Re: Reactions to the secret vice (was: Steg's wonderful sig.)

Grandsire, C.A. wrote:

>         Actually, my preferred version of the 'Salve Regina' is the Sister
> Act's one :) . I've always thought Church Latin was simply Medieval
> Latin read in an Italian way. Is that right or am I completely off?
Yep.  I guess that a lot of "national Latins" emerged in the Middle
Ages, as changes in the pronunciation of Latin took place in different
countries in the same way as sound changes in the vernacular.

That's why until fairly recently English-speaking Latinists
pronounced Latin with English "post-great-vowel-shift" vowels and so
on.  You hear this from time to time in frozen Latin phrases, like
"arbor vitae", pronounced to rhyme with "nightie," and so on.

We've discussed on the List before the Henninian pronunciation of
Greek, which was also used until relatively recently in England; it
basically pronounces Greek words as they would be pronounced if they
were transliterated into Latin, the Greek accent was ignored and the
Latin one used, and then it was pronounced using the English vowels,
as noted above. :)

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             edheil@postmark.net
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