# Pronunciation of "c"



## gabrigabri

How is this word pronounced: superfice (non cedit)?
Thanks! 
Bye


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## modus.irrealis

Hi,

In the Classical pronunciation, the letter _c_ always represented the hard sound [k] (like Italian _c_ in _capire_). The other letters in your example were pronounced roughly the same way as in Italian, except maybe for the _r_ which was trilled (I don't know about the Italian _r_). Note, though, that _superfice_, doesn't seem to be a Latin word.


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## jazyk

Probably she meant superficies or any other inflection thereof.


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## Anatoli

I beg to differ. C is pronounced as 'ts' (Russian 'ц', German 'z') in the positions where it is pronounced as 's' in English, that is in front of e, i and y.


> superfice (non cedit)?


IMHO, it's pronounced as superfi_ts_e (non _ts_edit)


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## Outsider

Anatoli said:


> I beg to differ. C is pronounced as 'ts' (Russian 'ts', German 'z') in the positions where it is pronounced as 's' in English, that is in front of e, i and y.


It depends on which period of Latin you're talking about. (Which place, too, sometimes, though there's no need to be that complicated.)


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## Anatoli

Outsider said:


> It depends on which period of Latin you're talking about. (Which place, too, sometimes, though there's no need to be that complicated.)


I agree with you, that's why we have discrepancies in various languages where it could be one of K, S or TS (or more) sounds for the same Roman letter C.


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## modus.irrealis

"Pronunciation of Latin" is not an unambiguous term, which is why I said Classical, and the scholarly consensus is that in Classical times _c_ was always [k], and I've never seen anything suggesting otherwise. And how this sound developed before certain vowels depends on the region: in Sardinian it's still [k], in Italian (and Romanian I believe) it became the _c_ in Italian _cento _(I don't know the phonetic symbol for this sound), which is why the current Roman Catholic pronunciation of Latin uses this sound, and in the West, it became [ts], which then developed in various ways. All of these could be called Latin pronunciations (depending on how long ago the sound changes occurred), so it might help to know which pronunciation gabrigabri is interested in.

Edit: and there I went and was that complicated .


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## Nunty

I had the considerable misfortune when I was in university to have a Latin teacher who knew the "right" way to pronounce "c" (*). She was, oh let's call it eccentric. The result is that now, many years and decades letter, whenever I read Latin aloud people who know Latin think I that I'm a new learner and people who don't know Latin wonder what language I'm reading. 
I chalk it up to another in a long line of odd accents in my life.

(*) Her system was "like English" except where I tell you different.


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## gabrigabri

Sorry, it should be: superficies solo cedit!


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

I don't know Latin and I never had a chance to learn it in school, but I'm interesting in it. I have some school books at home which are used in our schools (only a few schools here in Slovenia offer Latin) There it is writen that post-classical pronountiation od letter C before E and I is like our (Slavic) c.
Some time ago I bought a CD of Andrea Bocelli where he sings the religious songs in Latin... he always pronounces C in Italian way, what I'm sorry to say but drives me mad. I can't listen to him despite his beautiful voice. On the contrary in Mozart's Requiem and Carmina Burana (not that one with Orff's music) I have are "my-ears friendly" pronountiation - C is there pronounced as c.


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## Cnaeius

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> I don't know Latin and I never had a chance to learn it in school, but I'm interesting in it. I have some school books at home which are used in our schools (only a few schools here in Slovenia offer Latin) There it is writen that post-classical pronountiation od letter C before E and I is like our (Slavic) c.
> Some time ago I bought a CD of Andrea Bocelli where he sings the religious songs in Latin... he always pronounces C in Italian way, what I'm sorry to say but drives me mad. I can't listen to him despite his beautiful voice. On the contrary in Mozart's Requiem and Carmina Burana (not that one with Orff's music) I have are "my-ears friendly" pronountiation - C is there pronounced as c.


