Latin pronounciation

[pm232@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I have heard stories about an old botany professor at Cornell (long 
before my short lifetime) who was so scrupulous in his Latin 
pronunciation that his colleagues and students couldn't understand what 
he was saying much the time. When speaking of grapes, for example, he 
would say "wee-tis" (Vitis) and "wee-ta-kee-aye" (Vitaceae)instead of 
the common but incorrect "vy-tis" and "vy-tay-see-ee". 

-Philip Marshall

---------Included Message----------
>Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 11:39:41 EST
>From: <RSRICHMOND@xxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: <RSRICHMOND@xxxxxxx>
>To: <voynich@xxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: Czech pronounciation
>
>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
>
---------End of Included Message----------