# pronunciation -- v



## Akasaka

Hello members,

I understand that "v" in "veni, vidi, vici" is pronounced as "w" not as "v".  Does that mean that Latin does not have a consonant /V/ as in "vegan", whereas it has the consonant /f/?

Thanks in advance.


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## Scholiast

saluete omnes!

Akasaka is perfectly correct in both parts of his query.

Σ


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## Akasaka

Thanks Scholiast.  But I don't understand what you mean.  Am I right in understanding that there is no "v" sound in Latin?


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## Scholiast

salue Akasaka!

Yes, there is no voiced fricative (i.e. 'v'-sound) in classical Latin.

Σ


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## Akasaka

Thanks Scholiast.  That is quite new to me.


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## bearded

Scholiast said:


> there is no voiced fricative (i.e. 'v'-sound) in classical Latin.


Sal*v*e, Scholiast
Any idea about when the v sound started to exist - in late Latin?


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## Scholiast

@bearded (# 6)

Sorry, dear boy, no idea—I'm not an historical philologist. I would expect there to be something on this in Sidney Allen's _Vox Latina_, but I am not in a position right now to consult it.

For the moment, I have a hunch that the fricative voiced 'v'-sound was common enough as a dialect variant already in classical times, at least in vulgar Latin, especially in southern Italy, where Greek was already 'softening' the pronunciation of the consonant β to 'veta', as we can see in such transliterations as 'Βεσπασίανος' (for 'Vespasian') in e.g. Plutarch and Cassius Dio.

Intriguing issue, though. Maybe I'll post a query in the EHL Forum in search of wiser instruction.

Σ


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## bearded

Thank you for your reply, Scholiast.


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## symposium

But doesn't the fact that the Greeks translitterated "Vespasianus" into 


Scholiast said:


> Βεσπασίανος


 and not "Ouespasianos" suggest that the first letter of that name was actually pronounced as a veta rather than a U-sound? I'm just wondering...


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## A User

Il segno *V* passò nell'alfabeto latino quando i Romani accolserò l'alfabeto di Cuma (Cuma fu sconfitta dagli Osci intorno al 421 a.C. e divenne _civitas sine suffragio_ nel 334 a. C.), nel quale esso aveva il suono della vocale *u* italiana (English *w, *_dabliu = double _*u*) (unicamente in quello cumano, ma non per forza in quello latino).

Secondo Tacito (56 - 120 circa d.C.) questo segno mancava nel più antico alfabeto latino; si incontra però nei più antichi testi epigrafici, p. es., nelle iscrizioni della tomba degli Scipioni (inizi III sec. a.C. fino al 150 a. C.)

Per molto tempo questo unico segno (*V*) fu usato con valore tanto vocalico *u* quanto consonantico *v*.

Svetonio (SUETONIUS 69 – post 122 d.C.) riferisce che l'imperatore Claudio (10 a.C. - 54 d.C.) tentò di fare adottare dai Romani, per il suono consonantico *v* il digamma rovesciato (digamma inversum: F ruotata di 180°); ma questa riforma fu abbandonata subito dopo la morte dell'imperatore.
"VVLGVS" o "ℲVLGVS" si leggeva "vulgus", in ogni caso. Claudio sarebbe rimasto "CLAVDIVS", anche dopo la riforma, e questa è una delle possibili ragioni perché si scelse di cambiare il segno del suono consonantico *v*.

Questa idea di riforma però, stando al grammmatico Anneo Cornuto (che fu attivo sotto il regno di Nerone intorno al 60 d.C.), sarebbe dovuta già a Varrone (VARRO 116 a.C. – 27 a.C.)

Più tardi, nelle iscrizioni lapidarie dopo la metà del II secolo dopo Cristo si incontra la forma arrotondata *U*; si tratta di iscrizioni poco accuratamente incise che si accostano alla scrittura corsiva.

Nonostante la differenziazione dei due segni *U* e *V*, essi vennero usati *promiscuamente*, senza una norma fissa per i due suoni *u* e *v* (vedi _*Suetonius*_ in miniatura del 1493), fino al tempo del Trissino (1478 – 1550), il quale, fra le altre sue riforme fallite, propose con successo l'uso della *U* come vocale e l'uso della *V* come consonante.

Autore G. COR.: Giuseppe Corradi (storia antica) in UTET, con l'aggiunta di riferimenti cronologici e precisazioni personali.


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## Scholiast

Greetings again


symposium said:


> But doesn't the fact that the Greeks translitterated "Vespasianus" into
> and not "Ouespasianos" suggest that the first letter of that name was actually pronounced as a veta rather than a U-sound? I'm just wondering...


This is precisely what in # 7 I was suggesting.
And incidentally, In fact Greek ου- occurs alongside β as a transliteration of Latin names and other words.

Σ


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## Zec

There was a thread about this question in the Etymology, History of languages and Linguistics forum which will be very useful.