 
Indeed what you called "Italian way" is the way which took place in the Medieval times. The classical way was very time-limited, infact yet at the end of Roman empire took place phonetic changes. Roughly saying. Actually it is much more complex.
Anyway de gustibus non disputandum est


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## Brioche

In the Catholic liturgy, Latin is pronounced as if it were modern Italian.

c in front of i or e is pronounced like English ch, 
_E*cc*e homo_

g in front of i or e is pronouced like English j
_Filium Dei uni*g*enitum_

sc in front of i or e is pronounced like the English sh.
_de*sc*endit de cœlis_

ti = tsi
_consubstan*ti*alem Patri_

gn is also pronounced in the Italian way 
_Domine non sum di*gn*us_


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## Brioche

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> On the contrary in Mozart's Requiem and Carmina Burana (not that one with Orff's music) I have are "my-ears friendly" pronountiation - C is there pronounced as c.


 
I've just had a listen to the Introit of Mozart's Requiem, and the singers definitely follow the standard Catholic [i.e. Italianate] pronunciation in 
_lux perpetua lu*c*eat eis ..._ and
_Te de*c*et hymnus Deus ..._


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## Sepia

modus.irrealis said:


> Hi,
> 
> In the Classical pronunciation, the letter _c_ always represented the hard sound [k] (like Italian _c_ in _capire_). The other letters in your example were pronounced roughly the same way as in Italian, except maybe for the _r_ which was trilled (I don't know about the Italian _r_). Note, though, that _superfice_, doesn't seem to be a Latin word.



On what soruces are the theories concerning the classical pronunciation based?


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## Nunty

We sing a Mass in Latin every Sunday and sometimes during the week. We always use the "Italian" prononciation.


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## Outsider

Sepia said:


> On what soruces are the theories concerning the classical pronunciation based?


I'm always a bit surprised that people question the reconstructed pronunciation of Latin "C". The Romans wrote CA, CE, CI, CO, CU with the same letter, right? Isn't that a dead giveaway? Anyway, here's something to get you started: Latin spelling and pronunciation.

*Cnaeius*, the classical pronunciation was not short-lived by any means. It lasted fom the archaic period until roughly the 5th century. That's at least a thousand years, longer than the lifespan of medieval Latin. 

And the modern Italian pronunciation (perhaps I should add "standard Italian") cannot be described as _the_ medieval pronunciation. I agree with Modus-Irrealis: pronunciation must have varied from region to region.


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## Sepia

Outsider said:


> I'm always a bit surprised that people question the reconstructed pronunciation of Latin "C". The Romans wrote CA, CE, CI, CO, CU with the same letter, right? Isn't that a dead giveaway? Anyway, here's something to get you started: Latin spelling and pronunciation.
> 
> *...*.



No that is not at dead giveaway. These same letter combinations are used in a good deal of contemporary Roman languages and English as well with different pronunciations of the c - decisive for the pronunciation is as we all have problably noticed, the vowel after the c.

In other non-Roman languages there are similar ways of handling a consonant - in Swedish the "g" in "god" and "Göteborg" to mention one example. 

I don't see it as a dead giveaway that such characteristics could not have existed in ancient Latin as well.

So my question is still: I there any solid information about this anywhere - ancient descriptions of the language or whatever?


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## Outsider

Sepia said:


> No that is not at dead giveaway. These same letter combinations are used in a good deal of contemporary Roman languages and English as well with different pronunciations of the c - decisive for the pronunciation is as we all have problably noticed, the vowel after the c.
> 
> In other non-Roman languages there are similar ways of handling a consonant - in Swedish the "g" in "god" and "Göteborg" to mention one example.
> 
> I don't see it as a dead giveaway that such characteristics could not have existed in ancient Latin as well.


Those languages inherited the alphabet from Latin, after the values of the letters had changed (in most places). 

The Romans _invented_ their own alphabet -- why would they make it needlessly complicated?

Anyway, and here's one piece of evidence for you, not all languages that use the Latin alphabet have a different sound for C before E and I than otherwise. In the Celtic languages of the British Isles, which have been using the Latin alphabet since the Middle Ages (I think they became written languages before most Romance languages, even), C is always pronounced [k], even before E and I. 

