[1]Seelmann,Die Aussprache des Latein, p. 175 sqq.
[2]Quint. I. 4, 14.
[3]Carm. LXXXIV.
'Chommoda' dicebat, si quando 'commoda' velletDicere et 'insidias' Arrius 'hinsidias'.Et tum mirifice sperabat se esse locutum,Cum, quantum poterat, dixerat 'hinsidias'.* * * * * *Hoc misso in Syriam, requierant omnibus aures,Audibant eadem haec leniter et leviter.Nec sibi postilla metuebant talia verba;Cum subito adfertur nuntius horribilis:Ionios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius isset,Iam non 'Ionios' esse sed 'Hionios'!
Which Martin has very cleverly translated:
"Whenever Arrius wished to name'Commodious,' out 'chommodious' came:And when of his intrigues he blabbed,With his 'hintrigues' our ears he stabbed;And thought moreover, he displayedA rare refinement when he madeHis h's thus at random fallWith emphasis most guttural.When suddenly came news one dayWhich smote the city with dismay,That the Ionian seas a changeHad undergone, most sad and strange;For since by Arrius crossed, the wild'Hionian Hocean' they were styled!"
[4]Gellius (II. 3) gives a number of words formerly written withhbut in his time no longer aspirated. Between two vowels,hwas silent. Hencenilfornihil, etc.
[5]Quint, ix. 4, 40; Prise. 1, p. 29 (Keil).
[6]Velius Lougus, p. 80 (Keil).
[7]Don. in Serv. p. 445.
[8]Cf. for instance Quint. 1, 7, 26; Marius Victorinus, p. 13 (Keil); Velius Longus, pp. 50, 58, 67 (Keil); Consentius, p. 395 (Keil). The position of the vocal organs in pronouncingvis described by Terentianus Maurus, p. 319 (Keil); Marius Victorinus, p. 33 (Keil); and Martianus Capella, III. 261.
[9]Cf. Horace, Odes, I. 23, 4.
[10]De Div.II. 40. 84.
[11]Quoted by Gellius, X. 44.
[12]The statistics on this point will be found in the introduction to Roby's Latin Grammar, pp. XXXVII-XLI. Plutarch, who oftenest usesβforv, expressly states in his life of Demosthenes his own deficiency as a Latin scholar, and this fact impairs the value of his testimony in general except as corroborating better witnesses. Prof. F. D. Allen (Class. Review, Feb. 1891) regards the use ofβas characteristic only of the later Greeks.
V.
SOUNDS OF THE DIPTHONGS.—SUMMARY.
IT must be remembered that the Latin diphthongs Æ, AU, EI, EU, Œ), were originally truediphthongs(double sounds), in the full sense of the word. That is, in pronouncing a diphthong the sound of each of its elements was distinctly heard, though pronounced in the time of one syllable. (Terent. Maur. p. 2392 P; Prisc, p. 561 P.) Knowing, then, the true sounds of the individual letters which compose the diphthongs, it is a simple matter to determine the general pronunciation of the diphthongs themselves. At the same time, it is undoubtedly true that in the latter part of the classical period, a tendency to give only one elemental sound to the combination finally made its way from the pronunciation of the vulgar into that of the cultivated.
With this preliminary observation we may proceed to the discussion of the several diphthongs.
Æ had originally the double soundah-êpronounced quickly; later, the simple sound of Latin E, i.e. of Englishain "fate".
(a)Aerepresents an earlyaiwhich appears in the oldest Latin. Thus,praifecius,quaistor,aulai; and so Vergil to give an antique coloring to his language haspictai,vestis,aquai,aulai, etc. (Quint. I. 7.18). About the year B.C. 175, theaisound began to give way to theaesound, as can be shown from the testimony of inscriptions. Theaisound of the diphthong (that of the English affirmativeay) may have lingered in the pronunciation of purists, for at the time when the Emperor Claudius instituted his reforms, we find a temporary revival of the spellingai.
(b) As early as the beginning of the classical periodaeceased to be sounded as a diphthong by the rustics and by the provincials generally. This is expressly stated by Varro in his treatise on the Latin language (iv. 9, and vii. 96 and 97), in which he givesMesiusandhedusas rustic sounds forMaesiusandhaedus.
