Latin

grapheme
Latin
phone English examples
?c?, ?k?
[k]
Always hard as k in sky, never soft as in Caesar, cello,
or social
?t?
[t]
As t in stay, never as t in nation
?s?
[s]
As s in say, never as s in rise or issue
?g?
[g]
Always hard as g in good, never soft as g in gem
[?]
Before ?n?, as ng in sing
?n?
[n]
As n in man
[?]
Before ?c?, ?x?, and ?g?, as ng in sing
?l?
[l]
When doubled ?ll? and before ?i?, as clear l in link (l exilis)[
33][34]
[?]
In all other positions, as dark l in bowl (l pinguis)
?qu?
[k?]
Similar to qu in quick, never as qu in antique
?u?
[w]
Sometimes at the beginning of a syllable, or after ?g? and ?s?,
as w in wine, never as v in vine
?i?
[j]
Sometimes at the beginning of a syllable, as y in yard, never as
j in just
[jj]
Doubled between vowels, as y y in toy yacht
?x?
[ks]
A letter representing ?c? + ?s?: as x in English axe, never as x
in example
Doubled consonants in Latin are pronounced long. In English, consonants are only
pronounced double between two words or morphemes, as in unnamed, which has a do
ubled /nn/ like the nn in Latin annus.
Vowels
Simple vowels
Front Central
Back
Close i? ?
? u?
Mid
e? ?
? o?
Open
a a?
In the Classical period, the letter ?U? was written as ?V?, even when used as a
vowel. ?Y? was adopted to represent upsilon in loanwords from Greek, but it was
pronounced like ?u? and ?i? by some speakers.
Classical Latin distinguished between long and short vowels. During the Classica
l period, long vowels, except for ?I?, were frequently marked using the apex, wh
ich was sometimes similar to an acute accent ? V ?. Long /i?/ was written using a t
aller version of ?I?, called i longa "long I": ???. In modern texts, long vowels
are often indicated by a macron ?a e i o u?, and short vowels are usually unmar
ked, except when necessary to distinguish between words, in which case they are
marked with a breve: ?a e i o u?.
Long vowels in the Classical period were pronounced with a different quality fro
m short vowels, as well as being longer. The difference is described in table be
low.