Re: Quick Latin pronunciation question

On Sun, 25 May 2008 16:31:03 +1000, Tristan McLeay
<conlang@...> wrote:
>
>On 25/05/08 16:13:27, Eugene Oh wrote:
>>
>> "Radius, radii" is an example. And "-ii-" words I presume should be
>> more or less plural-only in English.
>
>Oh of course...
>
>> If I'm not mistaken they're pronounced as sequences of the vowel. I
>> suppose one could detect a faint glide in between if one so chose.
>> Then again I'm not necessarily correct. But that's how I pronounce my
>> Latin. I'd like to be corrected too, if I'm wrong.
>
>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?
>
>--
>Tristan.
1. I assume you're asking about classical Latin pronounced the way the
ancients are thought to have done, at least when giving speeches or reciting
poetry.
2. By "long" WRT English, I assume you're referring to historical length, not the
phonetic length occurring in the various kinds of modern English.
3. I also assume length in Latin is used in a strictly quantitative sense.

First, length in English has little to do with length in Latin.

As a rule, a vowel is short before another vowel is short. Exceptions include
forms of FIO, pronominal genitive singulars (such as UNIUS), and a few other
things. Final I is long, except in a few words. Except in diphthongs, two
consecutive vowels were in separate syllables, so: /"ra.di.i:/ and /"wa.ku.um/.
I'm not sure how hiatus was handled -- differences in vowel quality may have
helped in some cases -- but I think that if the vowels were combined into a
single long vowel that the Romans would have written one letter.

Probably Ray will come along with a better answer.

Jeff

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