Re: OT: What color is blond(e)? (was Re: anti-Sanskritism and more)

Roger Mills scripsit:

> The pronunciation of the plurals has always amused and perplexed me.  In
> Latin class, we learned--
> alumni [a'lumni] and alumnae [a'lumnaj]
>
> BUT-- those who use them say alumni [alumnaj] and alumnae [alumni]*.  Go
> figure!
Sure.  When the Great Vowel Shift hit Britain, it affected not only English
but also the spoken Latin of the monasteries and lawcourts.  That's how
we got [pr\owh&k'vaisi] for "pro hac vice" and [Vltr\@'vajriz] for "ultra vires".
(Oddly, the word "se" seems to be immune, having remained -- or having
been restored to? -- [sei].

See A. P. Herbert's "The Dead Pronunciation".

--
Henry S. Thompson said, / "Syntactic, structural,               John Cowan
Value constraints we / Express on the fly."     jcowan@reutershealth.com
Simon St. Laurent: "Your / Incomprehensible     http://www.reutershealth.com
Abracadabralike / schemas must die!"            http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

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