Latin Pronunciation
There are two types of Latin pronunciation: Ecclesiastical and Classical. Below is the Ecclesiastical pronunciation of Latin, taken from the 1962 Liber Usalis and Traditional Latin High Mass Illustrated By Pictures(Biretta Books).
Vowels
- A as the ‘a’ in father.
- E as the ‘e’ in met.
- I as the ‘ee’ in feet
- O as the ‘o’ in for
- U as the ‘oo’ in moon
- Y as the ‘ee’ in feet (Same as I)
Dipthongs
- AE as the ‘e’ in met (Same as E.)
- OE as the ‘e’ in met (Same as E.)
- AU as ‘ow’ in how.
- AY as the ‘ay’ in aye.
- J as ‘y’ in yes.
- H is pronounced like ‘k’ in mihi and nihil.
- H in all other cases is silent.
- R before a consonant is slightly rolled.
- S as the ‘s’ in same.
- TI before a vowel, but not followed by S, X, or T; as ‘thy’ in pastry (ex: gratia – grah-tsee-ah.)
- TH as the ‘t’ in time.
- T in all other cases as the ‘t’ in time.
- XC before e, ae, oe, I, y; as the ‘cksh’ in rick-shaw.
- X in all other cases as the ‘x’ in box.
- Z as the ‘d’ in day followed by the ‘z’ in zebra (ex: Nazareth – Nah-dzah-ret)
- All other consonants
Consonants
- C before e, ae, oe, i, y; as the ‘ch’ in church.
- CC before e, ae, oe, i, y; as the ‘tch’ in match.
- SC before e, ae, oe, i, y; as the ‘sh’ in show.
- CH as the ‘k’ in keep.
- C in all other cases as the ‘k’ in keep.
- G before e, ae, oe, i, y; as the ‘g’ in generous.
- GN as the ‘n’ in no followed by the ‘y’ in yes (ex: regnum = re-nyoom)
- G in all other cases as the ‘g’ in go.
Keep practicing you Latin and God Bless,
~The Catholic Newsboy