Some examples from the Res Gestae of Augustus are especially indicative:


ahvalj said:


> The Res Gestae of Augustus IV:
> Octaviam — Ὀκταουϊα (not αυ !)
> Aventino — Ἀουεντίνωι (not Ἀυ !)


These transcriptions suggest that at a time when Greek <αυ> was already /av/ (or /aβ/, what matters is that there was no longer a semivowel in it, rather a voiced fricative or approximant) latin <V> was still /w/, which is why the need was felt to write <αου> instead of simply <αυ>. It looks like Greek gained its /v/ earlier than Latin did.

When looking at how languages which have /v/ but no /w/ handle foreign /w/, it seems that equating it with /v/ is at least as common as equating it with /u/ (for the former look at German and Slavic treatment of English /w/, for the latter look at Modern Greek treatment of the same sound, IIRC). So Plutarch's <Βεσπασίανος> may represent a different adaptation of Latin /w/ than that in Res Gestae of Augustus rather than a change in pronunciation (when was it written? Before 100 AD? If its contemporary or later than Ahvalj's earliest spelling mistakes, as Cassius Dio is, then the combined would suggest a change in pronunciation instead).


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## A User

Il problema è cornuto.

italiano: Lucio Anne*o* Corn*u*t*o*
latino: LVCIVS ANNAE*V*S CORN*V*T*V*S
greco antico: Ἀνναῖ*ο*ς Κορν*οῦ*τ*ο*ς, Annâios Kornoûtos

La traslitterazione comporta per forza pronunce uguali?
La traslitterazione di Water Closet in Italiano è Vater con suono *v* consonantico.

Post edit:
Ma torniamo al cuore del problema, se cioè in epoca classica il suono della *v* consonantica è presente in latino. L'indizio più importante ce lo da l'imperatore. OCT-*AVIA*-NUS: la possibilità statistica di una sequenza di quattro suoni vocalici è infinitesima. Quanto alla possibilità che una gens romana fosse disposta a scrivere o pronunciare diversamente il proprio nome lo trovo altrettanto altamente improbabile. Anzi, la preoccupazione è di tipo diverso, che cioè in qualche dell'impero, in primis nell'ex Magna Grecia, la pronuncia del proprio nome fosse storpiato.

Bisognerà cercare altrove, per capire se il segno *V* (o _*U*_ corsivo) seguito da suono vocalico o consonantico abbia un suono eligibile.
QVAESTIO.


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## francisgranada

A User said:


> La traslitterazione comporta per forza pronunce uguali?


 In generale no, ma c'è la tendenza di traslitterare le parole in tal modo che la loro pronuncia sia possibilmente simile (a seconda delle possibilità fonetiche della lingua di cui si tratta) alla pronuncia originale.  





> .... OCT-*AVIA*-NUS: la possibilità statistica di una sequenza di quattro suoni vocalici è infinitesima.


Non si tratta di quattro suoni vocalici, la V è una semiconsonante.  Vedi per esempio la parola inglese *awai*_t_ (che non è ugale ad un ipotetico **auai*_t _con quattro volcali consecutive) 





> La traslitterazione di Water Closet in Italiano è Vater con suono *v* consonantico.


E' una soluzione "pratica", ma in teoria potrebbe essere anche "Uàter". La combinazione "uà" all'inizio di una parola italiana è abbastanza insolita, quindi _Vater _suona forse un po' più naturale o spontaneamente "più accettabile". 





> Bisognerà cercare altrove, per capire se il segno *V* (o _*U*_ corsivo) seguito da suono vocalico o consonantico abbia un suono eligibile.


 Per quanto riguarda la pronuncia non univoca della lettera *V/u* in latino,  vedi p.e. le parole italiane _qui _[k*w*'i] e _cui _['k*u*i].  Nonostante la stessa lettera o segno, la pronuncia di questa _*u* _è differente, ma non eligibile.  A differenza dell'italiano, in latino classico anche la [v] odierna italiana nelle parole come _*v*enire, *v*olare, _ecc. si pronunciava [w].


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## A User

francisgranada said:


> vedi p.e. le parole italiane _qui _[k*w*'i] e _cui _['k*u*i].  Nonostante la stessa lettera o segno, la pronuncia di questa _*u* _è differente, ma non eligibile.


"Double u" e "u", con spostamento dell'accento. Non una differenza tra *v* e *u*.

Purtroppo questo cozza con gli eventi storici.
La riforma claudiana non ci sarebbe mai stata se il suono del segno "*V*" fosse stato univoco.
E Varrone, che qualche problema con chi gli storpiava il nome ce l'aveva di sicuro, ne è un'ulteriore testimonianza.

Come abbia fatto il volgare a ribaltare il suono di venio, video, vinco in un panorama storico nel quale le scienze, la religione e il diritto rimanevano, e saldamente, un sicuro presidio della lingua latina resta un mistero.


