LATIN PRONUNCIATION

VOWELS: The pronunciations are approximately as follows:

Long:
as in father : ds, cra
as in they : m, sds
as in machine: hc, sca
as in clover: s, mrs
as in rude: t, sm
Dionsius (the y should have a
macron instead of a diaresis)
Short:
a as in Dinah: dat, casa
e as in pet: et, sed
i as in pin: hic, sicca
o as in orb, off: os, mora
u as in put: tum, sum
y as in French tu, or German ber:
tyrannus
Note the pairs of words above that are
identical except for vowel length
(hic/hc, os/s).
Latin has the following six diphthongs,
combinations of two vowel sounds that were
collapsed together into a single syllable:
ae as in ai in aisle: crae, saepe
au as ou in house: aut, laud
ei as ei in reign: deinde
eu as Latin e + u, pronounced rapidly
as a single syllable: seu.
(The sound is not found in English and is rare
in Latin.)
oe as oi in oil: coepit, proelium

ui as in Latin u + i, spoken as a single syllable like Spanish muy, or like

English gooey, pronounced quickly as a single syllable. This diphthong
occurs only in: huius, cuius, huic, cui, hui.

Consonants
Latin consonants had essentially the same sounds as the English consonants with the
following exceptions:
bs and bt were pronounced ps and pt: (urbs, obtine); otherwise Latin b had the
same sound as our English letter b : bibbant.
Latin c (English c) was always hard as in can, never soft as in city: cum, cvis,
facilis.
g was always hard as in get, never soft as in gem: glria, ger. When it appeared
before n, the letter g represented a nasalized ng sound as in hangnail: magnus.
h was a breathing sound, as in English, only less harshly pronounced: hic, haec.
Latin i (English i) represented both a vowel and a consonant sound. i usually
functioned as a consonant with the sound of y as in yes when used before a
vowel at the beginning of a word: istus
Between two vowels within a word i is pronounced as the consonant like English
y: reiectus ( = rei yectus) maior ( = mai yor), cuius ( = cui yus.) Otherwise it
was usually a vowel.
Consonantal i regularly appears in English derivatives as a j, a letter added to the
alphabet in the Middle Ages; hence maior = major, Ilius = Julius.
m usually had the sound it has in English, pronounced with the lips closed:
monet. There is some evidence, however, that in at least certain instances final
m, that is, m at the end of a word, following a vowel, was pronounced with the
lips open, producing a nasalization of the preceding vowel: tum, etiam.
q, as in English, is always followed by consonantal u, the combination having
the sound kw: quid, quoque.
r was trilled; the Romans called it the littera canna, because its sound
suggested the snarling of a dog: Rma, crre.
s was always voiceless as in see, never voiced as in our word ease: sed,
posuisss, msistis.
t always had the sound of t as in tired, never of sh as in nation or ch as in
mention: taciturnits, ntinem, mentinem.
v had the sound of our w: vv, vnum.
x had the sound of ks as in axle, not of gz as in exert: mixtum, exerce.
ch represented Greek chi and had the sound of ckh in block head, not of ch in
church: chorus, Archilochus.
ph represented Greek phi and had the sound of ph in uphill, not of ph in our
pronunciation of philosophy: philosophia.
th represented Greek theta and had the sound of th in hot house, not of th in thin
or the: theatrum.
The Romans pronounced double consonants as two separate consonants; we in our haste
usually render them as a single consonant.
For instance, the rr in the Latin word currant was pronounced as two separate
r's, like the two r's in the cur ran; likewise the tt in admittent sounded like the
two t's in admit ten.

Syllables

In Latin as in English, a word has as many syllables as it has vowels or diphthongs.

Dividing a word into syllables is called syllabification.
Two contiguous vowels or a vowel and a diphthong are separated:
dea, de-a, dea; deae, de-ae, deae.
A single consonant between two vowels goes with the second vowel:
amcus, a-m-cus, amcus.
When two or more consonants stand between two vowels, generally only the last
consonant goes with the second vowel:
mitt, mit-t, mitt; servre, ser-v-re, servre; cnsmptus, cn-smp-tus,
cnsmptus.
However, a stop (p, b, t, d, c, g) plus a liquid (l,r) generally count as a single
consonant and go with the following vowel:
patrem, pa-trem, patrem; castra, cas-tra, castra.
Also counted as single consonants are qu and ch, ph, th, which should never be
separated in syllabification: architectus, ar-chi-tec-tus, architectus; loqucem

Syllable Quantity
A syllable is long by nature if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong; a syllable is long
by position if it contains a short vowel followed by two or more consonants or by x,
which is a double consonant: ks. Otherwise a syllable is short; again, the difference is
rather like that between a musical half note and a quarter note.
Syllables long by nature (here underlined): lau-d, R-ma, a-m-cus.
Syllables long by position (underlined): ser-vat, sa-pi-en-ti-a, ax-is ( = ak-sis).
Examples with all long syllables underlined, whether long by nature or long by
position:
lau-d-te, mo-ne-, sae-pe, cn-ser-v-tis, pu-el-l-rum.