[Music]
hi I'm Dwayne Thomas from visual Latin a
homeschool video curriculum and today
I'm answering a question that I get for
all the time for my students what is
with the Latin pronunciation what is
with the pronunciation of this language
there's basically two ways to pronounce
it
there's classical Latin and there is
ecclesiastical latin which some people
call church latin there's another one
called english pronunciation to which
I'll talk about in just a minute but
first let's talk about the two big ones
classical pronunciation and
ecclesiastical pronunciation I'll put
the alphabet on the board and I want you
to notice there are two different colors
going on there are orange letters and
there are white letters the orange
letters basically are pronounced the
same and behave well look B says but as
in bumble bee and D says as in dinosaur
incidentally which dinosaur can jump
higher and house all of them houses
don't jump so let's look at the letters
that cause problems because everybody
gets tripped up over these two different
pronunciations ecclesiastical or
classical and you know what really it's
just a few letters it's C g j V and W
and I honestly shouldn't have even put W
on the board because the Romans didn't
have W so we'll just give her two W so
now we're down to four letters that
cause problems when you're pronouncing
Latin C in classical Latin C is always
hard so if I wanted to talk about Julius
Caesar for example I'd say Ullaeus Kizer
or Ullaeus Kaiser Kaiser ulis Kaiser
ulis Kaiser in classical Latin G is
always hard so I have the the word here
for Queen in Latin in classical Latin
that would be Regina Regina in classical
Latin the
J is always pronounced as a a Y sound
yeah as in yeah as in yak or yeah as in
Ullaeus and by the way in ecclesiastical
latin it's the same you would say you'll
a she wouldn't say Julius Caesar he'd
say Ullaeus Caesar you actually wouldn't
say Caesar but we'll get to that in a
minute and then V is pronounced as a W
so when Caesar defeated an enemy he sent
back a note to Rome a short note to Rome
saying that he had won and the note of
course you know was vini or weenie wedi
vici that's classical pronunciation
weenie we'd the vici I came I saw I
conquered
weenie we D quickie that's basically it
y&z don't show up too much in Roman
words but they show up in Greek words a
lot so that so I added them in our
alphabet here but classical Latin is
basically regular pronunciation of all
these letters except for these four guys
right here CG and our CJ and V
ecclesiastical latin in ecclesiastical
latin c is hard
unless c as hard as in cat in cat or in
seat in Kizer i can't do that c is hard
unless it's in front of these letters E
and I I II these two letters combine a E
and Y and I actually put on the board a
the first verse in the Vulgate first
verse in the Bible to demonstrate this
let's look at C in these letters if I
was practicing or if I was pronouncing
this in classical Latin I would say in
principio kravid deus calum at tehram or
caelum actually I keep messing up on
this combination right here Chi loom at
Tehran in ecclesiastical latin or in
church latin notice that the language
doesn't the stay the same and that's an
important point it's the same language
different pronunciations but it's the
same language keep that in mind the
language doesn't the language doesn't
but the pronunciation does in instead of
principio now I'm going to say because C
is in front of an eye brain chip EO in
principio C in front of an R well that's
not one of our letters that changes the
pronunciation of C so we'll still say
cray of it just like in classical in
principio kravid deus che loom we have a
C in front of this combination here
Calum at tehram same rules for G if G is
in front of e AE i IE or Y then it it
makes the sound in giant the English
word giant if it's not in front of those
letters it makes the sound in goat so
for this word right here which is queen
in Latin in classical Latin we'd say
Regina in ecclesiastical latin would say
regime that the differences are minor
keep that in mind
we already talked about J it always says
the sound yeah in Hyuk or yeah in yellow
just quickly I want to talk about H H is
a normal sound in Latin but in classical
Latin in the words in the word Miki
it'll sometimes be pronounced Miki with
a with a K sound so you'll hear that
sometimes if you're listening to the
Bible in Latin and you hear that word
Miki it's me he or that's how you would
pronounce in classical at Miki alright
so V is the last one V makes either the
W sound in classical Latin we nee we do
we key or the V sound in ecclesiastical
latin vini vidi and then we have a seat
in front of it I hear so vini vidi vici
so there you go the differences are
minor I mentioned there's another
pronunciation called the English
pronunciation and you're used to that if
you've ever heard of the Roman orator
Cicero that's the English pronunciation
where C makes this sound sometimes not
always but it makes this sound sometimes
so in classical Latin you would say kick
a row in ecclesiastical latin
say chicha row and in they eat using the
English pronunciation you would say
Cicero huh too many sounds Julius Caesar
would be Julius Caesar or Julius Caesar
perhaps and in classical Latin Julius
Kaiser and an ecclesiastical latin
Julius cheeser so there you go same
language small variations and everybody
stresses out about these different
languages are these different parameters
pronunciations and they're not that bad
the differences are minor it's just a
handful of letters that make the
difference alright if you want to learn
more about Latin check out visual Latin