The different pronunciation for CE and CI is a specifically Romance, medieval characteristic which French transmitted to English, and the languages of central and eastern Europe got either from French, or from medieval Latin.



Sepia said:


> So my question is still: I there any solid information about this anywhere - ancient descriptions of the language or whatever?


I posted a link with explanations and references above -- have you looked at it yet?


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## modus.irrealis

gabrigabri said:


> Sorry, it should be: superficies solo cedit!


I think you might have gotten more answers than you expected, but I've added the accent (bold letters) and long vowels (macron above the vowel) - if anyone sees a mistake, please correct me:

superf*i*ciēs s*o*lō c*ē*dit

For the classical pronunciation, the _c_ is k, long vowels are pronounced longer, and everything else is like Italian.



Sepia said:


> On what soruces are the theories concerning the classical pronunciation based?


To add to Outsider's posts, there are many sources, but I can explain some of the reasoning in this specific case. First of all you look at how the initial sound of Latin _centum_ developed and you get [k] in Sardinian, "ch" in Italian, [s] in French, [θ] in Spanish (I think), and so on, and the simplest way to explain this is to assume Latin had [k] since the change of [k] to these kind of sounds is common across languages while the reverse change is rare. So Latin at some point had [k] there, and since wikipedia tells me that Sardinia was conquered in the 3rd century B.C., it must have still had that pronunciation then.

You can also look at words Latin borrowed and words borrowed from Latin. _Caesar_, where the _c_ also changed its pronunciation later on because _ae_ was pronounced like _e_ (I think that's still the Ecclesiastical pronunciation), has a hard [k] sound both in German Kaiser and Greek Καίσαρος. Plus when Latin borrowed words from Greek that had a [k] sound, like ρινόκερως, they wrote it rhinoceros.

Everything I've read says that on this point it's pretty clear what the original pronunciation was, and the only question is when did it change.


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## Sepia

I could go for your argumentation down to the point where you mention Wikipedia. (By all respect, what do I know about the people who edit the info given in Wikipedia?)

However, I have always wondered why so many languages, derived from Latin dialects or sociolects, in such a widespread geographical area have different pronunciations of c, depending on the wowel. And still we are to believe the Romans pronounced it = "K". I mean, we are talking about French, from Belgium to the Spanish and Italian borders, most Variations of the language(s) in Italy, the Iberic Peninsula and a good deal of the Island between the two. By that time, that is a vast area for the pronunciation of a letter coincidentally changing in the same direction. 

I find it hard to believe in such a coincidence. To me it seems more likely that this development had already taken place before Latin was introduced into all these parts of Europe.
Or could there be another reason I have not noticed?


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## DrLindenbrock

modus.irrealis said:


> I think you might have gotten more answers than you expected, but I've added the accent (bold letters) and long vowels (macron above the vowel) - if anyone sees a mistake, please correct me:
> 
> superf*i*ciēs s*o*lō c*ē*dit
> 
> For the classical pronunciation, the _c_ is k, long vowels are pronounced longer, and everything else is like Italian.
> 
> 
> To add to Outsider's posts, there are many sources, but I can explain some of the reasoning in this specific case. First of all you look at how the initial sound of Latin _centum_ developed and you get [k] in Sardinian, "ch" in Italian, [s] in French, [θ] in Spanish (I think), and so on, and the simplest way to explain this is to assume Latin had [k] since the change of [k] to these kind of sounds is common across languages while the reverse change is rare. So Latin at some point had [k] there, and since wikipedia tells me that Sardinia was conquered in the 3rd century B.C., it must have still had that pronunciation then.
> 
> You can also look at words Latin borrowed and words borrowed from Latin. _Caesar_, where the _c_ also changed its pronunciation later on because _ae_ was pronounced like _e_ (I think that's still the Ecclesiastical pronunciation), has a hard [k] sound both in German Kaiser and Greek Καίσαρος. Plus when Latin borrowed words from Greek that had a [k] sound, like ρινόκερως, they wrote it rhinoceros.
> 
> Everything I've read says that on this point it's pretty clear what the original pronunciation was, and the only question is when did it change.


