🚀 go-pugleaf

> I wonder how Latin or single Latin words are commonly pronounced in different
> countries. It seems that in English Latin words are generally pronounced as
> they were English.

Well, sort of.  "Pro hac vice" is [pro: h&k 'vajsi:], not [pro: h&k
vajs];
"ultra vires" is ['@ltr@ vajri:z], not ['@ltr@ vajrz].  Each consonant
and vowel is given more or less an English pronunciation, but the rules
of English orthography about silent vowels, etc. are not observed.

This pronunciation descends from that used in English monasteries before
the Protestant Reformation.  When English underwent the Great Vowel
Shift
of the 1400's, English Latin changed along with it.  Lawyers still use
it:
[ultra wires] would be utterly unrecognizable to a lawyer.

"Vice versa" is now usually pronounced as English (three syllables),
and "per se", oddly enough, most often has the second word pronounced
more or less in Classical fashion: [p@r sej].

> But how does the educated English-speaking person
> pronounce, say, a verse of Vergilius or a whole Latin sentence (like "fortuna
> audaces iuvat")?

We pronounce it ['fOrtS@n 'fejvrz D@ breiv], as a rule.  Latin is
little taught in English-speaking countries nowadays, even to the
educated.  However, when it *is* taught as a language, the
(reconstructed) Classical pronunciation is taught, though no
attention is given to double consonants.

I used to enjoy reading Virgil aloud, emphasizing the quantitative
rhythms --- making the "long by nature" and "long by position"
syllables literally more prolonged, and the short syllables short.
It gives the _Aeneid_ the feeling of actually having been chanted
to the lyre!  (Of course, that's anachronistic, but the rhythm
is founded on Homer's rhythm and isn't native to Latin at all.)

-- 
John Cowan						cowan@ccil.org
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban