LATIN

I
PRONOUNCIATION

There are TWO WAYS of pronouncing Latin:

• Classical
• Ecclesiastical
They are very close to each other. CLASSICAL is the way Latin was probably spoken before the
year 300. ECCLESIASTICAL is the Latin of the Church and is the way Latin was spoken after
the year 300.

SILENT LETTERS
Latin has NO SILENT LETTERS. Pronounce every letter.

CONSONANTS, VOWELS, AND DIPHTHONGS

For every Latin word, number of syllables = number of diphthongs = number of vowels
Consonants, vowels, and diphthongs are pronounced SEPARATELY.

STRESS
1 SYLLABLE – Stress the whole word
2 SYLLABLES – Stress falls on the first syllable Amo = AH-moe
3+ SYLLABLES – If penultimate syllable has LONG VOWEL, stress penultimate syllable
If penultimate syllable has SHORT VOWEL, stress antepenultimate syllable

LONG VOWEL SHORT VOWEL

e.g. Peccata Nomine

pec-CAH-tah NOM-in-eh

VOWELS
Vowels are separated into LONG and SHORT. There is no rule deciding which ones are long
and which ones are short (i.e. memorize them).
LONG

A — as in Father nice and open

E — as in Hey strongly held, like Italian or French

I — as in Sheep maintained, always “ee” no matter where in the word

O — no English equivalent consider Spanish Hermano, with the o maintained

U — as in oof longer, stronger, and a little bit more open

Long vowels can be represented with a diacritical mark: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū

SHORT

A — as in Father shorter than the Long version, never Apple

E — as in Met a little longer, like Italian

I — as in Ipswich always very short no matter where in the word

O — no English equivalent consider Spanish como, “eat”

U — as in Bush always pronounce like this

Short vowels can be represented with a diacritical mark: ă, ě, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ

SEMI VOWELS
The semi vowels are I, Y, and U.
The vowel U is derived from the letter V and is usually used with Q. [qw]
The vowel I was ALSO USED AS A CONSONANT as the letter J, so iuvenis instead of juvenis.
It is pronounced like a “y” when it is used as a consonant.
The vowel Y was derived from Greek and was pronounced similar to Norwegian ø.
In Ecclesiastical Latin, the vowel Y has the same rules as the Latin vowel I.
U is a vowel when following a consonant. U is a “w” or a “v” if a vowel comes before it.
U and V are the same letter in Classical Latin.