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## symposium

Still, it is definitely true that the pronounciation of letters changes over time: I'm thinking of early Italian "gu" used to render the semiconsonantic sound of German W in words where that semiconsonantic W is now pronounced as V: guardare/warten and many many more. I guess it means that when those German words entered Italian those W were actually pronounced as modern English W rather than modern German W (no point in turning them into "gu" otherwise) and later evolved into modern day German Ws (Vs). Can we exclude that the same thing also happened in Latin, with ancient Latin W (semiconsomantic U) evolving into a V in later stages the way it (apparently? possibly?) did in German?


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## A User

Did English language mantain the original sound of latin words like 'media' or 'summit'?
Can we deduce latin sound from English sound?
A supposed evolution like that must be recordered in Annales.


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## Snodv

No, English vowels have developed slightly differently from European ones.  The so-called "long E" English speakers pronounce in the word _media_ would have been spelled differently (with an _I) _in Latin and most of  its daughter languages; the _E_ with which they did, and we still spell _media _was a short E in Latin, as in the English words _get_ and _wet.  _Oh, and_ summit _is not a Latin word.  The "uh" (short _u_, or schwa) in our word _summit_ does not match the _u_ in _summus/summa_, which was more like the vowel in English _foot._


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## A User

Certo, adattamenti del latino.




E in Italia si pronunciano "alla latina".


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## symposium

A User said:


> E in Italia si pronunciano "alla latina"


Mah, non ho mai sentito nessuno dire sUmmit ma sempre sAmmit! Mass mEdia o mass mIdia non saprei, non ci ho mai fatto caso, ma probabilmente si sentono entrambe le versioni...


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## A User

Però io, di mio conto, e ancor prima di conoscere l'orientamento della Crusca, li ho sempre letti "alla latina".
Io non parlo per sentito dire.
Italiani e Milioni hanno due pronunce: Italiani/Itagliani e Milioni/Miglioni. Quella che può sembrare la meno corretta è la più usata. Parola di Mike.


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## symposium

In che senso non parli per sentito dire? Se non ti basi sul modo in cui senti pronunciare le parole dalla gente per decidere come la gente pronuncia le parole, su cosa ti basi? E anche se non avessi mai sentito pronunciare quelle due specifiche parole, dovresti dare per scontato che le parole inglesi sono tendenzialmente pronunciate con una pronuncia se non inglese, almeno inglesizzante. Idem per tutte le altre lingue. "Chef" è "scièf" e "bidet" "bidè", "Volkswagen" lo diciamo "Folcsvaghen" ecc., com'è giusto che sia...


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## Olaszinhok

La pronuncia _mass midia_ viene spesso corretta in televisione da giornalisti o interlocutori attenti, ricordandone l'origine latina. Per quanto riguarda _summit,_ mi è capitato di udire entrambe le pronunce.


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## A User

Olaszinhok said:


> La pronuncia _mass midia_ viene spesso corretta in televisione da giornalisti o interlocutori attenti, ricordandone l'origine latina. Per quanto riguarda _summit,_ mi è capitato di udire entrambe le pronunce.


Ogni opinione è rispettabile.
L'Accademia della Crusca recita: "il GRADIT, dichiaratamente più vicino alla lingua dell'uso, indica entrambe le pronunce, addirittura premettendo, in entrambi i casi, quella "alla latina" (e indicandola così come la pronuncia più diffusa)".


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## francisgranada

A User said:


> "Double u" e "u", con spostamento dell'accento. Non una differenza tra *v* e *u*.


No. See for example the English word _what _< (ProtoGermanic) *_hwat _< (ProtoIndoEuropean) *_kwod_, cognate with Latin _quod_.  Do you  really think in all these cases there is some  "spostamento dell'accento"? ....

Simply:  the spoken language is _primary_, the written form of it is _secondary _and the spelling or orthography is, finally, a _convention_.


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## A User

Per non fare confusione, ti posso rispondere solo su parole di cui conosco l'esatta pronuncia.
Le parole italiane _qui _[k*w*'i] e _cui _['k*u*i].
[ w ] come nell'italiano 'guanto', [ u ] come nell'italiano 'frutto'; implica che [ w ] is a little bit longer [ u ] in Italy , not everywhere.
Mi viene il dubbio che qualcuno, all'estero, non conosca la pronuncia dell'Italiano (o si basi su pronunce localizzate), e ne dia una trascrizione fonetica sbagliata.

Giovinazzi is not Joe Vnazzi!


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## francisgranada

A User said:


> Per non fare confusione, ti posso rispondere solo su parole di cui conosco l'esatta pronuncia. Le parole italiane _qui _[kw'i] e _cui _['kui]. [ w ] come nell'italiano 'guanto', [ u ] come nell'italiano 'frutto'; implica che [ w ] is a little bit longer [ u ] in Italy ....


La lunghezza della vocale _u_ non ha niente a che fare coll'argomento di cui stiamo parlando. Per di più, stiamo parlando del latino e non dell'italiano.

