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Re: Quick Latin pronunciation question

From:Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>
Date:Sunday, May 25, 2008, 6:49
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