 
Very good points, I agree with you!
Actually, I was going to write them but you anticipated me!   

But to stay simple, I think the fact that all the Greek words with a K sound were written with C in Latin is a pretty strong piece of evidence.
Also, the Greek letter Χ was transcribed as CH in Latin. Apparently the Romans used the H after C, P, R, T to show that the corresponding fricatives sounds, which Greek represented as Χ, Φ, Ρ, Θ, thus having CH, PH, RH, TH.
Their system was coherent in choosing the corresponding plosive to form the diagraph for the fricative, so this would seem to provide even more evidence that C was pronounced as K.

As for different pronunciations, I think it's only natural... I don't like that in Italy we pronounce Latin just as if it were Italian, but I don't even like the idea of having C pronounced like in Slavic languages, even though that is perfectly  logical because that's how the sound evolved in that part of Europe.
There's a movement proposing to "go back to the Old Roman pronunciation" ... a lot could be said on that, I think it's a great idea but also think, more realistically, that it would be hard to convince thousand of Latin teachers to change overnight, and also the Roman Catholic Church is very powerful, even when it comes to Latin pronunciation...

Cheers


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## Outsider

Sepia said:


> I could go for your argumentation down to the point where you mention Wikipedia. (By all respect, what do I know about the people who edit the info given in Wikipedia?)
> 
> However, I have always wondered why so many languages, derived from Latin dialects or sociolects, in such a widespread geographical area have different pronunciations of c, depending on the wowel. And still we are to believe the Romans pronounced it = "K". I mean, we are talking about French, from Belgium to the Spanish and Italian borders, most Variations of the language(s) in Italy, the Iberic Peninsula and a good deal of the Island between the two. By that time, that is a vast area for the pronunciation of a letter coincidentally changing in the same direction.
> 
> I find it hard to believe in such a coincidence. To me it seems more likely that this development had already taken place before Latin was introduced into all these parts of Europe.
> Or could there be another reason I have not noticed?


There isn't going to be any way to convince you, is there?


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## Outsider

DrLindenbrock said:


> There's a movement proposing to "go back to the Old Roman pronunciation" ... a lot could be said on that, I think it's a great idea but also think, more realistically, that it would be hard to convince thousand of Latin teachers to change overnight, and also the Roman Catholic Church is very powerful, even when it comes to Latin pronunciation...


Using a pronunciation based on modern Italian is sensible for the Catholic Church, whose see is in the Vatican, in the middle of Italy. I imagine that Italian is an important lingua franca in the Catholic Church, so why not keep things simple, and base church Latin pronunciation on what they've already learned about Italian? It makes perfect sense.


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## modus.irrealis

Sepia said:


> By that time, that is a vast area for the pronunciation of a letter coincidentally changing in the same direction.


It didn't change in the exact same direction everywhere -- in some places, it didn't change at all. You can say it did change in generally the same direction, but that's still not a coincidence because it changed in a way that is natural for [k] before vowels like _ and [e] across all languages (it happened e.g., in Cypriot Greek, English, Sanskrit, etc.).




			I find it hard to believe in such a coincidence. To me it seems more likely that this development had already taken place before Latin was introduced into all these parts of Europe.
		
Click to expand...

We'll have to disagree, since I don't see how you find it more likely that a number of different sound changes all occurred in Rome and then these sound changes expanded outward instead of thinking the various sound changes occurred in the places where their effects are seen today. But anyway, you're just pushing the issue of when the sound change from [k] to whatever occurred back in time, but looking at the interaction between Latin and Greek, it's clear that any sound change occurred after the 1st century AD, otherwise why do all Latin words borrowed into Greek have [ke] for ce as in κεντυρίων? (I notice DrLindenbrock made this same point in the post I just saw).




			Or could there be another reason I have not noticed?
		
