Chapter 1

Produced by Michael Gray, alumnus, Santa Clara University Classics Department

LATIN PRONUNCIATION A SHORT EXPOSITION OF THE ROMAN METHOD

BY

HARRY THURSTON PECK, M.A., PhD PROFESSOR IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE

SECOND EDITION AUGMENTED

NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1894

Copyright, 1890, BY HENRY HOLT & Co.

CONTENTS. ---- PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY,...................................5 II. SOURCES OF OUR INFORMATION,....................7 III. THE LATIN ALPHABET,..........................12 IV. SOUNDS OF THE LETTERS,........................15 V. SOUNDS OF THE DIPHTHONGS,......................31 VI. A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE SUBJECT,..........37

LATIN PRONUNCIATION.

----

I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THIS short manual is primarily intended for those who, being interested in the study of Latin, have accepted the Roman method of pronunciation upon the authority of the Grammars, but have either not been able to command the time to make themselves familiar with the arguments upon which this system is based, or have been repelled by the technicalities employed in treating the question from the standpoint of the specialist. It is believed that the following pages will be found to give in simple form the main facts bearing upon this interesting question; and that nothing has been introduced that is either unnecessary or obscure. For those who may wish to pursue their investigations farther after mastering these facts, a bibliography of the subject is given at the end.

The Roman method of pronouncing Latin has now received the approval of all Latinists of authority in Europe and America, as giving substantially the pronunciation employed by educated Romans of the Augustan Age. It has been formally adopted at our leading Universities. The most recent Grammars of the language recognize no other method. Thus, one great reproach to classical scholarship seems likely to be soon removed, and one universal pronunciation of the noblest of the ancient languages to receive general acceptation. [1] This little book will more than accomplish its object if it shall have aided ever so slightly in discrediting the barbarisms of a method which, to use the expression of a distinguished scholar, "ought long since to have followed the Ptolemaic system of astronomy into the limbo of unscientific curiosities."

[1] It is natural that the Roman system should make its way more rapidly into use in this country than in Europe, not because Americans are more given to experiments, but because here in the United States the inconveniences of having no standard system have been more sharply felt. New England being wholly settled from Old England, long continued the English system of pronouncing Latin. In the Middle States, the Germans and Dutch introduced their own methods; in the South and West, the French pronunciation came in quite frequently; and all over the Union, the Catholic clergy in their schools and colleges have propagated the traditional usage of their Church. Hence a Babel of pronunciations and systems existing and practised side by side, in a picturesque confusion such as no European country ever knew; and hence the general willingness to accept a single method, especially one that is based upon historic truth.

II.

SOURCES OF OUR INFORMATION.

A QUESTION of much interest to the student of Latin, and one that does not always receive a satisfactory answer, relates to the sources of our information.

What knowledge have we of how the Romans pronounced their own language nineteen hundred years ago? How is it possible after so long an interval to reconstruct the laws of a pronunciation which prevailed at a given period of the remote past?

Briefly summarized, the sources of our information are six in number.

(1) _Statements of the Roman writers themselves,_ which modern scholarship has laboriously collected. These are of different degrees of explicitness, and of different degrees of value. It is evident that a statement of Cicero, however brief, is more trustworthy and more convincing, with regard to the usage of his own time, than whole pages of testimony in a writer like Priscian who wrote in the sixth century, by which period the language had become corrupt.

We may, then, broadly divide the ancient authorities on this subject into two groups,--the first consisting of those writers who themselves belonged to the classical age; the second, of those grammarians and commentators who have left us very full statements, though the date at which they wrote somewhat impairs the value of their testimony.

The chief classical authorities to whom appeal can be made are M. Terentius Varro, a contemporary of Cicero, whose treatise on the Latin language has in part come down to us; Cicero himself, from whose rhetorical works one can gather many valuable facts; and M. Fabius Quintilianus, the author of the treatise _Institutio Oratorio,_ in twelve books. It is not merely when these authors speak of definite points of language and pronunciation that they are valuable; sometimes a casual remark, an anecdote, or a pun, may be of very great importance, as will be seen from time to time in the following pages.