A proposito, la parola _guanto _è di originte germanica (< _want_, _wante_, ecc.) e si tratta esattamente del suono [w] e non di una "u" atonica.  Il fatto che nelle lingue romanze quella _w _nelle parole d'origine germanica viene trascritta con _gu, _ è una soluzione per rendere la pronuncia relativamente fedele a quella originale, usando lettere (segni) che ci sono a disposizione (= alfabeto latino). 





> Giovinazzi is not Joe Vnazzi!


 D'accordo .


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## A User

francisgranada said:


> La lunghezza della vocale _u_ non ha niente a che fare coll'argomento di cui stiamo parlando. Per di più, stiamo parlando del latino e non dell'italiano.


D'accordo.
Poiché l'incognita del problema è il suono della lettera 'v' dell'alfabeto latino, per risolvere il problema, dobbiamo riferirci, per forza di cose , al suono della lettera 'v' e derivati di un alfabeto conosciuto.
Peraltro, l'esempio da te fornito (le parole italiane qui [kw'i] e cui ['kui], se non ricordo male esistono anche le parole latine *qui* et *cui* ) mi serve ad individuare esattamente il suono dei simboli fonetici [ w ] e [ u ] all'interno di vocaboli italiani, cosa confermata dal mio esempio, in Italiano, tratto dall'Utet.
Forse a Bolzano si dice *Kvanto *e* kvi*; a Canicattì si dice *guanto *e* kuì*. Wafer si pronuncia *vafer.*


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## symposium

But how does this help us understand how ancient Romans pronounced the letter they wrote as V? In what way is it relevant to know the way they currently pronounce "guanti" in Bolzano or Canicattì?


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## A User

Guarda i figli e immagina i padri.
La trascrizione fonetica di una parola italiana può essere fatta da un settentrionale o da un meridionale in modo diversi. I forestieri potrebbe cadere nell'errore di generalizzare, e creare una realtà virtuale che non esiste, non è mai esistita, e non esisterà mai. L'italiano ufficiale è formato da pochi suoni ben definiti, a differenza dei dialetti (lingue parlate e mai scritte). Qualunque tentativo di traslitterare i dialetti, fatto comunque da individui letteralmente competenti (di oggi e di duemila anni fa), crea solo false certezze.
A questo si aggiunge la convinzione di una persona con la quale ne ho parlato: che cioè i simboli fonetici italiani non corrispondano a quelli internazionali. O perlomeno, questa è la percezione quando le trascrizioni fonetiche non vengono aggiornate all'Italiano televisivo.
L'Italiano è il lato B del Latino. Stesso genere musicale. 

P.S. Stato osservando su Wikipedia le traslitterazioni di una parlata italica che ben conosco perché mi appartiene e mi sono reso conto che invece di chiarire genera confusione. Se questi sono i metodi, non mi meravigliano i risultati. Na ma ste.


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## A User

symposium said:


> But how does this help us understand how ancient Romans pronounced the letter they wrote as V? In what way is it relevant to know the way they currently pronounce "guanti" in Bolzano or Canicattì?


Per quanto mi riguarda, un risultato importante è stato comunque raggiunto. Utilizzo questi simboli che ho trovato in una tabella di comparazione tra alfabeto latino, alfabeto della Magna Grecia, alfabeto etrusco e traslitterazione in Italiano con pronuncia.
*v[ w ]* et *u[ u ]* sono entrambe possibili traslitterazioni, con l'utilizzo dell'alfabeto italiano, della lettera '*V*' latina. Il significato è inequivocabile letto dagli italiani, quelli che parlano l'italiano televisivo, indipendentemente dal luogo d'origine.
*[ w ]* è il suono della consonante italiana *v*.
*[ u ]* è il suono della vocale italiana *u*.
Letta fuori dall'Italia diventa: *[v]* non esiste in Latino, perché *[w]* et *[v]*, secondo l'alfabeto fonetico internazionale sono suoni diversi.
Ma la pronuncia della '*v*' italiana può essere scritta in due modi diversi equivalenti *v[v]* oppure *v[w]*, e il [v]-sound è là sotto i nostri occhi.
In base a questo risultato si dovrebbe correggere la trascrizione fonetica della parola italiana *qui* da [kw'i] (errato, ma non a Bolzano), a [ku'i](esatto, da Trento in giù).
Se si vogliono mantenere pressochè inalterati i suoni, "kv-" o "gv-" è una traslitterazione preferibile all'orecchio degli Italiani, rispetto a "gu-", mentre per chi ha più dimestichezza con le lingue germaniche è il contrario.
Adesso riesco a capire in modo coerente la logica dei vari interventi, e vi lascio continuare.


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## A User

Nella immagine seguente c'è una possibile spiegazione di come il suono di *[w]* venga percepito (e pronunciato in gran parte del Bel paese) come una "*double [ u ]*".
A seconda di come viene fatta l'interpretazione della trascrizione fonetica, il suono cambia.





