Chapter 1

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Transcriber's Note: Phonetic characters are represented by the following symbols: [^1] = raised "1", etc. [e] = inverted "e" or schwa [oe] = oe ligature character ['x] = any letter "x" with acute accent [=x] = any letter "x" with macron [)x] = any letter "x" with breve [=xy] = any pair of letters "xy" with joining macron, except [=OE], [=ae] = OE, ae ligature characters with macron ['oe], ['ae] = oe, ae ligature characters with acute accent and [)xy] = any pair of letters "xy" with joining breve, except [)AE], [)ae], [)OE], [)oe] = AE, ae, OE, oe ligature characters with breve

_S.P.E. TRACT NO. IV_

THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM THE LATIN

BY JOHN SARGEAUNT

WITH PREFACE AND NOTES BY H. BRADLEY

CORRESPONDENCE & MISCELLANEOUS NOTES BY H.B., R.B., W.H.F., AND EDITORIAL

_AT THE CLARENDON PRESS_ MDCCCCXX

ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM LATIN

[This paper may perhaps need a few words of introduction concerning the history of the pronunciation of Latin in England.

The Latin taught by Pope Gregory's missionaries to their English converts at the beginning of the seventh century was a living language. Its pronunciation, in the mouths of educated people when they spoke carefully, was still practically what it had been in the first century, with the following important exceptions. 1. The consonantal _u_ was sounded like the _v_ of modern English, 2. The _c_ before front vowels (_e_, _i_, _o_, _æ_, _oe_), and the combinations _t[)i]_, _c[)i]_ before vowels, were pronounced _ts_. 3. The _g_ before front vowels had a sound closely resembling that of the Latin consonantal _i_. 4. The _s_ between vowels was pronounced like our _s_. 5. The combinations _æ_, _oe_ were no longer pronounced as diphthongs, but like the simple _e_. 6. The ancient vowel-quantities were preserved only in the penultima of polysyllables (where they determined the stress); in all other positions the original system of quantities had given place to a new system based mainly on rhythm. Of this system in detail we have little certain knowledge; but one of its features was that the vowel which ended the first syllable of a disyllabic was always long: _p[=a]ter_, _p[=a]trem_, _D[=e]us_, _p[=i]us_, _[=i]ter_, _[=o]vis_, _h[=u]mus_.

Even so early as the beginning of the fifth century, St. Augustine tells us that the vowel-quantities, which it was necessary to learn in order to write verse correctly, were not observed in speech. The Latin-speaking schoolboy had to learn them in much the same fashion as did the English schoolboy of the nineteenth century.

It is interesting to observe that, while the English scholars of the tenth century pronounced their Latin in the manner which their ancestors had learned from the continental missionaries, the tradition of the ancient vowel-quantities still survived (to some extent at least) among their British neighbours, whose knowledge of Latin was an inheritance from the days of Roman rule. On this point the following passage from the preface to Ælfric's Latin Grammar (written for English schoolboys about A.D. 1000) is instructive:--

Miror ualde quare multi corripiunt sillabas in prosa quae in metro breues sunt, cum prosa absoluta sit a lege metri; sicut pronuntiant _pater_ brittonice et _malus_ et similia, quae in metro habentur breues. Mihi tamen uidetur melius inuocare Deum Patrem honorifice producta sillaba quam brittonice corripere, quia nec Deus arti grammaticae subiciendus est.

The British contagion of which Ælfric here complains had no permanent effect. For after the Norman Conquest English boys learned their Latin from teachers whose ordinary language was French. For a time, they were not usually taught to write or read English, but only French and Latin; so that the Englishmen who attempted to write their native language did so in a phonetic orthography on a French basis. The higher classes in England, all through the thirteenth century, had two native languages, English and French.

In the grammar schools, the Latin lessons were given in French; it was not till the middle of the fourteenth century that a bold educational reformer, John Cornwall, could venture to make English the vehicle of instruction. In reading Latin, the rhythmically-determined vowel-quantities of post-classical times were used; and the Roman letters were pronounced, first as they were in French, and afterwards as in English, but in the fourteenth century this made little difference.

