Re: Quick Latin pronunciation question

Den 25. mai. 2008 kl. 08.31 skrev Tristan McLeay:

> But how did it interact with length? Was one element or the other
> invariable long? (and if so, was it consistently one or the other
> --- I
> notice that English treats the first vowel of "continuum" as long, but
> the second of "radii"). Were they necessarily distinct from a long
> vowel? (if not, that could explain "vacuum"). Was length completely
> independent of this issue?
In English I hear radii most often pronounced as /r\eidiai/, which is
pretty far from the Latin, which I think is /ra:dij/, at least if the
double i works the same way as in Gaulish. Must say I'm much more
familiar with Gaulish phonology than Latin in fact. But the writing
convention is borrowed from Latin, so I don't see why not.

BTW, I'm currently enjoying the nice old TV series "I, Claudius" with
Brian Blessed, Derek Jacobi and various other stars rewarping Latin
names like /sedZein@s/, /dZ@m{nik@s/ etc. Very entertaining in itself.

LEF