# tempis [tempus] fugit  .. ergo ... carpe diem  (correct grammar?)



## edwardtheconfessor

"Tempis fugit"  (Virgil; The Georgics).
_ergo
_"Carpe diem" (Horace, Odes 1.11)

_Tempis fugit; ergo carpe diem
_
Okay; I think I've got my sources okay?  (No real Latin scholar - as you know!) BUT:

1) Does this hang together, grammatically I mean?
2) Anyone give me a clue with contemporary received pronunciation here? Is it pronounced 'DIE - EM' (to spell phonetically, as an English speaker) ....
or should it be 'DEE - EM'.  
The rules on received pronunciation (of Latin) seem to go in fads, don't they (depending on what was in vogue when you studied it)?
Thanks    - edwardtheconfessor


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## jazyk

> 1) Does this hang together, grammatically I mean?


I see no problem in it.


> 2) Anyone give me a clue with contemporary received pronunciation here?  Is it pronounced 'DIE - EM' (to spell phonetically, as an English  speaker) ....


This pronunciation isn't used and probably wouldn't be understood outside of the English-speaking world.


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## edwardtheconfessor

Thank you jazyk. So - 'DEE-EM' then is it? ('EE' sound, as in 'bee'). Yeah?


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## jazyk

I'd say yest to that for the rest of the world.


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## Pinairun

Temp*US* fugit, not *temp*IS*.


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## edwardtheconfessor

Okay Pinarium.  Thanks.  If you're right - wonder why no-one else spotted that???

While we're about it: pronunciation:-
_Tempus _(pronounced 'TEMP- OO- S' (using an English speaker's phonetics)) ??
_Fugit  _(pronounced 'F-OO - JIT'  (again, using an English speaker's phonetics) ??

And NOT 'TEMP - US' (as in the English word 'us' (meaning 'you and I' or 'you and me') ..
And NOT 'F - EW - JIT'  (as in the English word 'few').
Correct?? Notwithstanding many English people (esp those with public school accents) say it that way.  Yeah?


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## Pinairun

edwardtheconfessor said:


> Okay Pinarium. Thanks. If you're right - wonder why no-one else spotted that??? Maybe nobody saw it.
> 
> While we're about it: pronunciation:-
> _Tempus _(pronounced 'TEMP- OO- S' (using an English speaker's phonetics)) ??
> _Fugit _(pronounced 'F-OO - JIT' (again, using an English speaker's phonetics) ??
> 
> And NOT 'TEMP - US' (as in the English word 'us' (meaning 'you and I' or 'you and me') ..
> And NOT 'F - EW - JIT' (as in the English word 'few').
> Correct?? Notwithstanding many English people (esp those with public school accents) say it that way. Yeah?



I'm absolutely sure. 
_Tempus _(time) is a latin word of the second declension (-us), in the singular, in nominative case. This case marks the subject.
_Fugit _is the verb in the 3rd. person singular.

The only cases ending in "is" are dative and ablative plural. It makes no sense to say "tempis fugit".

EDIT: See down Scholiast's post.


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## edwardtheconfessor

That's cleared that one up! Many thanks.


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## jazyk

> If you're right - wonder why no-one else spotted that???


Sometimes people just overlook things.


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## Scholiast

Greetings

A couple of pedantic points.

First,



> _Tempus _(time) is a latin word of the second declension (-us)



No it is not. It adheres to the 3rd declension, with the stem _tempor_- (genitive _temporis_), with a declension-pattern akin to that of _corpus _(_corporis_), _vulnus_ (_vulneris_), _opus_ (_operis_) &c.

Secondly, _classical_ Latin will pronounce _fugit_ as "foo-git" (not "few-", and certainly not "_*J*_it"). The "Italianate" softening of c and g before the vowels e and i was already under way in vulgar Latin by the end of the first century AD, and of course is heard in the performance of Renaissance and later vocal compositions which set Latin texts.