(Solo per gli Italiani)
Ora provate a pronunciare *[w], *non come una "*double [ u ] = [ u ] + [ u ]*", ma come una "*[ v ] + [ u ]*".
Per capire la differenza, il suono di '*what*' passa da *uuot* a *vuot*.
Ritornando alla pronuncia di '*OCTA-V-IAN-V-S*' il suono potrebbe essere: *Octa-vu-ian-u-s*, o *Octa-uu-ian-u-s*, o *Octa-v-ian-u-s*, o *Octa-u-ian-u-s*.



symposium said:


> But how does this help us understand how ancient Romans pronounced the letter they wrote as V? In what way is it relevant to know the way they currently pronounce "guanti" in Bolzano or Canicattì?


Il primo errore che si corregge a scuola è la parola 'squola'.
'Squola' e 'Scuola' sono indistinguibili nella pronuncia.
Eppure secondo le regole fonetiche: Scuola['skwɔla].
Confronta: 'qui' [kw'i] a 'cui' [ku'i].
Il 'qui' e 'cui' (italiano o latino), se non fosse per l'accento, sarebbero indistinguibili.


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## bearded

This other thread is also interesting:
Latin <u v> [w]


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## A User

Ci sono le molte parole inglesi derivanti dal latino che hanno traslitterato il simbolo grafico latino 'V' nel simbolo grafico inglese 'W'.
Questo è sicuramente avvenuto dopo la fine dell'impero romano, e ad opera di popolazioni di stirpe germanica.
D'altro canto, nello stesso periodo, il volgare ha mantenuto un suono prevedibilmente simile a quello latino.
Una parola sicuramente usata dai Latini è 'Venus', 'Venere', 'Venus, veneris'.
Il suono, assieme al segno, è rimasto inalterato, ma guai a toccare gli Dei.

P.S. The Vought SB2U "Vindicator" (Latin/English noun) was a carrier-based dive bomber developed for the United States Navy.
       Obsolescent at the outbreak of World War II, airmen with experience in more modern aircraft spoke disparagingly of SB2Us as "Wind indicators" in their latter combat assignments.


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## francisgranada

Some examples for the confusion of V and B already in Latin that may help to understand better the evolution of  the sounds [b/w/v] from Latin to the Romance languages. The following examples are from the so called sub-elite Latin, i.e. the well educated people probably didn't write or speak this way.

Eunus (around 40 Anno Domini): _Iobe _(= _Iove_);  _dibi _(= _divi_)
Terentianus (around 110 AD):  _bolt _(= v_ult_); _imbenire _(= _invenire_)
Marcus Porcius  (perhaps around 200 AD?):  _bice _(= _vice_); _benise _(= _venisset_)
etc ....


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## A User

francisgranada said:


> Eunus (around 40 Anno Domini): _Iobe _(= _Iove_); _dibi _(= _divi_)


Ho controllato solo il primo:
18 June 37 Gaius Novius Eunus
"_His last name Eunus indicates him, as does his former master, being of Greek origin_."


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## Red548

Ecclesiastical Latin was a medieval development? And had a v, from Italian, right?


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## A User

_Ecclesiastical Latin - Wikipedia
Traditional English pronunciation of Latin - Wikipedia
Latin regional pronunciation - Wikipedia_


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## Snodv

As I understand it, Red548, Ecclesiastical Latin dates from a period when Latin was on its way to developing _into_ Italian.  (And of course into the other Romance languages.)  Latin is, so to speak, their mother, not their child.  That is only a metaphor.  Latin is a snapshot of a developing language at a young(ish) age, and Italian is a snapshot of the same language at a later age.


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## Scholiast

A User said:


> D'accordo.
> Poiché l'incognita del problema è il suono della lettera 'v' dell'alfabeto latino, per risolvere il problema, dobbiamo riferirci, per forza di cose , al suono della lettera 'v' e derivati di un alfabeto conosciuto.
> Peraltro, l'esempio da te fornito (le parole italiane qui [kw'i] e cui ['kui], se non ricordo male esistono anche le parole latine *qui* et *cui* ) mi serve ad individuare esattamente il suono dei simboli fonetici [ w ] e [ u ] all'interno di vocaboli italiani, cosa confermata dal mio esempio, in Italiano, tratto dall'Utet.
> Forse a Bolzano si dice *Kvanto *e* kvi*; a Canicattì si dice *guanto *e* kuì*. Wafer si pronuncia *vafer.*



Aber in Bozen spricht man regelmässig Deutsch, nicht?


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## A User

Scholiast said:


> Aber in Bozen spricht man regelmässig Deutsch, nicht?


In primis,  primarily.


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## Sobakus

bearded said:


> Any idea about when the v sound started to exist - in late Latin?