Of the other writers on language who treat the subject very minutely, a great number might be cited. [1] The most important are Terentianus Maurus, who wrote, perhaps about the third century, a poem on letters, syllables, feet, and metres, which is twice quoted by St. Augustine; Verrius Flaccus, the tutor to the grandchildren of the Emperor Augustus and author of a work on the meaning of words which has come down to us in a later abridgment; Aulus Gellius, who, toward the end of the second century, compiled a huge scrap-book on a variety of subjects, many of them of great linguistic interest, and, with the exception of a few chapters, still extant; Priscianus Caesariensis, who wrote under Justinian at Constantinople eighteen books of grammatical commentaries which form the most complete grammar of antiquity; and Aelius Donatus (A.D. 333), whose elementary treatise was so highly thought of in the Middle Ages that the name "donat" (Chaucer) was used as a generic term for a grammar.

From these and many other writers one gathers a great mass of instructive facts; and their very silence is sometimes as significant as what they say.

(2) _The orthography of the language itself_ as seen in the inscriptions. Latin orthography was in the main phonetic (Quintilian, I. 7. 11). The language was pronounced as it was spelled. But as is always the case, changes in orthography lagged a little behind changes in the pronunciation. Hence even the blunders made by an ignorant lapidary in cutting an inscription are often a source of information to us.

(3) _The representation in Greek letters of Roman sounds._ A number of Greek writers treated of Roman history, Roman biography, and Roman geography. In so doing they were obliged to represent many Latin names and words in Greek characters. But many of these writers had no particular knowledge of the Latin language, and hence spelled these Latin names and words phonetically. Their method of doing this is both interesting and instructive. The writers of this sort who are oftenest cited are Polybius (B.C. 175), the friend of the younger Scipio and the author of a General History of Rome from the Second Punic War down to the conquest of Macedonia; Strabo the geographer (24 B.C.); Diodorus Siculus, the contemporary of Julius Caesar and author of an Historical Library in forty books; and Plutarch (A.D. 80), the best known of the Greek writers on Roman subjects. [2]

(4) _A critical comparison of all the modern languages of Europe that are derived from the Latin_ (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese) with reference to those points wherein they all agree. This source of information is of less importance than one would think, because these languages are not derived directly from the classical Latin, but from Latin that was either provincial or modified by foreign influences. Still, this comparison is useful in corroborating facts that are elsewhere learned, and is of positive value when not contradicted by other evidence.

(5) _The traditions of scholars,_ and especially of the Roman Catholic Church, which in its rites has employed Latin continuously from the first century down to the present time. The rhymes of the early Christian hymns also have a bearing on this subject.

(6) _The general principles of the science of phonology,_ which are now well established and understood, and are of great value in detecting erroneous assumptions which would otherwise pass unchallenged.

From these six sources can be gained a very accurate understanding of how Latin was pronounced in the days of Cicero and Caesar. It is not too much to claim that the system of pronunciation upon which scholars are now agreed, differs less from that of the Romans of the Augustan Age than does our modern pronunciation of English differ from that of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

[It is not always remembered that only very gradually was the true pronunciation of Latin lost in Europe. Scholars long retained the essential features of it, and by the fact of their constant intercourse long prevented the growth of local and national variations from the established method. Great teachers like Erasmus passed from country to country, lecturing in Latin at the universities of Italy, Germany, Holland, Trance, and England, teaching pupils of all nationalities, and being everywhere understood without any difficulty, for Latin was the _lingua franca_ of the educated, and one general pronunciation of it prevailed. Even in England, it was only after that country's isolation, political and religious, in the sixteenth century, that an "English pronunciation" arose, and this was long protested against, e.g. by Cardinal Wolsey, by Milton, and as late as the last century by Ainsworth (1746) and Philipps (1750). For the Continental traditions, see Justus Lipsius in his _Dialogus de Recta Pronunciatione Linguae Latinae;_ and Erasmus, _De Recta Latini Graecique Sermonis Pronunciatione_ (Basic, 1528). In Scotland, the Continental sound of the vowels was long retained, on which see the incident imagined by Sir Walter Scott in his novel _The Fortunes of Nigel,_ ch. ix.]

[1] Schneider in his _Elementarlehre der Lateinischen Sprache_ cites more than fifty ancient authors. Besides those mentioned above, reference is often made to Velius Longus, Servius, Marius Victorinus, Macrobius, and Martianus Capella.