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## Pinairun

Scholiast said:


> Greetings
> 
> A couple of pedantic points.
> 
> First,
> 
> 
> 
> No it is not. It adheres to the 3rd declension, with the stem _tempor_- (genitive _temporis_), with a declension-pattern akin to that of _corpus _(_corporis_), _vulnus_ (_vulneris_), _opus_ (_operis_) &c.
> 
> Secondly, _classical_ Latin will pronounce _fugit_ as "foo-git" (not "few-", and certainly not "_*J*_it"). The "Italianate" softening of c and g before the vowels e and i was already under way in vulgar Latin by the end of the first century AD, and of course is heard in the performance of Renaissance and later vocal compositions which set Latin texts.



Wow, you're quite right. I like people to correct me when I'm wrong. And I was.

Thank goodness _tempis_ was wrong too.


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## edwardtheconfessor

Scholiast said:


> Secondly, _classical_ Latin will pronounce _fugit_ as "foo-git" (not "few-", and certainly not "_*J*_it"). The "Italianate" softening of c and g before the vowels e and i was already under way in vulgar Latin by the end of the first century AD, and of course is heard in the performance of Renaissance and later vocal compositions which set Latin texts.



Hmmm! This debate is becoming interesting! As I've said; I'm not a Latin scholar, so I'm afraid the niceties of Latin grammar are just beyond me! However, as long as I understand that _temp*U*s _*and NOT *_temp*i*s _is correct, then I am happy on that point.  

PRONUNCIATION:
As to the pronunciation debate; this is very interesting! As a (reasonably fluent) Italian speaker, I am aware that 'c' in Italian, before the vowels 'e' or 'i' (or any combination of these) takes the sound equivalent to 'ch' in English and that 'g' before these vowels (or any combination of these) is rendered the equivalent sound to 'j' in English.

Now, I know that, in the early twentieth century, public schools (like Eton and Harrow) were teaching the 'new' pronunciation which renders the 'hard' sound for both these consonants, even before an 'e' or 'i' (or combination of these) so that, for example, _Cicero_ would be rendered '_kickero' (_in equivalent English phonetic spelling).  Did any of you ever see the 1939 UK movie "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (which was based on the 1934 James Hilton novel) about a Latin teacher at an old established minor public school in late Victorian/early Edwardian times?  In one scene, where the headmaster seeks to persuade him, the Latin master Mr. Chipping (later nicknamed 'Chips' or, eventually, as it becomes 'Mr. Chips') to, as it were, 'get with the times' and teach the 'new' (as it was then - circa 1900) pronunciation:

"I'm not prepared to teach the boys to say 'Kickero'" he objects "when, for the rest of their lives, they'll be saying 'CICERO'!"
I confess that I myself have never met anyone who calls him 'Kickero'!! Have you??

As a choral bass, I recall, just a couple of years ago, we rehearsed a piece to perform in Latin, as written (prob late renaissance or early baroque times).  The principal bass, sitting next to me, a gentlemen then in his 80's and one who had received a 'classical education' (as we Brits tend to refer to it) advised that in his student/pupil days 'c' was taught with the pronunciation 'ch' (as in modern Italian) before 'e' or 'i' or combination of these, and 'g' with the 'soft' sound 'j'. Apparently, this had become the 'vogue' for Latin received pronunciation, at least in the English-speaking world, by the 1920's and early 1930's (when he would have been a schoolboy). 
Since then, I believe, 'fashions' in this have changed yet again! Confusing, isn't it?

'_Amor vincit omnia' _: anyone who has ever read Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' (In this case, the prologue from that) will know that these are the words (with possible double meaning as they be!) of the Latin motto worn by The Prioress.  Every reading of that poem I have ever heard (reading even in scholastically very authentic Middle English, as Chaucer wrote it) renders this as 'amor vin(*S)*it omnia' and NOT 'amor vin(*CK*)it omnia'.  The latter, to most English speakers (myself included) would just sound stupid!  If I quoted Virgil as saying 'Tempus fu- (*GH) - *it' , instead of 'Tempus fu - (*J)* - it', I'm quite sure ANY fellow Englishman (esp if he knew Latin) would simply take ME for an idiot who doesn't even know the first thing about Latin!