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what more reasons could be needed. So far you had that the Romans invented their alphabet and had no reason to use the same letter for different sounds, that words they borrowed from Greek that had [ke] they wrote ce, words written ce borrowed into Greek were pronounced [ke] in Greek, and the [k] sound is by far the best option for explaining the sounds of the Modern Romance languages. If that's not enough, what could be?_


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## Cnaeius

Outsider said:


> I'm always a bit surprised that people question the reconstructed pronunciation of Latin "C". The Romans wrote CA, CE, CI, CO, CU with the same letter, right? Isn't that a dead giveaway? Anyway, here's something to get you started: Latin spelling and pronunciation.
> 
> *Cnaeius*, the classical pronunciation was not short-lived by any means. It lasted fom the archaic period until roughly the 5th century. That's at least a thousand years, longer than the lifespan of medieval Latin.
> 
> And the modern Italian pronunciation (perhaps I should add "standard Italian") cannot be described as _the_ medieval pronunciation. I agree with Modus-Irrealis: pronunciation must have varied from region to region.


 
Classical pronounciation is a standard, and as all the standard (included ecclesiastical latin), refers to the real spoken use of a very little period (the classical one more or less). Saying that latins had for 1000 years all the same pronounciation is quite absurd. On the contrary it is not (but in this case they are much more than 1000 ys) for the classical latin as language of culture, the one preserved by scholars. This last one came across the centuries.
A little parenthesis: there are differences within the standards: think to the diphtong ae, prononounced /ae/ in classical latin since the diphtong /ai/ was completely substituted by the /ae/ in writings (following the phonetics) around 200 b.C. Today I know that there are some “classical latin pronounciation” that use the /ai/ pronounciation.
Ecclesiastical latin takes its root in medieval latin. This is a fact. It is not ecclesiastical latin that takes the pronounciation of standard modern Italian. It is that Latin evolved so that, in the same territory, Latin and Italian had almost equal phonetic rules in their evolution (quite obvious fact). Infact Ecclesiastical latin started being so before so-called modern Italian existed.
Anyway it is not deniable that a certain influence of the Modern Italian on Ecclesiastical Latin is present now: but it is nothing with respect to the previous similarity of the two phonetic systems.
In italy we *also *learn latin with ecclesiastical pronounciation, not exclusively. In fact there is not a standard: there is the thought that each pronounciation is worthy to be known since latin has a long story, not exclusively limited to the classical period one


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## Cnaeius

Outsider said:


> Using a pronunciation based on modern Italian is sensible for the Catholic Church, whose see is in the Vatican, in the middle of Italy. I imagine that Italian is an important lingua franca in the Catholic Church, so why not keep things simple, and base church Latin pronunciation on what they've already learned about Italian? It makes perfect sense.


 
It is not so.
An example: the dipthong "ae" started being *written *also as "e" to respect the phonetics from the XII century more or less. 
In any case Latin-->italian is a continuum: it is not possible to say that the second has influenced the first. It has no sense


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## Outsider

Cnaeius said:


> Classical pronounciation is a standard, and as all the standard (included ecclesiastical latin), refers to the real spoken use of a very little period (the classical one more or less). Saying that latins had for 1000 years all the same pronounciation is quite absurd.


Now you are being pedantic. Sure, but we were talking about the pronunciation of the letter C. According to the available evidence, "C" remained a single _phoneme_ in Latin, distinct from S/TZ/TSCH, for roughly 1000 years. 
The S/TZ/TSCH pronunciations are medieval innovations. They were not significantly present in the classical period.



Cnaeius said:


> On the contrary it is not (but in this case they are much more than 1000 ys) for the classical latin as language of culture, the one preserved by scholars. This last one came across the centuries.


I was obviously referring to Latin as a _living language_. After it's dead, you can pronounce it in any way you please.



Cnaeius said:


> Ecclesiastical latin takes its root in medieval latin. This is a fact. It is not ecclesiastical latin that takes the pronounciation of standard modern Italian. It is that Latin evolved so that, in the same territory, Latin and Italian had almost equal phonetic rules in their evolution (quite obvious fact).