[2] Others are Josephus, the Jewish historian; Dionysius of Halicarnassus; Appian; and Dio Cassius,--the last a Roman who wrote in Greek.

III.

THE LATIN ALPHABET.

IN its earliest form, the Latin alphabet consisted of 21 characters,- -A, B, C, D, E, F, Z, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X. These letters were derived from the alphabet used by the Dorian Greeks of Campania. At a very early period the letters K and Z fell into disuse, although K continued to occur in a few ancient abbreviations, such as Kal. for _Kalendae_, K. S. for _carus suis_, K. K. for _calumniae causa_ (a legal phrase), KK. for _castrorum_, KA. for _capitalis_; and the use of Z was subsequently revived in transliterating Greek words. Originally, the character C had the sound which was afterwards given to G; but when K was abandoned, C took its place and its sound; while a new letter, G, was formed by slightly changing the original C. Plutarch says that the character G was first employed by Spurius Carvilius about the year 230 B.C. In Cicero's time the letter Y was introduced to represent the sound of the Greek _Υ_; but its presence in a word always marks a foreign origin, so that the character can scarcely be regarded as an essential part of the Roman alphabet. About the year A.D. 44, the Emperor Claudius tried to introduce three new symbols into the alphabet: (1) the inverted diagamma [Picture: inverted diagamma] to mark the consonantal sound of V; (2) the character known as "anti-sigma" [Picture: Anti-sigma] to express the sound denoted by the Greek _ψ_ (_ps_ or _bs_); and (3) the sign [Picture: a Latin form of upsilon], which was to have the sound of the Greek _υ_, i.e. of modern French _u_ or German _ü_. It may be mentioned also, that consonants were not doubled in writing Latin until the practice was adopted from the Greek by Ennius (B.C. 239-169), who in various ways conformed Roman usages to those of the Greeks.

The Roman alphabet, like the early alphabet of the Greeks, lacked distinctive characters for the long and short vowels. This defect, which was partly corrected in Greek by the adoption of the letters _η_ and _ω_ (traditionally ascribed to Epicharmus of Syracuse, B.C. 500), was never fully remedied in Latin, though at different times various devices were employed to distinguish between ā and ă, ē and ĕ, ū and ŭ, ō and ŏ. These were:

(1) The doubling of the vowel when long, as in modern Dutch; thus, _vootum_ = _votum_; _aara_ = āra. This method was persistently used by the poet Attius. [1]

(2) By the use of a species of accent (_apex_) over the long vowel. This became quite general in the Augustan Age.

(3) The length of the vowel ī was denoted sometimes by making it longer than the other letters and sometimes by writing it _ei_; thus, DICO, PVEREI.

_The Roman numerals_ V, X, L, C, D, M originated in various ways. [2]

V represented originally the open palm with the thumb extended, just as our 0 (zero) is thought to represent a closed hand.

X perhaps = [Picture: old form of theta], an old form of _θ_; according to others, it is merely two V's placed together.

L = [Picture: alternate form of chi] = [Picture: another alternate form of chi] or _χ_, a Greek letter which the Romans did not need in their alphabet and hence used only as a numeral.

C = [Picture: alternate form of theta], another form of _θ_, and confounded with C as though standing for _centum_.

M = _φ_, becoming first CI[anti-sigma] and then M, as though standing for _mille_, D is one half of this figure, or I[anti-sigma]. [3]

[1] Quintilian, I. 7, 14. When _i_ is doubled it always denotes the consonantal _i_ (j); e.g. _maiior_.

[2] Cf. Ball's _History of Mathematics_, pp. 119, 120.

[3] See, on the whole subject, Taylor, _The Alphabet_ (London, 1883); Kirchhoff, _Geschichte des Griechischen Alphabets_ (4th ed, Gütersloh, 1887); Berger, _Histoire de L'Écriture dans l'Antiquité_ (Paris, 1891); Cantor, _Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Mathematik_ (Leipzig, 1880); Martin, _Les Signes Numéraux et l'Arithmétique chez les Peuples de L'Antiquité_ (Rome, 1864); and Friedlein, _Die Zahlzeichen_ (Erlangen, 1869).

IV.

SOUNDS OF THE LETTERS.