In Chaucer's time, the other nations of Europe, no less than England, pronounced Latin after the fashion of their own vernaculars. When, subsequently, the phonetic values of the letters in the vernacular gradually changed, the Latin pronunciation altered likewise. Hence, in the end, the pronunciation of Latin has become different in different countries. A scholar born in Italy has great difficulty in following a Frenchman speaking Latin. He has greater difficulty in understanding an Englishman's Latin, because in English the changes in the sounds of the letters have been greater than in any other language. Every vowel-letter has several sounds, and the normal long sound of every vowel-letter has no resemblance whatever to its normal short sound. As in England the pronunciation of Latin developed insensibly along with that of the native tongue, it eventually became so peculiar that by comparison the 'continental pronunciation' may be regarded as uniform.

It is sometimes imagined that the modern English way of pronouncing Latin was a deliberate invention of the Protestant reformers. For this view there is no foundation in fact. It may be conceded that English ecclesiastics and scholars who had frequent occasion to converse in Latin with Italians would learn to pronounce it in the Italian way; and no doubt the Reformation must have operated to arrest the growing tendency to the Italianization of English Latin. But there is no evidence that before the Reformation the un-English pronunciation was taught in the schools. The grammar-school pronunciation of the early nineteenth century was the lineal descendant of the grammar-school pronunciation of the fourteenth century.

This traditional system of pronunciation is now rapidly becoming obsolete, and for very good reasons. But it is the basis of the pronunciation of the many classical derivatives in English; and therefore it is highly important that we should understand precisely what it was before it began to be sophisticated (as in our own early days) by sporadic and inconsistent attempts to restore the classical quantities. In the following paper Mr. Sargeaunt describes, with a minuteness not before attempted, the genuine English tradition of Latin pronunciation, and points out its significance as a factor in the development of modern English.

H.B.]

* * * * *

It seems not to be generally known that there is a real principle in the English pronunciation of words borrowed from Latin and Greek, whether directly or through French. In this matter the very knowledge of classical Latin, of its stresses and its quantities, still more perhaps an acquaintance with Greek, is apt to mislead. Some speakers seem to think that their scholarship will be doubted unless they say 'doctrínal' and 'scriptúral' and 'cinéma'. The object of this paper is to show by setting forth the principles consciously or unconsciously followed by our ancestors that such pronunciations are as erroneous as in the case of the ordinary man they are unnatural and pedantic. An exception for which there is a reason must of course be accepted, but an exception for which reason is unsound is on every ground to be deprecated. Among other motives for preserving the traditional pronunciation must be reckoned the claim of poetry. Mark Pattison notes how a passage of Pope which deals with the Barrier Treaty loses much of its effect because we no longer stress the second syllable of 'barrier'. Pope's word is gone beyond recovery, but others which are threatened by false theories may yet be preserved.

The _New English Dictionary_, whose business it is to record facts, shows that in not a few common words there is at present much confusion and uncertainty concerning the right pronunciation. This applies mostly to the position of the stress or, as some prefer to call it, the accent, but in many cases it is true also of the quantity of the vowels. It is desirable to show that there is a principle in this matter, rules which have been naturally and unconsciously obeyed, because they harmonize with the genius of the English tongue.

For nearly three centuries from the Reformation to the Victorian era there was in this country a uniform pronunciation of Latin. It had its own definite principles, involving in some cases a disregard of the classical quantities though not of the classical stress or accent. It survives in borrowed words such as _[=a]li[)a]s_ and _st[)a]mina_, in naturalized legal phrases, such as _N[=i]s[=i] Prius_ and _[=o]nus probandi_, and with some few changes in the Westminster Play. This pronunciation is now out of fashion, but, since its supersession does not justify a change in the pronunciation of words which have become part of our language, it will be well to begin with a formulation of its rules.

The rule of Latin stress was observed as it obtained in the time of Quintilian. In the earliest Latin the usage had been other, the stress coming as early in the word as was possible. Down to the days of Terence and probably somewhat later the old rule still held good of quadrisyllables with the scansion of _m[)u]l[)i][)e]r[)i]s_ or _m[)u]l[)i][)e]r[=e]s_, but in other words had given way to the later Quintilian rule, that all words with a long unit as penultimate had the stress on the vowel in that unit, while words of more than two syllables with a short penultimate had the stress on the antepenultimate. I say 'unit' because here, as in scansion, what counts is not the syllable, but the vowel plus all the consonants that come between it and the next vowel. Thus _inférnus_, where the penultimate vowel is short, no less than _suprémus_, where it is long, has the stress on the penultima. In _volucris_, where the penultimate unit was short, as it was in prose and could be in verse, the stress was on the _o_, but when _ucr_ made a long unit the stress comes on the _u_, though of course the vowel remains short. In polysyllables there was a secondary stress on the alternate vowels. Ignorance of this usage has made a present-day critic falsely accuse Shakespeare of a false quantity in the line

Coríolánus in Coríoli.

