# Pronunciation of "Cogito ergo sum"



## teags.84

Cogito ergo sum


----------



## Outsider

It depends on which time period you're aiming for... Classical? Medieval? Modern? Which region, as well.


----------



## Whodunit

Try it like this:

co - as in British *co*tton (a bit more closed)
gi - as in do*ggy*
to - as in *to*p (a bit more closed)

er - somewhere between s*ir* and f*air* (Spanish: *er*guir)
go - as in *Go*d (a bit more closed)

sum - like *zoom*, but the "z" should be pronounced like an "s" and the vowel is shorter


----------



## Joca

Whodunit said:


> Try it like this:
> 
> co - as in British *co*tton (a bit more closed)
> gi - as in do*ggy*
> to - as in *to*p (a bit more closed)
> 
> er - somewhere between s*ir* and f*air* (Spanish: *er*guir)
> go - as in *Go*d (a bit more closed)
> 
> sum - like *zoom*, but the "z" should be pronounced like an "s" and the vowel is shorter


 
Right, but don't forget the stress:

Cógito érgo sum.

JC


----------



## Stephanus

The first o is definitely long. Something like this is what I imagine the Romans would have said:

0ko:gito: 0ergo: sé(m)


----------



## gabrigabri

Everyone in Italy says it wrong. (?)

Cogito ergo sum

gi as giant

s as in sun


----------



## Broca's Area

Classical pronunciation: /'ko:gito 'ergo: sum/, being /g/ pronounced as in English _gap_.



Italian Church and school traditional pronunciation: /'kodZito 'ergo sum/, being /dZ/ as in English _journey_, and without taking care of vowel length.


----------



## jpdude5

I like to trust the Italian pronunciation even if it isn't the established norm. It sounds beautiful and it came from their land.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

jpdude5 said:
			
		

> I like to trust the Italian pronunciation even if it isn't the[?!] established norm. *[COLOR=#0ead]It*





			
				jpdude5 said:
			
		

> sounds beautiful and *[COLOR=#0ead]it[/COLOR]* came from their land.


[/COLOR]
That is, with all respect, a strange argument. I think I understand what you mean - even if the two ‘it’ refer to different things, “the Italian pronunciation” and “Latin”, respectively, and the (implicit) postulate of an “established norm” is highly questionable. There may be various national _conventions_ – nothing else.

Modern Italian pronunciation is - _mutatis mutandis_ - as foreign to the pronunciation of Classical Latin as the pronunciation of Modern Greek is to Classical Greek and its phonetic status once upon a time. There is a lot of controversy on this subject – especially among Greeks. But already at the end of the 19th century we had a fairly good idea as to how these languages sounded like during the golden age of each of them. 

The reason why Erasmus, shortly before his death, wrote _De recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronuntiatione dialogus_ is that there was a perception that the original pronunciation of Latin and Greek had been “distorted” by modern language realities. He was of course right.

Basically, I think the issue is of no great importance. The crucial thing when reading a classical text – or pronouncing _Cogito, ergo sum_ - is to be able to understand it properly and to give an adequate rendering of it in a modern language. As to the exact pronunciation of a classical text at any point in time, we should leave this to the linguists. There will always be difficulties of contrastive nature when people with different native tongues are asked to read aloud a classical text. Just think of the contrasts between π :φ,τ :θ and κ :χ in Classical Greek! Today, there is not one single language in Europe which, in its _phonemic inventory_, has a contrast of distinctive value between non-aspirated and aspirated consonants. It is simply not practical, from a pedagogical point of view, to try and restore such a contrast. I’d go as far as to say that such an effort is a waste of time.

And yet, I have a critical comment to a certain “national” pronunciation of Latin. The British (and American) one goes too far in applying national idiosyncrasies. When Latin /i/ is pronounced [ai], _ic_[sic] feel like something is wrong, really _wrang_...

Once I recited this famous “macaronic poem” by Alfred Denis Godley at a gathering organized by a major American university:

What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo--
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!​Initially, I didn’t really know how to perform this task. Why?

Look at the rhymes! – hum|Bum - High|Bi - flee|Be - anigh|Bi... There was no choice but to conform to the pronunciation which had reigned in British schools for ages. When I came to _Cinct_*i*, it was like swallowing an elephant. But, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’... In any case, it was macaronic.

 There seems to be a misunderstanding (or a printing error) in Wikipedia (_sub voce_ Godley): In line 4 there should be _Indicat_ and not _*Indicant_. I am pretty sure that the original version does not have the plural form of the verb – even if it is tempting to correct Godley at this point.

