ending in nasal vowels were elided (in verse and metrical prosody) before words beginning with 'h' strongly suggests that the pronunciation was less marked than in (say) English or German.

It may be worth remarking that non-aspiration of English words beginning with 'h' is a marked feature of some non-standard dialects, notably London Cockney; and that one can sometimes hear hypercorrection, comparable with that of Arrius', mocked in Catullus' poem, by speakers of these dialects, when they are trying to sound 'formal' or 'proper'.

Σ


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## heterônimo

Testing1234567 said:


> Those are modern pronunciations not based on linguistic reconstructions.



Similarly in Modern French, even though the 'h' is always silent, the French still make a difference between the _h aspiré_ and the _h muet _that existed in Middle French to determine the possibility of contraction or liaison.

Most words with a _h aspiré _are not of Romance origin_._


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## Testing1234567

heterônimo said:


> Similarly in Modern French, even though the 'h' is always silent, the French still make a difference between the _h aspiré_ and the _h muet _that existed in Middle French to determine the possibility of contraction or liaison.
> 
> Most words with a _h aspiré _are not of Romance origin_._


Right. Words with _h aspiré_ are loanwords and the _h_ was pronounced at that time, until the _h_ has been lost for the second time in French's history.


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## berndf

Scholiast said:


> The standard work on this (in English) is Sidney W. Allen's _Vox Latina_ (of 1965). Unfortunately I have not my copy of this to hand, but if memory serves me correctly, Allen shows that in spoken classical Latin initial 'h' was indeed lightly aspirated (and as CapnPrep remarks (# 4), Catullus 84 would make no sense if this were not so), but equally the fact that words ending in nasal vowels were elided (in verse and metrical prosody) before words beginning with 'h' strongly suggests that the pronunciation was less marked than in (say) English or German.


Allen writes that the _h_ was already largely lost in popular pronunciation in classical times. Correct (etymological) use of _h_ was a feature of elite language. In late Roman times you find spelling mistakes like _michi _for _mihi_, which suggests that the sound of the_ h_ was unknown even to educated speakers and they approximated it by other sounds, in this case probably by the palatalised allophone of the Greek Chi (i.e. the German _ich_-Laut).


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## Scholiast

Greetings anew


berndf said:


> Allen writes that the _h_ was already largely lost in popular pronunciation in classical times. Correct (etymological) use of _h_ was a feature of elite language


Thanks, berndf, for this clarification of my imprecise recollection. A glance at the index to the great Hermann Dessau's _Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae _(Berlin 1916, now available online), vol. 3, pp. 816-7, shows just how extensive the dubiety was, and not just in 'late Roman times'.

Σ


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## irinet

Hi,

I'm hoping that we do have the Latin words _*h*abitat  and humă (< humus¿)._

And what can you say about _hilar_ -hilarious. Is it borrowed from French like many others (_hibrid_)?


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## Scholiast

Dear everyone

No 'hilarious' comes from Greek, ἰλαρ- meaning 'joy' or 'laughter'. And incidentally, 'hybrid' is also originally Greek, not Latin or French.

Σ


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## irinet

Oooh, I never know when I should trust Dexonline.ro dictionary.


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## berndf

irinet said:


> Oooh, I never know when I should trust Dexonline.ro dictionary.


Of course those words are taken from Latin. What Scholiast meant (and should have said) was that the Latin words were themselves Greek loans.

Unfortunately, in the case of _hybrid _he is not entirely right. Latin _hybrida_ is a pseudo-Greek spelling variant of the _hibrida _(of unknown origin) probably influenced by Greek _hybris_, which was folk-etymologically identified with the Latin word. _Hibrida _may of course ultimately be of Greek origin as well and may indeed be related to _hybris_. But that cannot be ascertained.


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## irinet

So, we can say that the word _hibrid _is kind of a hybrid etymon...


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## fdb

I think Romanian ilar is a (recent) borrowing from French hilare, itself borrowed (not inherited) from Latin, which had it from Greek.


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## berndf

irinet said:


> So, we can say that the word _hibrid _is kind of a hybrid etymon...


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## irinet

fdb said:


> I think Romanian ilar is a (recent) borrowing from French hilare, itself borrowed (not inherited) from Latin, which had it from Greek.



I really do not use _ilar. _It looks hilariously naked to me.

I am still wondering about *humă*... and its possible origin from the Latin _humus._


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