It may be safely said that from the Reformation to the nineteenth century no Englishman pronounced the last word otherwise than I have written it. The author of the Pronouncing Dictionary attached to the 'Dictionary of Gardening' unfortunately instructs us to say _gládiolus_ on the ground that the _i_ is short. The ground alleged, though true, is irrelevant, and, although Terence would have pronounced it _gládiolus_, Quintilian, like Cicero, would have said _gladíolus_. Mr. Myles quotes Pliny for the word, but Pliny would no more have thought of saying _gládiolus_ than we should now think of saying 'laboúr' except when we are reading Chaucer.

We need not here discuss the dubious exceptions to this rule, such as words with an enclitic attached, e.g. _prim[)a]que_ in which some authorities put the stress on the vowel which precedes the enclitic, or such clipt words as 'illuc', where the stress may at one time have fallen on the last vowel. In any case no English word is concerned.

In very long words the due alternation of stressed and unstressed vowels was not easy to maintain. There was no difficulty in such a combination as _hónoríficábilí_ or as _tudínitátibús_, but with the halves put together there would be a tendency to say _hónoríficabilitúdinitátibus_. Thus there ought not to be much difficulty in saying _Cónstantínopólitáni_, whether you keep the long antepenultima or shorten it after the English way; but he who forced the reluctant word to end an hexameter must have had 'Constantinóple' in his mind, and therefore said _Constántinópolitáni_ with two false stresses. The result was an illicit lengthening of the second _o_. His other false quantity, the shortening of the second _i_, was due to the English pronunciation, the influence of such words as 'metropol[)i]tan', and, as old schoolmasters used to put it, a neglect of the Gradus. Even when the stress falls on this antepenultimate _i_, it is short in English speech. Doubtless Milton shortened it in 'Areopagitica', just as English usage made him lengthen the initial vowel of the word.

Probably very few of the Englishmen who used the traditional pronunciation of Latin knew that they gave many different sounds to each of the symbols or letters. Words which have been transported bodily into English will provide examples under each head. It will be understood that in the traditional pronunciation of Latin these words were spoken exactly as they are spoken in the English of the present day. For the sake of simplicity it may be allowed us to ignore some distinctions rightly made by phoneticians. Thus the long initial vowel of _alias_ is not really the same as the long initial vowel of _area_, but the two will be treated as identical. It will thus be possible to write of only three kinds of vowels, long, short, and obscure.

The letter or symbol _a_ stood for two long sounds, heard in the first syllables of _alias_ and of _larva_, for the short sound heard in the first syllable of _stamina_, and for the obscure sound heard in the last syllable of each of these last two words in English.

The letter _e_ stood for the long sounds heard in _genus_ and in _verbum_, for the short sound heard in _item_, and for the obscure sound heard in _cancer_. When it ended a word it had, if short, the sound of a short _i_, as in _pro lege_, _rege_, _grege_, as also in unstressed syllables in such words as _precentor_ and _regalia_.

The letter _i_ stood for the two long sounds heard in _minor_ and in _circus_ and for the short sound heard in _premium_ and _incubus_.

The letter _o_ stood for the two long sounds heard in _odium_ and in _corpus_, for the short sound in _scrofula_, and for the obscure in _extempore_.

The two long sounds of _u_ are heard in _rumor_, if that spelling may be allowed, and in the middle syllable of _laburnum_, the two short sounds in the first _u_ of _incubus_ and in the first _u_ of _lustrum_, the obscure sound in the final syllables of these two words. Further the long sound was preceded except after _l_ and _r_ by a parasitic _y_ as in _albumen_ and _incubus_. This parasitic _y_ is perhaps not of very long standing. In some old families the tradition still compels such pronunciations as _moosic_.

The diphthongs _æ_ and _oe_ were merely _e_, while _au_ and _eu_ were sounded as in our _August_ and _Euxine_. The two latter diphthongs stood alone in never being shortened even when they were unstressed and followed by two consonants. Thus men said _[=Eu]stolia_ and _[=Au]gustus_, while they said _[)Æ]schylus_ and _[)OE]dipus._ Dryden and many others usually wrote the _Æ_ as _E_. Thus Garrick in a letter commends an adaptation of 'Eschylus', and although Boswell reports him as asking Harris 'Pray, Sir, have you read Potter's _Æschylus_?' both the speaker and the reporter called the name _Eschylus_.

