Latin pronunciation varies from country to country and conductor to conductor. See what I mean..............
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 15:07:30 +0100
To: choraltalk@lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Latin pronunciation (was Re: The attack on my "mihi" comments)
In article <3B1BA861.4050500@magma.ca>, hartneym@magma.ca (Michael
Hartney) wrote:
>1. How many different "systems" of Latin pronunciation are there?
>
>(a) Classicists have a way of pronouncing Latin which they believe
>reflects the way the Romans spoke Latin 2000 years ago...
>
>(b) The Roman Catholic Church has a different system of pronunciation...
>Call this "Church Latin".
>
>(c) Then there are various "national" systems of Latin pronunciation,
>whereby people of various countries tended to pronounce Latin as if it
>were like their own language (English, French, German, etc.).
I think strictly there's slightly more to it. The most common practice,
in my experience, is 'none of the above'. There are several ways in
which the Latin sound system can be adapted to fit the sound system of
another language, that is, several ways of giving rise to a "national"
system of pronunciation:
(i) You can take the sounds of classical Latin and pronounce them with
the nearest match from the English sound system. That tends to be what
happens in classics courses in scholl or at university. So for example
you pronounce all orthographic <c> as velar [k], as in classical Latin,
but at the same time have an approximant r instead of a trilled or
tapped sound that is more likely to have been the authentic classical
pronunciation. In many varieties of British English moreover there's no
[r] in the pronunciation of a word like <form>, and this is reflected
in pronunciation of Latin words like <forma> [fo:ma].
(ii) You can take the sounds of classical Latin and feed them through
the same sound changes that have affected the native sounds of English
over the centuries, which makes the Latin sound much more like English.
This is what you find when Latin is used in official circles, in
Britain at least, for example in the legal system, where a phrase like
'prima facie' comes out roughly like the English "prime a fay she". No
kidding. As a student at Cambridge twenty years ago I would hear grace
before meals in my college spoken at 'high table' - gloria pay try et
fie leo... I don't think I've ever heard it sung that way, mind you.
(iii) You can pronounce Latin as if it used the orthographic principles
of modern Italian, and then filter the result through the English sound
system. This is like (i), i.e. still using a native English r-sound and
(in British English) still not pronouncing the [r] after vowels, but
this time with e.g. affricate [tsh] for <c> before front vowels,
palatoalveolar [sh] for <sc> sequences in the same context, and so on.
As if speaking Italian with a VERY bad English accent.
(iii) is what we tend to do in Britain, I think. I expect it's the same
in North America. How do you pronounce <in>? Like the English word with
the same spelling or to rhyme with <seen>? And the second syllable of
<supernum> - to rhyme with <burn> or <bairn>?
Martin.
____________________________________
Martin Barry
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL UK
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 22:33:18 +0800
From: "Casa Frassati"
To: choraltalk@lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Mihi
I am a Catholic priest and a musician (M.A.), presently directing the
Cathedral Choir in Perth, Australia. I studied Latin, both classical and
ecclesiastical pronunciations, for eight years (1963-71); was Latinist for
the 15 dioceses of the ecclesiastical Province of Texas (1983-1997); tried
annulment appeals in Latin before the Roman Rota (Supreme Court) in Rome
during those same years; and taught Latin in high school (1971-1984). As a
former cathedral chorister myself (Chicago, 1959-1963), I was reared on the
Liber Usualis.
Most of those commenting on this subject have been non-Catholics. The
book oft referred to regarding "Roman" usage does not take into account the
fact that there are, indeed, several standards of pronunciation within the
Catholic Church. The Germans, for example, tend to pronounce ecclesiastical
Latin as though it were classical Latin. Their "v's" become "w's" so that
they sing "Weni, Weni, Emmanuel". The French (compilers of the Liber
Usualis, by the way), have their own idiosyncracies, pronouncing many "c's"
as "s", copied by some English cathedrals. Both the French and the Germans
pronounce "mihi" with the K sound.
However, the Italians do not, and since Rome is in Italy, the true Roman
pronunciation is the Italian pronunciation. This is what I was taught in
cathedral choir and in the seminary. We never pronounced "h's" at the
beginning of words (thus, "Osanna", not "Hosanna"; and "Onoris Causa", not
"Honoris Causa"); and we pronounced them as aspirates within words. We were
always reminded that "only the Jesuits" pronounced "mihi" as "mee-kee"; and
since Jesuits are only borderline Catholics (an in-house joke in the
seminary), we eschewed that pronunciation.
Speaking of the Liber Usualis, there are differences of interpretation
of the chant itself; many purists do not prefer the Solesmes method of
singing chant, including the Vatican choirs (Sistine and Julian chapels).
So one cannot use the Liber Usualis as an infallible reference in all
things.
Fr Timothy E Deeter