Re: Quick Latin pronunciation question

Latin orthography had no "u" and no "j", both u and v were written "v" and
both "i" and "j" as "i".

So, might there be a possibility that TVVM, later written as "tuum", was
actually pronounced as something like [twum], and PATRICII as [patrikji], from
sing PATRICIVS [patrikjus]? C was still [k] before i and e (and ae, oe, y), as it
is still in Sard and in loanwords in Germanic such as Kaiser (German) or keizer
(Dutch) from Caesar.

Or that the "u" of endings such as -us, -um was already [U], and the "i"
of "is", "i" already [I]? That were the sounds developping into Romance [o] and
[e] later.
So: tuum [tuUm] or even [tuU~] with nasal [U] (French ton)  and patricii
[patrikjI].

Just some thoughts.

Ingmar



On Sun, 25 May 2008 16:00:49 +1000, Tristan McLeay
<conlang@...> wrote:

>In Latin, how were ii and uu pronounced? I think they usually occur
>between a root and an affix, for instance "tuum" or "Patricii". "uu" in
>English borrowings is of course pronounced as either /ju:@/ (continuum)
>or /ju:/ (vacuum) with presumably no historical reason. I can't think
>of any English words with "ii" in them from Latin though.
>
>--
>Tristan.

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