The letter _y_ was treated as _i_.

The consonants were pronounced as in English words derived from Latin. Thus _c_ before _e_, _i_, _y_, _æ_, and _oe_ was _s_, as in _census_, _circus_, _Cyrus_, _Cæsar_, and _coelestial_, a spelling not classical and now out of use. Elsewhere _c_ was _k_. Before the same vowels _g_ was _j_ (d[ezh]), as in _genus_, _gibbus_, _gyrus_. The sibilant was voiced or voiceless as in English words, the one in _rosaceus_, the other in _saliva_.

It will be seen that the Latin sounds were throughout frankly Anglicized. According to Burney a like principle was followed by Burke when he read French poetry aloud. He read it as though it were English. Thus on his lips the French word _comment_ was pronounced as the English word _comment_.

The rule that overrode all others, though it has the exceptions given below, was that vowels and any other diphthongs than _au_ and _eu_, if they were followed by two consonants, were pronounced short. Thus _a_ in _magnus_, though long in classical Latin, was pronounced as in our 'magnitude', and _e_ in _census_, in Greek transcription represented by [Greek: eta], was pronounced short, as it is when borrowed into English. So were the penultimate vowels in _villa_, _nullus_, _cæspes_.

This rule of shortening the vowel before two consonants held good even when in fact only one was pronounced, as in _nullus_ and other words where a double consonant was written and in Italian pronounced.

Moreover, the parasitic _y_ was treated as a consonant, hence our 'v[)a]cuum'.

In the penultima _qu_ was treated as a single consonant, so that the vowel was pronounced long in _[=a]quam_, _[=e]quam_, _in[=i]quam_, _l[=o]quor_. So it was after _o_, hence our 'coll[=o]quial'; but in earlier syllables than the penultima _qu_ was treated as a double consonant, hence our 'sub[)a]queous', 'equity', 'iniquity'.

EXCEPTIONS.

1. When the former of the two consonants was _r_ and the latter another consonant than _r_, as in the series represented by _larva_, _verbum_, _circus_, _corpus_, _laburnum_, the vowels are a separate class of long vowels, though not really recognized as such. Of course our ancestors and the Gradus marked them long because in verse the vowel with the two consonants makes a long unit.

2. A fully stressed vowel before a mute and _r_, or before _d_ or _pl_, was pronounced long in the penultima. Latin examples are _labrum_, _Hebrum_, _librum_, _probrum_, _rubrum_, _acrem_, _cedrum_, _vafrum_, _agrum_, _pigrum_, _aprum_, _veprem_, _patrem_, _citrum_, _utrum_, _triplus_, _duplex_, _Cyclops_. Moreover, in other syllables than the penultima the vowel in the same combinations was pronounced long if the two following vowels had no consonant between them, as _patria_, _Hadria_, _acrius_. (Our 'triple' comes from _triplum_ and is a duplicate of '_treble_'. Perhaps the short vowel is due to its passage through French. Our 'citron' comes from _citronem_, in which _i_ was short.)

3. The preposition and adverb _post_ was pronounced with a long vowel both by itself and in composition with verbs, but its adjectives did not follow suit. Hence we say in English 'p[=o]stpone', but 'p[)o]sterior' and 'p[)o]sthumous'.

Monosyllables ending in a vowel were pronounced long, those ending in a consonant short. Enclitics like _que_ were no real exception as they formed part of the preceding word. There were, however, some real exceptions.

1. Pronouns ending in _-os_, as _hos_, _quos_. These followed _eos_ and _illos_.

2. Words ending in _-es_, as _pes_, _res_.

3. Words ending in _r_, as _par_, _fer_, _vir_, _cor_, _fur_. These had that form of long vowel which we use in 'part', 'fertile', 'virtue', 'cordate', 'furtive'.

