Latin Pronunciation

1
Latin Pronunciation

• Before we get started, lets go over a couple of
  important rules.
• Latin is no longer a spoken language, so I dont
  make correct pronunciation a big issue. Dont
  feel shy or embarrassed, please. You are all in
  the same boat so no one except for me has an
  advantage over anyone else! I expect everyone to
  respect everyone else. NO pointing fingers or
  laughing at a person who tries or doing anything
  to make someone feel bad!
• No one really knows what authentic Latin sounded
  like any more! Latin evolved into the modern
  Romance languages which developed their own
  unique styles and there is no one left who knows
  what it actually sounded like. We think we know
  because of how documents were copied into other
  languages like Greek where we know for certain
  how things sounded.
• There are actually 2 different kinds of Latin
  taught in schools today Classic Latin and
  Ecclesiastic Latin. Classic Latin is the older
  form of Latin. It is what I teach. Ecclesiastic
  Latin is the modern version that is used in the
  Catholic Church. If you are catholic, the sounds
  I teach will be different from what you hear in
  church. Ill point those differences out along
  the way. Ecclesiastic Latin sounds more like
  modern day Italian.

2
The Roman Alphabet Part Iconsonant sounds

• Latin is probably the easiest language for native
  English speakers to pronounce.
• Except for one, it does not use sounds that we
  dont normally use in English, so you wont have
  to try to make your tongue and teeth do strange
  things to get the sounds correct. Also, we
  actually have more letters in English than there
  are in Latin!
• What about the one sound thats different?
• No big deal! No one speaks Latin any more except
  for fun, so whos going to worry about it?! If
  you can make the sound, terrific! If you cant,
  I promise that NO ONE will care!

3
Lets get started!

• B says b as in the word boy.
• C says k as in the word cake.
• D says d as in the word dog.
• F says f as in the word fog.
• G says g as in the word go.
• H is sometimes silent as in the word hour or says
  h as in the word home.

4

• I
• I did not make a mistake! I know that in
  English, the letter I is a vowel and we are
  learning consonants.
• But in Latin, sometimes the I actually makes the
  sound of a consonant.
• When that happens it is called the consonantal I.
  
• The sound of the consonantal I is y as in yes.
• As Latin evolved, the Catholic Church made
  changes to the language in an effort to make it
  easier to teach to the tribal peoples who were
  finding it difficult.
• So they took the I and added a hook ? to the
  bottom of it and it looked like this J! In
  earlier Latin documents there are no J letters at
  all. They dont come in until much later, after
  the language had been around for about 1000 years
  already.
• So how do you know if the I is a vowel or a
  consonant? Just look to the next letter. If
  that letter is a vowel, then the I is a
  consonant. If that letter is a consonant, then
  the I is a vowel.

5

• J exists only in later Latin. Our text book does
  not use it at all, but the AP texts and more
  modern original documents use the J. If you
  see it, it says y as in yes.
• L says l as in the word leg.
• M says m as in the word mom.
• N says n as in the word no.
• P says p as in the word pin.
• Q(u) says kw as in the word quick. The q will
  always have a u with it, just like in English.

6

• R says r as in the word red.
• This is the one sound that we believe was truly
  different in authentic Latin. The real sound (we
  believe) was rolled like the same sound in
  Spanish. If you can make that happen, terrific!
  If you cant, dont worry about it. I wont
  tell!
• S says s as in the word say.
• Dont get lazy on this one, please. English
  likes to do strange things with this letter like
  in the word rose. How did it start sounding like
  a z? I dont know, but lets not do that here!
• T says t as in the word toast.
• Notice how crisply we say both of the t sounds
  here. Dont make it lazy like in the word
  hospital.

7

• V says w as in the word water. Strange, isnt
  it!
• X says ks as in x-ray. Never the z sound
  like the first x in Xerox.
• Y says oo as in the word soon. Thats another
  strange one. This letter is not actually Latin,
  it is Greek. Its real name in Greek is Upsilon
  and it is more like our letter u. I have
  included it in this list because the Romans took
  many Greek words and used them as their own. It
  will matter more to you when you get to the AP
  level where pronunciation is more important.

8
Last things

• What about the K, W, and Z?
• These letters dont exist in Latin so you dont
  have to worry about them.
• Also, lets take another look at the letters c
  and g. In English these letters can have both
  a soft sound and a hard sound
• Soft circus and giraffe
• Hard can and give.
• In Latin you will never use the soft sound,
  always the hard one.