🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1gq0m3INNp2l@coli-gate.coli.uni-sb.de> simon@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de (Julia Simon) writes:
>LMEBGO@kiera.ericsson.se (Bengt G{llmo, L M Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden) writes:
>> phrase "Gloria in excelsis Deo".  Our 
>> disagreement concerns the "c".  The choir pronounces it as an 
>> Englishman pronounces "ch" in "china".  I have told them that 
>> they sing Latin in Italian; that is how an Italian would
>> pronounce "excelsis".  It is also awkward to sing.  In Latin, 
>> I claim, the "c" should simply be pronounced "s".  A counter-
>> claim from somebody in the choir is that the "ch" pronounciation 
>> is correct if you are singing Latin from a certain century (the 
>> 17th?), to which I reply that the phrase must have been used in 
>> church at least a thousand years before that.   
>
>Yes, they're singing it in Italian - there's something called the "Italian
>pronunciation of Latin" or so, which must be the one this choir is using
>(I heard it's used fairly often by church choirs!). There "c" before "e" and
>"i" is pronounced "ch".
>
>As an Indo-European linguist I've learned that at some time (looooong ago) the
>Romans pronounced it "k". Later it became a fricative or affricate before "e"
>and "i" (as it still is in the modern Romance languages - "s" in French, "ch"
>in Italian and (I think) Rhaeto-Romanic, "th" in Spanish, ...).
>

	I studied Latin (looooong ago) at two different schools.  One was a
Catholic school were we learned Church Latin, which pronounces _c_ as _ch_
before _e_, _i_, _ae_, or _oe_, and as _k_ otherwise.  The other was a
public school were we learned Classical Latin, which always pronounces _c_
as _k_.  It is my understanding that any pronunciation scheme for Latin is
at best guesswork.
	BTW, I have noticed that singers invariably pronounce the _e_ in _Deo_
long, although it is really short.  (Vowels are pronounced the same in
Church and Classical.)

==============================================================================

               Dennis Paul Himes    <>    dennis@cadkey.com
 
"In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done
in watermelon sugar."           - Richard Brautigan