_1. A: ā had the sound of _a_ in English "far"; ă had the sound of _a_ in English "trespass."_

There is no disagreement of opinion regarding the proper pronunciation of Latin _a_. All the modern languages derived from the Latin practically agree in the sounds which they give to this character. Furthermore, its pronunciation is described for us by Terentianus Maurus (p. 328 in the edition by Keil); by Marius Victorinus (p. 32 in the edition of the same editor); and also by Martianus Capella (III. 261).

[NOTE.--It must be remembered in the pronunciation of the Latin vowels that the short vowel does not differ in _quality_ from the corresponding long one, but only in _quantity_, i.e. it occupied less time in pronouncing. This is an important distinction between Latin and English.]

_2. B: had in general the sound of English _b_; but before _s_ or _t_, the sound of _p_._

(_a_) The ordinary sound of Latin _b_ is described for us by Martianus Capella (III. 261); and by Marius Victorinus (p. 32 Keil).

(_b_) That it was sounded like _p_ when it stood before _s_ we know because very often in inscriptions it is so written, e.g. _pleps_ for _plebs_; Araps for Arabs; _urps_ for _urbs_. In certain verbs this usage has modified the common orthography, e.g. _scripsi_ for _scribsi_ from _scribo_; and _opseguor_ for _obsequor_. And so before _t_, as we learn both by the spelling of certain words (_optulit_, _scriptum_); and from the statement of Quintilian (I. 7. 7): "When I pronounce the word _obtinuit_, our rule of writing requires that the second letter should be _b_: but the ear catches the sound of _p_."

_3. C: always had the sound of English _k_._

The facts upon which this statement is founded are as follows:

(_a_) The pronunciation of this letter is so described for us by Martianus Capella (III. 261) as to prove it a hard palatal.

(_b_) _C_ took the place of an original _k_ in the early alphabet as previously stated; and in succeeding ages at times _c_ reappears in inscriptions indifferently before the various vowels. Thus we have the form _Caelius_ alternating with _Kaelius_, _Cerus_ with _Kerus_, and _decembres_ with _dekembres_,--showing that _c_ and _k_ were identical in sound. Quintilian (I. 7. 10) says: "As regards _k_, I think it should not be used in any words...This remark I have not failed to make, for the reason that there are some who think _k_ necessary when _a_ follows; though _there is the letter C, which has the same power before all vowels_."

(_c_) In the Greek transliteration of Latin names, Latin _c_ is always represented by _k_; and in Latin transliteration of Greek names, _k_ is always represented by Latin _c_. And we know that Greek _k_ was never assibilated before any vowel. Suidas calls the C on the Roman senators' shoes, "the Roman kappa."

(_d_) Words taken into Gothic and Old High German from the Latin at an early period invariably represent Latin _c_ by _k_; thus, Latin _carcer_ gives the Gothic _karkara_ and the German _Kerker_; Latin _Caesar_ gives the German _Kaiser_; Latin _lucerna_ gives the Gothic _lukarn_; the Latin _cellarium_ gives the German _Keller_; the Latin _cerasus_ gives the German _Kirsche_. Also in late Hebrew, Latin _c_ is regularly represented in transliteration by the hard consonant _kôph_.

[Advocates of the English system claim that Latin _c_ had the sound of _s_ before _e_ or _i_ because every modern language derived from the Latin has in some way modified _c_ when thus used. It is true that modern languages have so modified it; but, as already noted, the modern languages are the children not of the classical Latin spoken in the days of Cicero, but of the provincial Latin spoken five or six centuries later. There is no doubt that at this late period, Latin _c_ had become modified before _e_ or _i_ so as to be equivalent to _s_ or _z_. Latin words received into German at this time represent _c_ before _e_ or _i_ by _z_. But had this modification been a part of the usage of the classical language, it would have been noticed by the grammarians, who discuss each letter with great minuteness. Now no grammarian ever mentions more than one sound for Latin _c_. Again, if Latin _c_ had ever had the sound of _s_, surely some of the Greeks, ignorant of Latin and spelling by ear, would at least occasionally have represented Latin _c_ by _σ_,--a thing which none of them has ever done. It is probable that the modification of _c_ which is noticed in the modern languages was a characteristic of the Umbrian and Oscan dialects and so prevailed to some extent in the provinces, but there is absolutely not the slightest evidence to show that it formed a part of the pronunciation of cultivated men at Rome.]