(c) This rustic neglect of the first element of the diphthong gradually prevailed until at lastaehad only the force of a longeand is very generally so written, e.g.seculumforsaeculum,femineforfeminae, and evenqueforquae. But this is as late as the third and fourth centuries A.D. The classical sound was undoubtedlyăé.
AU had the sound ofowin English "now".
(a)Auremained a true diphthong down through the classical period at least in the pronunciation of the educated. The Greeks represent it byαυ, as inΚλαύδιοςfor Claudius.
(b) In vulgar and provincial circles,auhad sometimes the sound ofu, the first element of the diphthong being neglected as was the case withae. Hence we find occasionally in inscriptions such forms asfrudaviforfraudavi,cludoforclaudo, etc. But the vulgar generally gave toauthe sound ofō, as in modern French. Thus, some branches of the Claudian family called themselvesClodii, and we find in provincial inscriptions even at an early periodPolaforPaulla,PlotusforPlautus, etc. Suetonius in his life of the Emperor Vespasian tells a story bearing on this, which has been often repeated and is important as showing that even in the Silver Age,auwas still pronounced as a diphthong. The anecdote runs as follows: "Having been admonished by one Mestrius Floras, a man of consular rank, that he ought to say 'plaustra' rather than 'plostra,' he greeted Floras the next day as 'Flaurus'"--the point of which is thatFlaurussuggests the Greekφλαῦρος, "good for nothing."
EI had the sound ofeiin English "feint".
Eiremained a true diphthong in keeping the sound of both its elements; but the combinationeiis often found merely as an equivalent forī. Gorssen remarks that in the root-syllables of the wordsdeiva,leiber,deicere,ceivis; in locative forms; and in the dative and ablative plural of -astems and -ostems,eiis a true diphthong, but is elsewhere a transition vowel betweenīandē. Cf.Aussprache, I. 719, 788; Ritschl,Opuscula, II. 626; Roby, §§ 267, 268.
EU had (nearly) the sound ofeuin English "feud".
Euremained a true diphthong with more stress upon the second element than upon the first. This is seen by the fact that (rarely) it has passed intoū[1]but never intoē. The combinationeuis not often found in Latin except in transliterating Greek words, and in the exclamationsheu,heus, andeheu, and in the contractionsneu(neve),seu(sive), andneuter(ne+uter). Inneutiquamthe antepenult is short.
OE had the sound ofoiin English "toil" (nearly), or ofōē.
Oe represents an originaloiand remained a diphthong in those words in which it continued to be written. When the first element predominates over the second,oepasses intou, as inpluraforploera,puniofrom the root ofpoena,curaforcoera. When the second element predominates,oepasses intoae(by a confusion) andē, as inobscaonusandobscenusforobscaenus. But in words whereoeis regularly written, it is to be pronounced as a true diphthong.
UI as a diphthongoccurs only in a few interjections, ashui,fui, and inhuicandcui. In bothhuicandcuiit represents an earlieroi(hoic,quoi). In other words (e.g.exercitui,gradui, etc.)uiis not a diphthong, but each vowel is pronounced separately.
The Romans were the first people to call the letters of the alphabet by theirsoundsrather than bynames, as was done in Greek and in the Semitic languages. Thus the Latin vowels were named by simply uttering their sounds; the mute consonants andhby uttering a vowel after them, and the so-called nasal and fricative consonants by uttering a vowel before them. This vowel waseexcept in the case ofk,h,q, andx. Hence, a Roman boy saying over his alphabet, would have given it thus:
ah, bé, ké, dé, ê, ef, ghé, ha, î(ee), ka, el, em, en, ô, pé, qu(coo), er, es, té, oo, ix, (ü, zeta). (Prise, p. 540 P.)
In pronouncing Latin words, too much care can not be taken in distinguishing between long vowels and those that are short. Cicero says:Omnium longitudinum et brevitatum in sonis sicut acutarum graviumque vocum indicium, natura in auribus nostris collocavit; and student and teacher alike will find that if from the outset a correct and careful pronunciation of Latin be required, those bugbears of the learner--the rules of prosody--will almost teach themselves, because they will have a consistency and meaning that can never be obvious to the unfortunate victim of the "English system." Professor Richardson, who deserves honor as being one of the first American scholars to advocate and adopt the true method of pronouncing Latin, has well summed up the whole matter in a single paragraph:
"To teach the student, from his first entrance upon the study of Latin, the English system of pronunciation; to get him thoroughly habituated to this false method, and then by lodging in his brain some verbal rules of quantity and prosody, at war often with each other and commonly with his pronunciation, to attempt to make him appreciate and observe the rhythm of Latin poetry, is like keeping a child in a rude society where all the laws of a pure and finished language are habitually violated, and then expecting him, by virtue of committing to memory the common rules of grammar and rhetoric, to talk at once with grammatical and rhetorical correctness and elegance."