The first attestations of misspellings are from Pompeii where Latin was superimposed on Oscan and Greek. The misspellings (like BENIRE for _venīre_, AVERE for habēre) indicate a complete merger of /w/ and /b/ in that region, evidently into the modern Greek/Spanish bilabial [β]. This sound already existed in contemporary Greek as an allophone of /b/, and in Oscan either it or [v] was the pronunciation of /f/ between vowels. Opposite misspellings (VOVIS for _vōbīs_) are rarer and appear somewhat later, which suggests that people heard what they spelt as "the B sound that is sometimes spelt as V".

In contrast, the majority of Romance languages show the b~v merger only between vowels, but many dialects precisely of the Neapolitan language - the descendant of Pompeian/Campanian Latin - have it also word-initially in favour of /v/ - with all instances of /b/ otherwise stereotypically doubled. In the Iberian peninsula there is very little ancient evidence for it, so it's probably one of those Vasconic/Castillian peculiarties that spread during the high Middle Ages. In Sardinia it's almost as universal as in Castillian, however a few isolated Sardinian dialects still preserve the difference (and there's a new /b/ that's quasi-double).

The other position where the merger was early and common even at Rome is after the velarised sounds /l/ and /r/ - as evidenced by spellings like SALBE and SERBVS (dissimilation from the following /u/ could be involved).


Zec said:


> These transcriptions suggest that at a time when Greek <αυ> was already /av/ (or /aβ/, what matters is that there was no longer a semivowel in it, rather a voiced fricative or approximant) latin <V> was still /w/, which is why the need was felt to write <αου> instead of simply <αυ>. It looks like Greek gained its /v/ earlier than Latin did.


Since all of the sounds in question didn't contrast, that is to say the speakers heard no difference between them, it was in principle irrelevant whether to spell it with β, υ or ου. Rather one has to recall that the Greek intervocalic Υ spells a double /w:/ like the Latin intervocalic I spells a double /j:/, except perhaps at prefix boundaries. So the spelling ΑΥΕΝ would be read as /aw.wen/, and that has to be the main reason why ΑΟ(Υ) was preferred in transliterating the Latin.


Snodv said:


> As I understand it, Red548, Ecclesiastical Latin dates from a period when Latin was on its way to developing _into_ Italian.


Ecclesiastical Latin is a vague term that had absolutely no meaning during the period in question because the Latin used by the Church was the same as used by everybody else in a given region. The notion of Classical Latin, and thus the dichotomy perceived today, simply didn't exist back then. Latin would have had a different pronunciation in any given place (note how even talking about countries would be totally ahistorical), sometimes very straightforwardly reflecting the pronunciation of the local dialect, other times with extremely complicated developments due to conflicting traditions (such as in England and France), and almost certainly with many variations and with changes over time, especially during the Enlightenment, when language standardisation went into full swing and the so-called traditional or national pronunciations of Latin took shape. Sometimes the accumulated changes they displayed were very dramatic indeed, which ultimately lead to many attempts at abolishing them and introducing some sort of ecclesiastical standard pronunciation, which finally became the pronunciation of Rome at the turn of the 20th century - this has been only partially successful, and even that success was only possible because Latin as a whole was disappearing even from the Church. Before that, there was a much earlier successful attempt during the Carolingian Renaissance, apparently spearheaded by Alcuin. Remains of this pronunciation are today perhaps best preserved in Poland.

Nowadays this expression most commonly refers to the way Latin is pronounced in Italy, which btw has already managed to diverge from the Roman Ecclesiastical pronunciation prescribed by the Liber Usualis. Thus talking about an "Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation" is quite unproductive.


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## Sobakus

To answer the question "did Latin have the [v] sound as in _vegan_" as clearly as possible: it did have the *[sound]* but not the */phoneme/ *in the same way English has the Spanish [ɾ] sound of _fuero_ as an *allophone *of the phoneme /t/, an occaisonal or positional variant - stereotypically in General American _bu*tt*er_. In both cases it isn't/wasn't a phoneme, a minimal distinct unit of speech that can discern meaning - there's no pair of words one of which has [w] and another [v] (or [ɾ] against [t~d] in American English).

Proto-Indo-European also lacked /v/ as a phoneme, and as a result this was true for the majority of ancient Indo-European languages. In fact the same was true for most of Medieval Europe, where the majority of Germanic and Slavic (as well as Finno-Ugric) languages had /w/ in place of modern /v/. Overtime, almost all of these languages underwent the same shift to /v/, with English being the most notable exception. This is often mentioned as a common European areal feature.

In many of these languages, [w] and [v] are still allophones, so their speakers will repeat a word containing a [w] with their [v] or something close, and spell it accordingly. Some lanuguages still preserve the medieval halfway stage often described as the labiodental approximant [ʋ]: dievs in Latvian, enakopravnost spolov in Slovenian, Київ in Ukrainian, Vijay in Hindi. [v] existed in Latin roughly in the same way as in these languages, as an allophone of /b/ and /w/, with the difference that it was the newcomer sound that probably smacked of a foreign (if prestigious) accent.