_Cogito, ergo sum - _I am sure Descartes pronounced it à la française. 
​


----------



## Stephanus

There really is no need to get hot under the collar about idiosyncratic national pronunciations of Latin. Until around 1900 pronunciation naturally followed developments in the vernacular and in the case of English long i became ai etc. When I was a choirboy in an Anglican church the "nunc" in "Nunc dimittis" (the name of the Sing of Simeon, which of course we sang in 17th century English) rhymed with "hunk" and "Benedicite" with "nicety". Similarly Italians, and the Catholic church officially, pronounce c and sc before e and i as t•and • respectively. Authentic performances of Bach will pronounce "ascendit" with -sts-, the German pronunciation, as a matter of course; none of this is exactly incorrect: but if one is asked what the correct pronuciation is, with the assumption that only one such exists, there is really no alternative to the classical, that of Caesar, Cicero, Virgil and Horace.


----------



## Pedrovski

gabrigabri said:


> Everyone in Italy says it wrong. (?)
> 
> Cogito ergo sum
> 
> gi as giant
> 
> s as in sun



I also thought the "g" would be pronounced like in "giant". Given that in most (if not all Latin languages) a "g" placed before the i automatically becomes a "soft" one. 
But if I understood correctly, all "g"s in Classical Latin are "hard" then?


----------



## Outsider

Yes, the pronunciation has changed.


----------



## Etruscanus

I appreciate that so many of you have a positive view of the Ecclesiastical (Italian) pronunciation.  However, the 'reconstructed' scheme is probably easier to learn for beginners.

  I tried to learn the ‘reconstructed’ after using the Ecclesiastical, with the result that my pronunciation has become idiosyncratic.


----------



## modus.irrealis

Pedrovski said:


> But if I understood correctly, all "g"s in Classical Latin are "hard" then?



Except for the combination _gn_ which the majority of scholars think was pronoucned like the _ngn_ of English _wrongness_.



Etruscanus said:


> I appreciate that so many of you have a positive view of the Ecclesiastical (Italian) pronunciation.  However, the 'reconstructed' scheme is probably easier to learn for beginners.
> 
> I tried to learn the ‘reconstructed’ after using the Ecclesiastical, with the result that my pronunciation has become idiosyncratic.



Sometimes, though, the more I learn about the reconstructed pronunciation, the less it sounds like Latin. I mean things like differences in the quality of short vowels vs. long vowels (except for _a_) -- pronouncing _hic_ like English "hick" and not with a (short) Italian _i_ just sounds un-Latin to me . And when I learned Latin may even have had nasal vowels, I though that was a little odd. I wonder how many people go for the full reconstruction pronunciation (distinguishing for example_ ph_ from both _p_ and _f_) without sacrificing anything to making it easier for themselves.


----------



## Outsider

modus.irrealis said:


> [...] pronouncing _hic_ like English "hick" and not with a (short) Italian _i_ just sounds un-Latin to me.


Why would you do that in a reconstructed pronunciation of Latin?


----------



## modus.irrealis

Outsider said:


> Why would you do that in a reconstructed pronunciation of Latin?



Because what I've read says that short and long _i_ also had a difference in quality as well as difference in quantity. From W. S. Allen's _Vox Latina_:



> There appears to have been no great difference in quality between long and short _a_, but in the case of the close and mid vowels (_i_ and _u_, _e_ and _o_) the long appear to have been appreciably closer than the short.
> [...]
> Short _i_ and _u_ had much the same value as as the corresponding vowels in _pit_ and _put_;


----------



## Outsider

Interesting, and surprising. What is the evidence for it? How did they disentangle the qualitative difference from the quantitative difference?

P.S. By the way, the "i" in "hick" and the "oo" in "good" aren't just more close than _ and . They're also more central._


----------



## modus.irrealis

Outsider said:


> Interesting, and surprising. What is the evidence for it? How did they disentangle the qualitative difference from the quantitative difference?



Some of the evidence that Allen quotes includes inscriptions where short _i_ is often written _e_ and long _e_ is often written _i_ -- he has a diagram for the vowels where he has short _i_ and long _e_ closer to each other than the former is to long _i_ or the latter to short _e_. He also refers to some Roman grammarians that mention a difference or mention that long _e_ and short _i_ are similar. He gives a few Latin words borrowed into Greek where the short _i_ is spelt with ε instead of the expected ι. And he also mentions that short _i _and long _e _developed the same in most Romance languages (Lat. _pira_ > It. _pera_, Lat. _uerum_ > It. _vero_). Although he does also say that this difference in quality is almost certain for later Latin, but I guess it's inconclusive to know how far back in time the difference goes.



> P.S. By the way, the "i" in "hick" and the "oo" in "good" aren't just more close than _ and . They're also more central._


_You're right about that -- and there's also a tense/lax distinction in English that may have been missing in Latin. Maybe German would provide better equivalents._


----------



## Outsider

Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation! 



modus.irrealis said:


> P.S. By the way, the "i" in "hick" and the "oo" in "good" aren't just more close than _ and . They're also more central._
> 
> 
> 
> _You're right about that -- and there's also a tense/lax distinction in English that may have been missing in Latin. Maybe German would provide better equivalents._
Click to expand...