In the many, many ultimately Latin derived words in the English language, 'c' nearly always has the 'soft' sound (equivalent to English 's') before 'e', 'i' or combinations of these. I could, of course, give thousands of examples here (but I won't!). Similarly, 'g' takes the 'j' sound in front of these vowels (again,I could give thousands of examples - but I won't!).  In fact, I can't think of many examples of English words which contradict this.  I can think of only a few surviving 'germanic' (Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse) derived words which do  e.g. _GET_.  Why, even the English alphabet _names _for these letters, renders them with these 'soft' sounds:
C is called 'see'  and G is called 'jee' (to spell phonetically).  My (basic) knowledge of French (which language evolved, of course, from Frankish Latin) suggests to me that the same principle generally holds there. I cannot comment intelligently on Spanish or German as I do not speak these.

The popular English name Vincent, which has its French equivalent, and in other European languages too, deriving as it does from a Latin word conveying 'winning', would sound really stupid to almost anyone I know if pronounced 'Vin(*CK*) -ent' !!!

I take your point, Scholiast, about what may have been 'classical' (as opposed to 'vulgar') Latin pronunciation.  I cannot argue the point on this as I have not your (presumably expert) knowledge in this field, and you may well be right.  No doubt, it has been _because of_ the many changing scholastic views as to how 'classical' Latin actually WAS pronounced that have led to the many and changing 'fads' or 'fashions'  - or 'schools of thought' if you wish - about this, in UK certainly, since the late 19th century.  The fact of the matter is that, if we are all being honest, WE DON'T REALLY KNOW!! No-one, I think, has a recording of someone from  the time actually speaking, or reading, it - duh!!!

Nevertheless, I would be VERY interested to hear informed views from others about this, on this thread.  I don't think we have quite 'put to bed' this whole pronunciation question by any means yet, have we?

Moderator; should this perhaps continue as a thread in its own right?

Cheers    - edwardtheconfessor


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## jazyk

Maybe you will like this.


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## edwardtheconfessor

Thank you, jazyk. I have read this with great interest. However, I remain no less confused! WHICH LATIN DID *I* LEARN? I didn't! That's the problem.  I may not be able to be 'right' in my pronunciation - but I would like to sound, at least, _plausible_, when I slip these quotations into my (actually music/art/poetic) project on which I am working.  It will become available worldwide, and not just to English speakers. But, whatever I do, I know I will always sound like an Englishman (as, no doubt, I do when I speak Italian, French or any of the other languages of which I have a smattering). I am not, as I have said on other posts, a linguist; rather, an amateur philologist.
Maybe I can ask YOU: 'Which Latin did you learn?' ... and what, if anything, might you recommend for this purpose?


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## Scholiast

Greetings once again



> The fact of the matter is that, if we are all being honest, WE DON'T  REALLY KNOW!! ....



This is not strictly true. A number of converging pieces of evidence give us a pretty good idea about classical Latin pronunciation - among others:
(1) the explicit remarks of writers on rhetoric (especially Cicero and Quintilian) about pronunciation;
(2) variant orthographies (e.g. _consul_/_cosul_, which strongly suggests that the n was nasalised, as in French words such as _poiss*on *_- this applies too to the elision of final syllables in -_am_, -_em_, -_im_, -_om_, -_um_ in verse; and _plaustrum_ ["polite"] / _plostrum_ ["vulgar"]); and the transliteration and accentuation of Latin words and names into Greek and other tongues, which shows for example that the Latin V was pronounced as an English W (in Greek, which lacks both the W-sound and an alphabetic character for it it is usually written OU); for that matter the ways in which Greek loan words in Latin are adapted, which shows that aspiration was very light in Latin, as in modern Italian;
(3) the Romance legacy enables experts in phonology scientifically to extrapolate backwards according to general sound-shift principles.