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## A User

INTERVENTI NORMALIZZATORI in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (A.D.1499)
Le regole e gli esempi (al punto 2) di come si è normalizzato la grafia di "v" e di "u", partendo dalla divisione sillabica.
https://www.liberliber.it/mediateca/libri/c/colonna/hypnerotomachia_poliphili_etc/pdf/hypner_p.pdf


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## Penyafort

Sobakus said:


> In the Iberian peninsula there is very little ancient evidence for it, so it's probably one of those Vasconic/Castillian peculiarties that spread during the high Middle Ages.



I'd say Basco-Iberian. Betacism in Aragonese seems to be very old too.


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## merquiades

In Castilian (and probably the other languages in Spain and southern France that have B/V confusion), the phenomenon is ancient and it also did not occur quickly.  It was a long process that took several centuries to complete.
1)  B was pronounced {b]  and V was pronounced [w] originally.
2)  V changed to [β]
3)  B weakened between vowel sounds to [β] causing partial merger with V in this phonetic environment
4)  B and V at the beginning of words were pronounced {b] and [β] when preceded by a consonant or a pause but always [β] when preceded by a vowel.
5)  This eventually encouraged further merger as the distribution between  {b] and [β]  for B was extended to words beginning with V.

The phoneme [v] never existed in Castilian.


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## Sobakus

Penyafort said:


> I'd say Basco-Iberian. Betacism in Aragonese seems to be very old too.


Oh sure, what I meant was that the trait was originally of Vasconic origin affecting all the surrounding Latin varieties, but that it owes its spread over the peninsula specifically to Castillian influence.


merquiades said:


> It was a long process that took several centuries to complete.[...]


Here's how I would model the change in the varieties that haven't fully merged B and V:

1st stage: [w] breaks up into [β̞ʷ], represented in this dialect and consistent with the descriptions of many Graeco-Roman grammarians who heard the Greek ypsilon in _vir_;
2nd stage: [β̞ʷ] is simplified to/merges with [β], represented in Spanish;
Alternatively, [w], which consists of a low tongue gesture and a rounded lips gesture loses the former, becoming [β] or [ʋ] right away, the latter represented in Latvian (yes, it means what you think);

3d stage: [β] or [ʋ] is strengthened to [v], represented in Italian etc.
Now what happened in Spanish is in principle different. It's not an isolated change, but part of the system-wide lenis-fortis opposition: all voiced stops are affricated in the lenis environment, which turns /b d g/ into [β ð̞ ɣ], and conversely any such affricates undergo fortition into stops in the fortis environment. As there are few indications for any B~V confusion from ancient Spain, it's possible that the merger is owed entirely to this and is unconnected to the Italian developments described above.

If the Italian developments did affect Spain, there's no reason why the development described above couldn't have gone all the way to [v] before lenition resulted in the conflation of the /v/ phoneme with /b/. In any case, determining which allophone of that range is the default can be tricky: the English wikipedia, as is par for the course, claims that this Ukrainian phoneme is /w/


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## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> To answer the question "did Latin have the [v] sound as in _vegan_" as clearly as possible: it did have the *[sound]* but not the */phoneme/ *in the same way English has the Spanish [ɾ] sound of _fuero_ as an *allophone *of the phoneme /t/, an occaisonal or positional variant - stereotypically in General American _bu*tt*er_. In both cases it isn't/wasn't a phoneme, a minimal distinct unit of speech that can discern meaning - there's no pair of words one of which has [w] and another [v] (or [ɾ] against [t~d] in American English).
> 
> Proto-Indo-European also lacked /v/ as a phoneme, and as a result this was true for the majority of ancient Indo-European languages. In fact the same was true for most of Medieval Europe, where the majority of Germanic and Slavic (as well as Finno-Ugric) languages had /w/ in place of modern /v/. Overtime, almost all of these languages underwent the same shift to /v/, with English being the most notable exception. This is often mentioned as a common European areal feature.
> 
> In many of these languages, [w] and [v] are still allophones, so their speakers will repeat a word containing a [w] with their [v] or something close, and spell it accordingly. Some lanuguages still preserve the medieval halfway stage often described as the labiodental approximant [ʋ]: dievs in Latvian, enakopravnost spolov in Slovenian, Київ in Ukrainian, Vijay in Hindi. [v] existed in Latin roughly in the same way as in these languages, as an allophone of /b/ and /w/, with the difference that it was the newcomer sound that probably smacked of a foreign (if prestigious) accent.