And this little treatise may be closed by citing the most obvious of thereasons for adopting the Roman System.
(1) Because it is approximately the system used by the Romans themselves.
(2) Because it is more musical and harmonious in sound, and makes the structure of Latin verse clear even to the beginner.
(3) Because it is simpler than the English system, giving as it does but one sound to each alphabetical character, and thus always distinguishing words of different orthography and meaning by their sounds, while the English system often confuses them; e.g.censusandsensus;caedo,cedo, andsedo;circulusandsurculus;cervusandservus;amiciandamisi.
(4) Because it makes the connection of Latin words with their Greek cognates plain at once, and renders easier the study of Greek, of the modern Romance language, and of the science of Comparative Philology.[2]
[1]In theCarmen Saliarewe findLeucesie, a vocative of the laterLuceliusfrom the root oflux. Cf. Paull. ex Fest. p. 114 (Müller).
[2]See Richardson'sRoman Orthoëpy, pp. 83-106. This little book, which is unfortunately out of print, contains some exceedingly good points very cleverly put, though the view that it takes of certain phonetic questions is one that more recent scholarship does not accept.
VI.
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE SUBJECT.
ALLEN, F. Remnants of Early Latin. Boston, 1884.BLAIR, W. Latin Pronunciation. New York and Chicago, 1874.BLASS, F. Ueber die Aussprache des Griechischen. Berlin, 1882. Eng. trans, by Purton, Cambridge, 1890.BRAMBACH, W. Die Neugestaltung der Lateinischen Orthographie, etc. Leipzig, 1868.CORSSEN, W. Ueber Aussprache, Vokalismus, und Betonung der Lateinischen Sprache. Leipzig, 1868-70.EDON, G. Écriture et Prononciation du Latin. Paris, 1882.ELLIS, A. J. Practical Hints on the Quantitative Pronunciation of Latin. London, 1874.HALDEMAN, S. S. Elements of Latin Pronunciation for the Use of Students in Language, etc. Philadelphia, 1851.KEIL, H. Grammatici Latini. 7 vols. Leipzig, 1856-80.KENNEDY, B. H. The Public School Latin Grammar. London, 1874.KING, D. B. Latin Pronunciation. New York and Boston, 1880.KING, J., and COOKSON, C. Principles of Sound and Inflexion in Greek and Latin. London, 1888.MUNRO, H. A. J. Remarks on the Pronunciation of Latin. Cambridge, 1871.MUNRO, H. A. J., and PALMER, E. A Syllabus of Latin Pronunciation. Oxford and Cambridge, 1872.RICHARDSON, J. F. Roman Orthoëpy: a Plea for the Restoration of the True System of Latin Pronunciation. New York, 1859.RITSCHL, F. Zur Geschichte des Lateinischen Alphabets in theRheinisches Museum, 1869.ROBY, H, J. A Grammar of the Latin Language from Plautus to Suetonius. London, 1881.SCHUCHARDT, H. Der Vokalismus des Vulgärlateins. Leipzig, 1866-68.SEELMANN, E. Die Aussprache des Latein nach physiologisch-historischen Grundsätzen. Heilbronn, 1885.SIEVERS, E. Grundzüge der Phonetik. Leipzig, 1885.SWEET, H. A Handbook of Phonetics. Oxford, 1877.TAFEL, L., and TAFEL, R. Latin Pronunciation and the Latin Alphabet. New York and Philadelphia, 1860.TAYLOR, ISAAC. The Alphabet. London, 1883.WEIL, H., and BENLOEW, L. Théoric Gënérale de l'Accentuation Latine. Paris, 1855.WORDSWORTH, J. Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin. Oxford, 1874.
[See also articles by Prof. Max Müller and Mr. Munro in theAcademy, Feb. 15, 1871; Dec. 15, 1871; and Jan. 11, 1872; and by Prof. J. C. Jones in theClassical Review, Feb. 1893.]