In, disyllables the former vowel or diphthong, if followed by a single consonant, or by a mute and _r_, or by _cl_ or _pl_, was pronounced long, a usage which according to Mr. Henry Bradley dates in spoken Latin from the fourth century. Examples are _apex_, _tenet_, _item_, _focus_, _pupa_, _Psyche_, _Cæsar_, _foetus_. I believe that at first the only exceptions were _tibi_, _sibi_, _ibi_, _quibus_, _tribus_. In later days the imperfect and future of _sum_ became exceptions. Here perhaps the short vowel arose from the hideous and wholly erroneous habit, happily never universal though still in some vogue, of reciting _erám_, _erás_, _erát_. There are actually schoolbooks which treat the verse _ictus_, the beat of the chanter's foot, as a word stress and prescribe _terra tribús scopulís_. I can say of these books only _Pereant ipsi, mutescant scriptores_, and do not mind using a post-classical word in order to say it.

In disyllables the former vowel or diphthong, if followed immediately by another vowel or diphthong, had the quality, and if emphatic also the quality, of a long vowel. The distinction was not recognized, and seems not to be generally acknowledged even now. We seem not to have borrowed many words which will illustrate this. We have however _fiat_, and _pius_ was pronounced exactly as we pronounce 'pious', while for a diphthong we may quote Shelley,

Mid the mountains Euganean I stood listening to the paean.

English derivatives will show the long quality of the vowels in _aer_, _deus_, _coit_, _duo_. To these add _Graius_.

The rule of _apex_ applies also to words of more than two syllables with long penultima, as _gravamen_, _arena_, _saliva_, _abdomen_, _acumen_. The rule of _aer_ also holds good though it hardly has other instances than Greek names, as _Macháon_, _Ænéas_, _Thalía_, _Achelóus_, _Ach['æ]i_.

In words of more than two syllables with short penultima the vowel in the stressed antepenultima was pronounced short when there was a consonant between the two last vowels, and _i_ and _y_ were short even when no consonant stood in that place. Examples are _stamina_, _Sexagesima_, _minimum_, _modicum_, _tibia_, _Polybius_. But _u_, _au_, _eu_ were, as usual, exceptions, as _tumulus_, _Aufidus_, _Eutychus_. I believe that originally men said _C[)æ]sarem_, as they certainly said _c[)æ]spitem_ and _C[)æ]tulum_, as also _C[)æ]sarea_, but here in familiar words the cases came to follow the nominative.

Exceptions to the rule were verb forms which had _[=a]v_, _[=e]v_, _[=i]v_, or _[=o]v_ in the antepenultima, as _am[=a]veram_, _defieverat_, _audivero_, _moveras_, and like forms from aorists with the penultima long, as _suaseram_, _egero_, _miserat_, _roseras_, and their compounds.

This rule was among the first to break down, and about the middle of the nineteenth century the Westminster Play began to observe the true quantities in the antepenultimate syllables. Thus in spite of 'cons[)i]deration' boys said _s[=i]dera_, and in spite of 'n[)o]minal' they said _nômina_, while they still said _s[)o]litus_ and _r[)a]pidus_.

On the other hand the following rule, of which borrowed words provide many examples, still obtains in the Play. In words of more than two syllables any vowel in the antepenultima other than _i_ or _y_ was pronounced long if no consonant divided the two following vowels. Possibly the reason was that there was a synæresis of the two vowels, but I doubt this, for a parasitic _y_ was treated as a consonant. Examples are _alias_, _genius_, _odium_, _junior_, _anæmia_, and on the other hand _f[)i]lius_, _L[)y]dia_. Compound verbs with a short prefix were exceptions, as _[)o]beo_, _r[)e]creo_, whence our 'recreant'. A long prefix remained long as in _d[=e]sino_. The only other exception that I can remember was _Ph[)o]loe_.

In polysyllables the general rule was that all vowels and diphthongs before the penultima other than _u_, when it bore a primary or secondary stress, and _au_ and _eu_ were pronounced short except where the 'alias' rule or the 'larva' rule applied. Thus we said _h[)e]r[)e]ditaritis_, _[)æ]qu[)a]bilitas_, _imb[)e]cillus_, _susp[)i]cionem_, but _fid[=u]ciarius_, _m[=e]diocritas_, _p[=a]rticipare_. I do not know why the popular voice now gives _[)A]riadne_, for our forefathers said _[=A]riadne_ as they said _[=a]rea_.

In very long words the alternation of stress and no-stress was insisted on. I remember a schoolmaster who took his degree at Oxford in the year 1827 reproving a boy for saying _Álphesib['oe]us_ instead of _Alphesib['oe]us_, and I suspect that Wordsworth meant no inverted stress in