_Those lax vowels are notoriously difficult to get right for speakers of Romance languages (who end up with "bit" pronounced as "beat", or mixing up the two)._


----------



## Spectre scolaire

modus.irrealis said:
			
		

> the more I learn about the reconstructed pronunciation, the less it sounds like Latin.





			
				Outsider said:
			
		

> Those lax vowels are notoriously difficult to get right for speakers of Romance languages (who end up with "bit" pronounced as "beat", or mixing up the two).


I know Allen’s _Vox Graeca_ much better than I know his _Vox Latina_. This is not important for what I want to say. Allen had two purposes when writing these books – or I’d rather say one _purpose_ and one _corollary_; I don’t remember what he says in his preface as my long time “bible” is far away from where I live for the time being. For the sake of my own argument: the *purpose* was a _*scientific*_ one and the *corollary* was a _*pedagogical*_ one. 

When studying Latin you can’t avoid grappling with the question of how this language was actually pronounced once upon a time or how it changed during the centuries. But whatever Allen says, there is a _theoretical_ knowledge to retain and a _practical_ one. I definitely have a liking for the first, but I realize that the second is of much greater importance when you apply your knowledge, and that is not by _talking_! Nobody really _speaks_ Latin except in _Nuntii Latini_, cf. http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/id50.shtml, and in a few other settings, but there is still - fortunately! - a number of people _teaching_ it. It is Latin _in a learning situation_ which I am primarily concerned with.

There are national conventions as to how to pronounce Latin. I see these conventions are something purely practical, considering the various “substrata” you have got in different countries. The pronunciation of Latin will unavoidably be different depending on the phonemic inventory of your native language. There is no way you can impose long and short vowels on students who don’t know this phenomenon in their own language. If Latin had been a spoken language, you’d better impose it – as much as you can’t ignore Chinese tonemes. But imposing this feature for Latin is not pedagogically feasible.

The reason why I quoted Godley’s poem is that even if one has to accept the influence of “national substrata” in the pronunciation of Latin, I sometimes do ask myself “how far away from Allen”, so to say, is it possible to go before the pronunciation turns out to be a travesty of Latin. 

My concrete example was _cincti_ pronounced as [singtai] or [kingtai]. This is like listening to certain American political analysts saying [airæk]. You can’t expect them to pronounce the name of the country as [3ira:q] (where _3_ is a pharyngal fricative), so why not adopt a _via media_ like [irák] given the fact that English does not possess any pharyngal fricative, nor an uvular stop - not even a trill [r] for that sake - in its phonemic inventory.

On these premises, [εRgo] would be acceptable in French, but I’d prefer [kogito] with a generalized [g], and there is nothing wrong with [sym] as long as the [y] does not encroach on other phonemes. To keep distinctions is important – even if those chosen by national conventions are notoriously wrong.
​


----------



## virgilio

Spectre scolaire,
                       You wrote:"Modern Italian pronunciation is - _mutatis mutandis_ - as foreign to the pronunciation of Classical Latin as the pronunciation of Modern Greek is to Classical Greek"

I realise, of course, that _mutatis mutandis_ permits you to 'hedge your bets' a little, but how do you know it is? And which local dialect of Classical Latin do you mean? And which dialect of modern Italian, if it comes to that?
And, of course, _mutatis mutandis_ the same questions apply also to Greek.
So many questions go a-begging.

Best wishes
Virgilio


----------



## Spectre scolaire

virgilio said:
			
		

> I realise, of course, that _mutatis mutandis_ permits you to 'hedge your bets' a little, but how do you know it is? And which local dialect of Classical Latin do you mean? And which dialect of modern Italian, if it comes to that?
> And, of course, _mutatis mutandis_ the same questions apply also to Greek.


 Basically, I don’t like to make such comparisons at all, but I seem to be doing it with other languages as well. In the _Arabic forum_ I recently compared Elizabethan English and a modern English dialect (i.e. within the conventional framework of what is called “Modern English”) on one side and _fus7a_ and a modern Arabic dialect on the other. These comparisons are not meant to be quantifiable in any way – only as parabolic as a diabolic linguistic mind can contrive... The allegory – to continue with Greek words – that I want to convey is that change in language is such an important concept that the whole phonetic structure of a language can look entirely different within a span of a few hundred years. There are many paralinguistic reasons for not accepting linguistic change, and I suppose I see Greeks and Arabs – both having a _diglossic_ language to cope with – as my primary targets when making these language comparisons.

Italians have no “national interest” in language immutability. Greeks and Arabs do. The point of making this type of comparison is therefore not to quantify the linguistic differences but rather to state that (considerable) change has taken place (in both languages which are being compared) and to inquire into the reasons why some people accept this principle [of language change] while others don’t.

By the way, in Italy one should be careful to ‘hedge one’s bets’ with the latinism _mutatis mutandis_! The reaction from ordinary people (who don’t understand the construction) would give you a good perception of language change...
 mutate le mutande ​


----------

