# Resurrexit sicut dixit



## Hereandnow

Good afternoon!
Please explain to me how I ought to syllabicate "resurrexit" and "dixit." I am working with applying Latin text as lyrics in hymns through Sibelius music software. Can you also supply the relevant rules I should use?
Thanks very much for your assistance.
Hereandnow


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## CapnPrep

You can find a statement of the basic rules for syllabification from various sources, e.g. A&G and Wheelock. When you have an ‹x› between two vowels, it doesn't really matter if you place the syllable break before or after the letter ‹x›. Neither choice accurately reflects the pronunciation, so it's really just a convention for written language.

There are of course already many other settings of the _Regina Coeli_, and from the scores I found on-line, it looks like the standard division is _re-sur-*re-xit* si-cut *di-xit*_. See for example this snippet from Mozart.


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## Agró

In Spain, following Spanish syllabification we'd do it slightly differently:

_re-su-*rr*e*-*xit si-cut di-xit_.


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## Hereandnow

Thanks very much for your comments. How nice that you recognized the lovely Regina Coeli! 
For my purposes, then, in both your and Agro's suggestions, the "x" stays with its following vowel. 
Thanks again for your help!


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## Hereandnow

Thanks also to you, Agro, for your suggestion. 
How very interesting it is that in Spanish Latin syllabification the two "r"s are paired together rather than being separated.
Thanks again!


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## Scholiast

Greetings

Just a footnote to CapnPrep's remarks. Few composers have been philologists, and in any case, their Latin settings are (rightly) governed by principles of musical argument, rather than strict Latinity: this is not merely a "convention". In singing, it is important to keep the vowels as open as they can be, particularly on sustained notes, to avoid the horrid "For unto ussssa..." phenomenon. Hence _re-su-rre-xit_.

(I am an experienced singer, as well as a Latinist).


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## CapnPrep

Scholiast said:


> this is not merely a "convention"


Everything we have been discussing here is conventional. There is one convention for splitting written words into graphic syllables in Latin. There is a separate convention for how consonants should be sung to produce the least horrid result. Since one cannot represent both conventions with a single notation, a choice must be made.

It is possible find syllable divisions like _re-su-*rr*e-xit_ in printed music, for example here (alongside more extreme examples like _se-pu-*lcr*um_, _i-*nf*e-*rn*i_, _co-*nfr*e-git_, etc.), but I find this rather illegible and thus unhelpful with regard to the primary purpose of the notation, which is to tell the singer what the words are. A competent singer should not need to be reminded constantly of the convention of keeping vowels open and not over-sustaining consonants.


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## Scholiast

Oh dear, I seem, quite unintentionally, to have irritated CapnPrep.

Of course everything we are discussing here is "conventional" - not least musical notation, and indeed language itself.  In my previous post I meant only that the syllabic organisation of sung Latin texts in musical scores does not normally conform - and for musical reasons should not conform - to the conventions and principles of scientific philology.

To go back to the original question: I suggest that, within reason, the musical sense should take precedence over the linguistic. I have both sung in, and conducted, choral music myself, and although one may jib at the places where musical sense takes precedence over the sense of the Latin, I would still regard the music as more important.

What singers need, in a choral context, is to know precisely where to put their consonants (especially grouped consonants) - and usually, these will be at the beginning of a bar or a beat. Any competent chorus-master will upbraid them for their failure in this. But a composer/arranger greatly facilitates things by putting all the consonants (at least in Latin) at the start of the note.

All good regards


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