No, Cnaeius, I'm afraid that's wishful thinking. Medieval Latin split into the various Romance languages some 1000 years ago. It was just as dead 500 years ago as it is now.


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## Cnaeius

Outsider said:


> Now you are being pedantic. Sure, but we were talking about the pronunciation of the letter C. According to the available evidence, "C" remained a single _phoneme_ in Latin, distinct from S/TZ/TSCH, for roughly 1000 years.





Outsider said:


> The S/TZ/TSCH pronunciations are medieval innovations. They were not significantly present in the classical period.
> .


 
Pedantic? Mine was an answer to your quite general adfirmation



> *Cnaeius*, the classical pronunciation was not short-lived by any means. It lasted fom the archaic period until roughly the 5th century. That's at least a thousand years, longer than the lifespan of medieval Latin.


 
All you can say is that I'm a little bit out of the topic. In any case on the "C" I NEVER said something different from you. I'm talking generally and ON THE "C" I agree



> I was obviously referring to Latin as a _living language_. After it's dead, you can pronounce it in any way you please.


So do I, the language that is spoken by the people. So why did you said that the pronounciation was the same for 1000 years? 



> No, Cnaeius, I'm afraid that's wishful thinking. Medieval Latin split into the various Romance languages some 1000 years ago. It was just as dead 500 years ago as it is now.


 
Now the "pedantic" are you. 
We are talking about evolution of languages, not about names. There is a continuum between Latin _living _language (living: as you and i always meant) and Italian. Yours is a good convention that does not explain anything about what you said before.
I mentioned specific facts, do you find an answer to those facts in order to explain your thesis in your previous posts?


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## Outsider

Cnaeius said:


> It is not so.


What, in my post you quoted, were you objecting to? 



Cnaeius said:


> So why did you said that the pronounciation was the same for 1000 years?


Compared to the large variations in pronunciation that appeared during the Middle Ages, the previous period of Latin was relatively stable, to the best of my knowledge.

I am not going to claim that there was absolutely no variation in the pronunciation of the classical period. In fact, we know there were a few, and they've even been mentioned here in this thread (the pronunciation of AE, for instance). But they were very minor changes, compared to what came afterwards.



Cnaeius said:


> There is a continuum between Latin _living _language (living: as you and i always meant) and Italian.


Has anyone denied that?



Cnaeius said:


> Yours is a good convention that does not explain anything about what you said before.[/COLOR]
> I mentioned specific facts, do you find an answer to those facts in order to explain your thesis in your previous posts?


Sorry, but these two sentences were unintelligible to me. Please explain better what you mean.


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## Sepia

Outsider said:


> There isn't going to be any way to convince you, is there?


 
Don't be stupid. Do you think I would waist my time asking for info if  I were not wanting info?

I rather have the feeling that some theories that are "so generally accepted" that someone has a problem with them being questioned. That is not an attitude I can really respect.

The bit concerning the ke-words from Greek being written with ce was the most convincing argument though, I think.


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## Outsider

Sepia said:


> Don't be stupid.


Don't call me names, stupid. 



Sepia said:


> I rather have the feeling that some theories that are "so generally accepted" that someone has a problem with them being questioned.


And you're the one who's going to set the record straight, and prove thousands of linguists were wrong for hundreds of years, right? Good luck.


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## Jana337

I added a poll. I assume geography will win but let's give it a shot anyway. Please PM me if you think that I didn't get the options exactly right. 

Jana

P.S. Voting for 2-5 should not be _per se_ interpreted as a disagreement with the Classical theory (i.e. "c" was always "k").


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## Outsider

*Gabrigabri*, I replied "None of the above" in your poll, because I never read Latin aloud.


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## Jana337

Outsider said:


> *Gabrigabri*, I replied "None of the above" in your poll, because I never read Latin aloud.


You party pooper!  Couldn't you imagine that you do, for the sake of fun? 

I apologize to Gabrigabri for hijacking his thread. 

