pronouncing names (ae endings)

[Roger Burks]

Every Latin textbook I've ever read, including as I posted earlier, the
American, British, French, and German books, as well as the Lingua Latina
books from Swedish authors, represented -ae as rhyming with eye. Classical
Latin as tought today *is standardized*, and does not vary from country to
country. I agree with you about the hard c.

Roger Burks

At 06/25/02Tuesday, you wrote:
>Robin, It seems to me that your teacher tought you to pronounce Latin the
>English way, which is just fine.  However, the -ae is never ever
>pronounced to rhyme with eye, and the c is never ever pronounced like an s
>(the soft c is pronounced like a -ch).  This is true for classical or
>modern Latin, whether spoken by the nobility or the commoners.   Probably
>the reason why teachers didn't insist in teaching a correct
>pronounciation is because, after all, Latin is a not a spoken language.  I
>think what is most important is to understand what are the majority rules
>and follow them, whether those are strictly correct or not.  After all we
>are using Latin as a mere mean of communication and the ultimate goal is
>understanding each other, who cares whether a name is correctly pronounced
>according to the original language.  It is correctly pronounced
>according to English phonetics.  I guess I am lacking patriotism here!
>
>Cheers,
>Nico
>
>Nico Cellinese
>Botany Department
>Field Museum of Natural History
>1400 South Lake Shore Drive
>Chicago, IL 60605, U.S.A.
>Ph. 1-312-665-7881
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