You are however right in this much, that the "Latin" pronunciation taught (and sung) in most countries today is an artificial and conventional thing, usually conforming most closely to the pronunciation rules of the native speech. Hence the German_ ex-tsel-seess_, _kvee vay-nit_ &c, in contrast with the Italian _ek-shel-seess_; and the dog-Latin sung by the Teutonic Knights in Prokoffiev's_ Alexander Nevsky_ wil be sung by Russian choirs as if it were Russian. Byrd or Tallis would have expected to hear _re-zur-rec-tsi-owe-nem_.

I too am a choral bass, and am sometimes asked what is the "correct" pronunciation of Latin:  the answer is that there is no single right answer: but most British performers (and I suppose Anglophone choirs elsewhere too) tend to adhere to the Italian conventions for singing, largely because of the overwhelming influence of Palestrina, Monteverdi and the other Italian masters of church music.


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## edwardtheconfessor

Well, Scholiast, this is a LOT to think about!  I shall need time to assimilate all this, if I am to make intelligent reply. 

One point occurs straightaway, however: ASPIRATION:-
If by 'aspiration' you mean 'breathed' consonants (which is how my dictionary of etymologies and phonetics defines it) then this would chiefly, if not more or less wholly for our purposes, apply to the letter 'h'.  You say (or imply) that in modern Italian this 'aspiration' is 'very light'. However, there is NO 'h' sound in modern Italian.  The letter 'h' (acca) is silent in Italian and very rarely even written; use mainly confined to the purpose of 'hardening' a 'g' or 'c' in front of an 'e' or 'i' or combination of these ... e.g. _ghiaccio_ (ice), _funghi_ (mushrooms), _chi _(who) etc.  It is not pronounced in French either - though some French words have what I was taught are called an 'aspirate h' at the beginning -  meaning they do not take the shortened definite article in singular or use _liaison_ in the plural of it (though liasion is not so widely used anyway today, in most conversational style French, as was once the case).

Example: _les haricots  _(the 's' remaining silent, as if the noun began with a consonant - which it does: 'h'.  But the 'h' itself is not pronounced, of course).
I am therefore a little puzzled as to what you mean when you say that 'aspiration was very light in Latin, as in modern Italian'.  Could you please explain.

A question for you also occurs:  how would you recommend pronouncing my original couplet:
_Tempus fugit; ergo carpe diem
_
 by showing this with an English phonetic spelling ['ck' or 'k' for 'hard' c; 'j' for 'soft' g,; 'ch' for 'Italian' 'soft' c ; 's' for English 'soft' c; glottal stop (') for breaks where a vowel or consonant (such as 'h') or consonant combination has been elided  (as 'st' becoming t -cirumflex (for example, in the French word _fenetre _, or 'x' (in English, given the sound 'ks', but in modern Italian always reduced to a simple 's'); using n,(with a tail) for a nasalised 'n', 'rr' representing a 'rolled' r, 'r' (one only) a 'fricative' 'r'    - and so on ... pronouncing my original couplet to make it sound reasonably authentic ???

_Tempus fugit (Virgil); ergo        carpe diem (Horace). 

_Neither of these Roman writers, I think, was around when you say 'vulgar Latin' pronunciations began to become widespread.

Thanks   -edwardtheconfessor


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## edwardtheconfessor

Scholiast, having now had time to consider your most recent post, and all the information in it, I have some other thoughts to share:

PRONUNCIATIONS AND EMPHASIS:
If I understand you aright, inflexion endings in Latin, you say, tended to be 'lightly pronounced' (my evaluation of what you said).
This being so (if I have understood correctly) the 'pedantic' pronunciations (of any 'school' on this, in fact), with emphasised consonants - as so popular among English-speaking 'gerund-grinders' (in UK public schools etc.) since Victorian times ... this is probably totally unnatural anyway.
If I said 'TEMP- OOSSS   F-OOOO-GH-ITTTT !!!'   ...  in that way (apart from it sounding like a VERY rude insult - to a non-Latin speaker!), then, yes, it probably _would _​sound ridiculous!  If, however, I let the word endings 'trail off' a little in pronunciation -which I _think_ is what you're suggesting Latin speakers tended to do in the days of 'classical' (Roman Empire heyday) Latin?  ..  then the whole thing would sound a little more like:-

"tempoos foo(ghit) errgo carrpe dee-('em)".