Sobakus, traditionally in England there was the Westminster pronunciation of Latin, which in the 19th century was used extensively in the public schools (a phrase that refers to private schools in England; it contrasted with aristocrats being taught by governesses at home), where Latin was pronounced as in English. Debates in Parliament were held in this badly pronounced Latin, e.g. nisi pronounced /naɪsaɪ/, etc. So the Latin v was pronounced [v] in Westminster Latin, and then someone published some book or books in the late 19th century or early 20th century stating that v was actually [w] in Latin. So Caesar's statement about one of his campaigns - veni, vidi, vici - was traditionally pronounced in England /vi:naɪ, vaɪdaɪ, vaɪsaɪ/. Then someone realised that the "correct " pronunciation was with [w], or more probably [u̯], [ˈu̯eːniː ˈu̯iːd̪iː ˈu̯iːkiː]. The general pronunciation of that Latin phrase in England today is [ˈvɛni: ˈvi:di: ˈvi:ki:].

You talk about [ʋ] as a v-sound, but [ʋ] is the way many English people pronounce r. Including me. I avoid words like rural and Ruritania as a result. This pronunciation is widespread and spreading in England.

If you search for "The Traditional English Pronunciation of Latin" on Youtube, you can find a good video illustrating the English Latin, which is now defunct apart from in the pronunciation of legal terms.


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## Sobakus

pimlicodude, yep, I briefly referred to the English traditional pronunciation in the message just above the one you were replying to, by linking to this article with an audio rendering of the Lord's prayer. There had in fact been a controversy and competing pronunciations even before the 19th century, centered as I understand around individual schools and even individual teachers. One of these was the ”Scotch” type which apparently largely retained the ”continental” vowels. But <v> was pronounced [v] in all of them it seems.


pimlicodude said:


> You talk about [ʋ] as a v-sound, but [ʋ] is the way many English people pronounce r. Including me. I avoid words like rural and Ruritania as a result. This pronunciation is widespread and spreading in England.


I must confess that even though I'm perfectly aware of this and can talk like that myself, I still can't quite convince myself that you and other such speakers will hear the Latvian, Hindi and Russian sound as an /r/. I mean, in English - sure, but only because all of the surrounding sounds are unambiguously English. Outside of this I would expect the brain to experience the same difficulty as when hearing an unfamiliar English accent - you're never quite sure what you're hearing even if the sounds themselves exist in your variety. And even then I still suspect the quality of that Estuary realisation of /r/ must be different from what you hear in these recordings of Вася, or in Latvian vārds (_verbum, word_).


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## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> pimlicodude, yep, I briefly referred to the English traditional pronunciation in the message just above the one you were replying to, by linking to this article with an audio rendering of the Lord's prayer. There had in fact been a controversy and competing pronunciations even before the 19th century, centered as I understand around individual schools and even individual teachers. One of these was the ”Scotch” type which apparently largely retained the ”continental” vowels. But <v> was pronounced [v] in all of them it seems.
> 
> I must confess that even though I'm perfectly aware of this and can talk like that myself, I still can't quite convince myself that you and other such speakers will hear the Latvian, Hindi and Russian sound as an /r/. I mean, in English - sure, but only because all of the surrounding sounds are unambiguously English. Outside of this I would expect the brain to experience the same difficulty as when hearing an unfamiliar English accent - you're never quite sure what you're hearing even if the sounds themselves exist in your variety. And even then I still suspect the quality of that Estuary realisation of /r/ must be different from what you hear in these recordings of Вася, or in Latvian vārds (_verbum, word_).


Well, I can't find the email now, but I once corresponded with a well known linguist in the UK on the subject of [ʋ], and he told me that [ʋ]  is not just a "lateral v" (/l/ is lateral, as air escapes on both sides, so I argued that  [ʋ]  was a lateral v), because something happens in the throat too during the r-like pronunciation of [ʋ]. I can't remember what he wrote, but I think it something like a velarisation or a pharyngealisation of some sort. If you go from a lateral v into the labiodental r, then you can feel something happening in the throat, but I'm not competent enough to explain it.

EDIT: I've found the email from a linguistics lecturer at the University of Cambridge, in which he told me:



> As for your theory that 'labiodental' /r/ is a lateral approximant, I don't think the data supports that for any speakers I've seen. The lateral nature would imply a central constriction (or nearly so), but very many speakers with 'labiodental' /r/ (and normal /r/, for that matter) actually have an asymmetrical side opening (think Rio Ferdinand) with some lip protrusion (which is physically impossible without a greater degree of opening centrally). I have some unpublished video data which we hope to supplement with data acquired using the latest imaging resources at Edinburgh at some point.
> 
> It's also interesting to note that 'normal' approximant /r/ involves a velar or pharyngeal component, so there are further parallels there which suggest how 'labiodental /r/ is related to 'normal' /r/ - an important consideration in any theory which doesn't leave itself open to saying anything can replace anything. We assume there has to be a principled relationship, and I think we've found it. Out of interest, [name removed], my colleague, also has labiodental /r/, but with a definite velar approximant constriction.



He informed me that the labiodental approximant is accompanied by a velar approximant constriction, which makes it sound r-like to English ears. That is not the same thing as v-like  [ʋ] in other languages.


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