_4. D: had regularly the sound of English _d_; but at the end of words nearly that of _t_._

(_a_) The position of the vocal organs in uttering this letter is described by Terentianus Maurus (p. 331 Keil); Marius Victorinus (p. 33); and Martianus Capella (III. 261).

(_b_) That final _d_ was sounded like _t_ is clear from the positive statements of Quintilian and from the fact that in inscriptions, as well as in the best manuscripts of Plautus and Vergil, we find almost indifferently _ad_ and _at_, _apud_ and _aput_, _haud_ and _haut_, _quid_ and _quit_, as well as _adque_ and _atque_ and many others.

[At about the fourth century A.D., _di_ before a vowel began to be pronounced somewhat like the French _j_, just as in Aeolic Greek we find _ζά_ for _διά_. Hence in the modern languages _g_ and _j_ arise out of Latin _di_. Compare Latin _diurnus_ with the Italian _giorno_ and the French _jour_.]

_5. E: _ē_ had the sound of English _e_ in "they" or of the French _ê_; _ĕ_ had the sound of English _e_ in "net"._

(_a_) The position of the vocal organs in pronouncing _e_ is described by Terentianus Maurus (p. 329 Keil); Marius Victorinus (p. 32); and Martianus Capella (III. 261). It is regularly represented in Greek transliterations by _ε_ when short, and by _η_ when long.

(_b_) The sound of the letter _e_ seems to have varied more than was the case with other vowels. The later grammarians give to _ē_ a sound approximating to the sound of _i_. (Cf. Donatus in Servius p. 421, Keil [1]). And confusion of _ĕ_ and _ĭ_ in words like _timidus_, _navibos_ (written _timedus_, _navebos_) is to be seen in early Latin. But too much importance has been given to this. The fact is that one short unaccented vowel is very likely to be mistaken, for another, especially by the uneducated and by careless speakers. The hearer cannot detect the difference, and in fact there is none, practically. The extremely accurate and discriminating elocution of which we hear was in all probability confined to the highly cultivated classes.

_6. F: had practically the sound of English _f_._

Latin _f_ is not like the Greek _φ_, which was a double sound rather than a single one, namely _p_ + _h_ with each element distinctly audible, as in English _top-heavy_, _uphill_. Quintilian says: "The Greeks are accustomed to aspirate; whence Cicero in his oration for Fundanius ridicules a witness who could not sound the first letter of that name." [2] The descriptions given by Priscian and Terentianus Maurus of the position of the lips and teeth in pronouncing _f_ show that it was formed precisely as our _f_, i.e. with the lower lip against the upper teeth.

_7. G: _g_ always had the hard sound of English _g_ in "get"._

(_a_) "When _g_ comes before an _s_ it produces _x_, thus showing that it is a guttural: e.g. _lex_ = _leg_ + _s_; and _rex_ = _reg_ + _s_.

(_b_) No Roman grammarian mentions more than one sound as belonging to _g_, although they treat of the letters minutely.

(_c_) All the vowels readily interchange after _g_ in the same root, which would hardly be the case if _g_ had had more than one sound. Thus we have _maligenus_ and _malignus_; _lego_, _legis_, _legit_; _gigeno_ and _gigno_; _tegimen_ and _tegmen_.

(_d_) Latin _g_ is invariably represented by Greek _γ_, and the Greek _γ_ is invariably represented by Latin _g_. St. Augustine remarks: "When I say _lege_, a Greek understands one thing and a Roman another in these two syllables." This shows that Latin _lege_ and Greek _λέγε_ had precisely the same sound.

[About the fifth century A.D., _g_ began to have the soft sound before _e_ and _i_ that is now found in the modern languages. The first change from the old hard sound was to a _y_ sound like that given to _g_ by those who speak the _Berliner Dialekt_ in Germany to-day, and said to be found also in Lowland Scotch. Such variations as _magestas_ for _maiestas_, and in Greek _βειέντι_ for _viginti_, occur.]

_8. H: had the sound of English _h_._

(_a_) H is described as a simple breathing by Marius Victorinus, p. 34 (Keil); Terentianus Maurus, p. 331; and Martianus Capella, III. 261. It is represented in Greek by the rough breathing, and in turn it represents that breathing.