Re: Czech pronounciation

[RSRICHMOND@xxxxxxx]

Pronouncing Latin depends very much on linguistic context.

As an actual language, Latin is pronounced with a phonetic reconstruction to 
which the name "Roman system" is often applied. Correctly done, this 
pronunciation scrupulously observes phonemic vowel length and consonant 
doubling. More than forty years later, I have the vivid memory of my 
classmate who gave the Latin oration at the 1959 Harvard commencement, all 
full of Latin tags ("Semper fideles!") so that it would be understandable to 
the crowd, but with the most meticulous pronunciation. - "Caelum" - heaven - 
is pronounced kye-luhm - rimes with pile 'em - in the "Roman system".

European languages however have their own received pronunciations of Latin. I 
don't know how many of these there are. The Italian received pronunciation 
was used by the Roman Catholic church, and is still commonly used in singing. 
In the Italian received pronunciation, "caelum" is chey-lum.

German has a received pronunciation, in which "caelum" is tsey-lum. It was 
still in extensive use when I was a college German major 40 years ago, though 
I don't know what's become of it since then. - French also has a received 
pronunciation, which was in my Latin textbook (by Robert Henle SJ) when I was 
in high school, though I'm not sure I've ever heard it used.

English probably has the most bizarre received pronunciation of all - here 
"caelum" is see-lum (rimes with peel 'em). Educated English speakers are very 
much in denial about its existence, while it remains in widespread use - 
clearly the "L" end of a diglossia. Scientific names of plants and animals, 
legal terms, and Latin tags in common use are pronounced in this fashion. The 
rules for it are rarely written down, and when I've asked classicists for the 
received pronunciation of difficult words they've often affected not to know. 
Difficulty arises with syllabic stress (I'm still not sure how to stress the 
"sativa" of "Cannabis sativa" for example), in the case of words where one 
must know the length of a vowel in order to place the syllabic stress. Greek 
words loaned into Neo-Latin - common in scientific names - are particularly 
challenging. - But even Virgil was read in the received pronunciation - armuh 
vye-rum-kway kay-no, tro-yay kwee pry-miss obb orriss - until some time in 
the 19th century. 

Within my lifetime the English received pronunciation has largely fallen 
apart (at least in the USA), and the pronunciation of scientific names 
(Linnean binomials) has become quite chaotic. Technical dictionaries often no 
longer indicate pronunciation. Nonetheless a great deal of snobbery attaches 
to getting it right. It all fits Charles Ferguson's idea of diglossia quite 
neatly.

The complete genomic sequencing of the small worm Caenorhabditis elegans was 
announced a year or so ago by my medical alma mater, Washington University 
(in St. Louis, Missouri) without most people in the USA knowing how to 
pronounce it. In the UK it's see-no-rab-DYE-tis, but here it's C. elegans, 
pronounced seeELLaganz.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee USA