Where"'oo" is pronounced as in 'food',"'gh" as in 'get', "'rr" denotes a lightly rolled 'r' (as e.g. in a Dundee Scots accent), "' 'em" denotes use of a medium short 'e'; slightly longer, say, than in the cockney and South London slang for 'them' (e.g. in the song "We Knocked 'Em In The Old Kent Road) - or, say, in a slightly posh English way of punctuating speech with thought  e.g. "Em, yes I think so, old boy!"  ...  And brackets () indicate letter groups with a slightly 'trailing off' sound such as an Italian speaker (and quite a few young Brits I know, too - inc my daughter) might use, say, in normal use of the word 'ciao' as a light greeting.  Yeah?

WRITING IT: Since you obviously know your stuff, maybe you can tell me whether, at the times of Virgil and Hoarce, capitals only, with no lower case, were in use for written Latin:

TEMPVS  FVGIT; ERGO CARPE DIEM   (Come to that; I don't even know if a semicolon would have been used?).

Many thanks     - edwardtheconfessor


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## Scholiast

Greetings



> If I understand you aright, inflexion endings in Latin, you say, tended  to be 'lightly pronounced' (my evaluation of what you said).
> This being so (if I have understood correctly) the 'pedantic'  pronunciations (of any 'school' on this, in fact), with emphasised  consonants - as so popular among English-speaking 'gerund-grinders' (in  UK public schools etc.) since Victorian times ... this is probably  totally unnatural anyway.



I did not quite say that inflected endings were "lightly pronounced", but the natural stress-patterns of Latin tend to throw the emphasis back towards the penultimate or antepenult syllable, and therefore away from the inflection - so you are quite right about the artificiality of "gerund-grinding" pronunciation, necessary (arguably) to facilitate rote-learning of declensions and conjugations, but alien to the authentic _vox Latina._



> "tempoos foo(ghit) errgo carrpe dee-('em)".



More or less, yes (especially the trilled r).  Note that s is always unvoiced (as in "loose", not "lose"). The second syllable of _tempus_ would rhyme with the German _Kuss_, or English "fuss" as spoken by a Northerner, and _fu_- will have the same vowel in the present tense (the perfect is written identically, but pronounced with a long u to rhyme with the vowel in Engl. "loo", "moo" &c.) Also, the i in _diem_ is short, as in Engl. "fit", "hit".

It is to my mind a safe bet that continuous spoken Latin would sound to an English ear very much like modern Italian in its rhythms and slightly sing-song dactylic vocal inflexions - this emerges particularly in such phenomena as double consonants, where a speaker dwells audibly on e.g._ frate*l-l*o_ (from Latin, _fratellus_), _o*c-c*idere _(as in Engl. "black cat" &c.).



> maybe you can tell me whether, at the times of Virgil and Hoarce, capitals only, with no lower case, were in use



Cursive script was used for private or informal purposes - and Cicero's secretary Tiro developed a system of shorthand notation as well. The most striking difference with modern texts would be that spaces were not conventionally written between words, which made reading quite a challenge, as you may imagine.

Best wishes.

Afterthought: sorry, you asked me to clarify the issue of aspiration. Of course standard modern Italian does not aspirate at all (I wrote somewhat loosely); but Latin does use the letter h, though as you remark it is very much like that in French, almost (if not completely) silent. I presume that this is a consequence of the fact that from quite early on in the history of the language its speakers came into contact with dialects and other languages, notably of course Greek as southern Italy and Sicily were colonised by Greeks, in which aspiration was a marked phonological feature.


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## Scholiast

Greetings once again

I should have added that there's quite a reasonable Wikipaedia article on the whole matter, with some useful bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spelling_and_pronunciation


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