Jana


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## Cnaeius

You see, I wrote about these sentences and previous related:



> Using a pronunciation based on modern Italian is sensible for the Catholic Church, whose see is in the Vatican, in the middle of Italy. I imagine that Italian is an important lingua franca in the Catholic Church, so why not keep things simple, and base church Latin pronunciation on what they've already learned about Italian? It makes perfect sense.


 
Do you think modern Italian is the basis of the Catholic Church latin?
This is an linguistic absurdum. Have I to list all the reasons? I hope what I wrote before is sufficient...
You can dislike modern latin pronounciation (e.g: I prefer the classic one that was the first I learned at school), you also can dislike Church, perhaps this was only a joke, but, please, don't say these things that fight against linguistic, history and common sense.


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## Outsider

Just for the sake of fun...? 

Well, I have to admit that the reconstructed pronunciation sounds very dry and a little alien to me ("weni, widi, wiki"). My first tendency is to read Latin (in my mind) with a more modern pronunciation. Not exactly the ecclesiastical pronunciation, but one that is French-like for the consonants (except the "r", and sometimes with "ce", "ci" and "ti+vowel" pronounced with [ts] rather than [s]); and a Spanish/Italian-like pronunciation for the vowels. This is a purely personal construct, of course.

Somehow, _Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?_ doesn't sound as nice if I pronounce _patientia_ as [patientia]. The reconstructed pronunciation is a fascinating time travel experience, but it just doesn't come natural.


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## Outsider

Cnaeius said:


> Do you think modern Italian is the basis of the Catholic Church latin?
> This is an linguistic absurdum. Have I to list all the reasons?


At least one would be nice.

Italian and Romanian are the only major Romance languages where _ce_ and _ci_ are pronounced "cheh", "chee", and I don't think the Catholic Church would use Romanian as its inspiration.


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## Cnaeius

Outsider said:


> At least one would be nice.


 
How could Roman catholic church have as *basis* a language that has a sensible visibility of a bit more than a century? You will know that as national language Italian is the youngest of the romance!
Church (very old institution you know) built the basis of the Scholastic or Ecclesiastical pronounciation a looooot before the so- called Italian language exist.
Do you know who first tried to recuperate the classic pronounciation? Scholars of the "Umanesimo" Italiano (1400), because during and after the fall of the roman empire the classic went progressively degraded and definitely lost in the 1400. It is important this word "Sholastic pronounciation" because let us argue that the "italianate" (bad bad word without any meaning) latin is not an exclusive invention of the Pope but come from a synthetization of old phonetic changes in vulgar latin occurred after Roman empire fall
I hope you understand now why I was so  before.
Anyway, as I already said (see one of the previous posts) NOW It is not deniable that Italian, national language sorrounding Vatican, may have influence on it, but it is nothing respect what It happened a long time before national Italian exists


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## Outsider

Cnaeius said:


> How could Roman catholic church have as *basis* a language that has a sensible visibility of a bit more than a century? You will know that as national language Italian is the youngest of the romance!
> Church (very old institution you know) built the basis of the Scholastic or Ecclesiastical pronounciation a looooot before the so- called Italian language exist.


As you well know, the Italian language, as standardized in the 19th century in the wake of the creation of the Italian state, is heavily based on a literary version of Tuscan which dates back to Dante's time, i.e., the 15th century. Although the Italic peninsula was not politically united in the time between those two dates, Tuscan remained a prestigious language throughout the intervening centuries. So, the idea is not as nonsensical as you're trying to make it seem.



Cnaeius said:


> Do you know who first tried to recuperate the classic pronounciation? Scholars of the "Umanesimo" Italiano (1400), because during and after the fall of the roman empire the classic went progressively degraded and definitely lost in the 1400. It is important this word "Sholastic pronounciation" because let us argue that the "italianate" (bad bad word without any meaning) latin is not an exclusive invention of the Pope but come from a synthetization of old phonetic changes in vulgar latin.


The Vulgar Latin of Italy... Hence, "Italianate".



Cnaeius said:


> I hope you understand now why I was so  before.


