Re: Latin vowel inventory

On Wed, 30 Jul 2003, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> However, for centuries it was customary to pronounce Latin as if it
> were the local dominant language, so in England Latin was pronounced
> as if it were English, in Italy as if it were Italian, etc.  The
> English pronunciation survives in many borrowings, and is used for
> almost all Latin in the legal and medical professions.  The Italian
> pronunciation was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and is today
> often called the Ecclesiastical Pronunciation.  In it, the short/long
> vowel distinction is not made at all.
So in the English one, was long a pronounced as ay, long e as ee, long i
as igh? Was long o oo (boot) or oa (open)? And was long u ue (hue) or or
ow (how)?

> Other than some devoicing clusters (e.g. <urbs> sounds like <urps>), I
> think that's about it for differences from English consonants.
Double consonants were geminate, weren't they?

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
                -- Snoopy

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