Latin pronunciation

[boxlodge]

When I was at school in the 40's our headmaster was the music teacher and he insisted that the pronunciation of the letter 'c' in Latin words in Christmas carols was hard and not the Italian 'ch' sound, so should be 'In Dulki Jubilo' for example. I believe this was based on the idea that the modern Italian language is NOT related to Latin. Apparently this view was held by a small number of scholars and I wondered if anyone still holds this view?

[Wharton]

Did Julius Caesar say "Weeny Weedy Weaky"

[boxtops]

No, Waney weedy weeky - he was into fencing.

[MarkRae]

Probably not. He wrote in Classical Latin the same was as modern-day Arabic speakers write in Classical Arabic even though they may speak a quite different version of Arabic amongst themselves. Julius Caesar, being a Roman, probably spoke something not a million miles away from modern Romanian...

[Wharton]

I know he said "and you, ya brute"

[FredPuli43]

This 'ch' for c is 'Church' Latin. Rome was where the Churh as based and the pronunciation of Latin was influenced by Italian.

If the 'rule' is that C is 'ch' before ae, e, i, and oe, we should be pronouncing words derived from Latin as, for example, captive as 'chaptive' and Italians would be saying 'chapo' for 'capo';. and 'chapuccino'for'capuccino ! There is no such ruie in classical Latin and no word follows that scheme: Caesar, coelum (the sky or the heavens),Incitatus (the name of Emperor Caligula's horse;its name means 'gallops fast and' he made it consul ) cepit (he took, captured) are a few that come randomly to mind, and all have hard C.

V is U ? Well, yes, in that Latin text, notably in monumental inscriptions, often had U written as V. V itself is pronunced as W.

[slaney]

Latin was one of the more useful things I learnt at school - in spite of a fairly terrifying teacher.
This brings it all back...

[modeller]

The question of pronunciation of a dead language is nonsense . It has less relevance than us trying to speak medieval English.
Even modern English which is spoken all over the world has no one way of pronouncing it. Much of it sounds like a foreign language.
Learning any foreign language is of value but insisting your pronuciatian of a dead language is correct is purely pretentious. However speaking it out loud is a valuable learning tool, even if it is elocutionary incorrect.

[DaisyNonna]

Michael, I was taught that also. Never forgotten it.