I hadn't even noticed you had been, as you say, , but I'm glad you got over it.



Cnaeius said:


> Anyway, as I already said (see one of the previous posts) NOW It is not deniable that Italian, national language sorrounding Vatican, may have influence on it, but it is nothing respect what It happened a long time before national Italian exists


Well, who said I was talking about "a long time" ago?


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## se16teddy

Outsider said:


> Well, I have to admit that the reconstructed pronunciation sounds very dry and a little alien to me ("weni, widi, wiki").


 
There are many different ways to pronounce Latin, depending on the context. 

The traditional English pronunciation of Latin is heavily influenced by changes that have occurred in the English language over the 1500 years or so since English and Latin have been in contact. Thus if I were to be invited to proclaim a new monarch, I would shout _'vivat rex'_ or _'vivat regina'_ in the English way - _v_ pronounced as in _van_, _i_ pronounced as in _life_, _e_ pronounced more like _i_ like in _deceit_. Similarly in the very familiar phrase _vice versa_ the _v_ is pronounced as in _van_, the _i_ is pronounced as in _life_, the _c_ is pronounced _s_, and the _e_ is pronounced _shwa_. I think that this was the only widespread pronunciation system for Latin in England until after the war.

On the other hand, the tradition for singing masses and other religious works is to aim at a standard Italian or Church pronunciation, with lot of ch sounds. I don't actually know whether, for example, Vivaldi, a Venetian, would have expected the 'ch' sound in his works: maybe the Venetian pronunciation was different. 

No doubt all the countries of Europe similarly have their own way of pronouncing Latin. It is inevitable that the traditional local pronunciations will have their own resonance. 

These days, Latin is taught in English with the pronunciation which is very widely accepted to be that of the Classical authors. In this pronunciation, c is always pronounced k. If one is reading the Classical authors, I think it is best to pronounce their words as best we can as they pronounced them.


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## Cnaeius

Outsider said:


> As you well know, the Italian language, as standardized in the 19th century in the wake of the creation of the Italian state, is heavily based on a literary version of





Outsider said:


> Tuscan which dates back to Dante's time, i.e., the 15th century. Although the Italic peninsula was not politically united in the time between those two dates, Tuscan remained a prestigious language throughout the intervening centuries. So, the idea is not as nonsensical as you're trying to make it seem.


 
Well, I see with pleasure that you come a bit towards me, first you and others talk about latin based on modern (somewhere also standard) italian, I ask you if I have to explain some reason and you say that one would have been nice. Now you talk about Florentine dialect. I appreciate that. Now it is simpler to discuss.
But it is not finished here. Because Scholastic pronounciation, adopted by Catholic Church (beware: this “scholastic” and scholars of Umanesimo are two different things) take “official” shape a bit after the 1000 b.C. ( it is difficult or impossible to detect the precise period for the pronounciation and indeed there aren’t precise periods when talking of pronounciation) after the major phonetic changes were already happened. Do we want to call it “Italian” too? 
If so, great, we will (almost) agree. 
I haven’t the knowledge to go beyond but if you want to propose the thesis by which the Church copied the Florentine pronounciation to linguists…. I don’t think you succeed
By the way, I have been saying a very simple thing: phonetic change that you hear in church latin are old and not simple copies of the Italian language pronounciation (a lot of laughes) or of Florentine dialect (no laughes but a lot of scepticism)



> The Vulgar Latin of Italy... Hence, "Italianate".


 
More or less. But it is a pity that Italianate is often referrend to modern standard italian. 
I think I have finished: I said all I could say


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## modus.irrealis

I agree with se16teddy, which is why I voted "none of the above" for the simple reason, that, not belonging to any tradition of reading these texts, I go with historical accuracy so I use Classical pronunciation to read Classical works and I'd learn about Medieval pronunciation if I ever were to read Medieval texts (although I haven't read any). For me, my goal in Latin is eventually to read the Aeneid, and I think I'd miss out on a lot of the experience if I did not read it the way Virgil wanted it to be heard.


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