LATIN BASICS

ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN

BULLET POINTS

There are two main ways of pronouncing Latin: Classical Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin.
Classical Latin is the way we believe the language was spoken before the third century.
Ecclesiastical Latin is the way it is spoken from the third century and they way Latin is spoken in the Church.
Classical Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin are very similar to each other.
There are no silent letters like in English; every letter is pronounced out loud.
The main difficulty with learning Latin is the need to learn the difference between long and short vowels.
There are no simple rules to learn if a vowel is long or short, they need to be memorised.
Latin contains dipthongs which are simply double vowels which form one sound.
The most common dipthongs are ae, oe, and au.
Every single consonant, vowel and dipthong are pronounced separately. The word peccata is pronounced pec-ca-ta and not pec-a-ta. The word tuum is pronounced too-um and not toom.
There is a rule for where to place the accent (or stress) in a Latin word.
If a a word has only two syllables, you place the accent on the first syllable. For example Pater is made up of two syllables “pa” and “ter” so it is pronounced PAH-ter with the accent on the first syllable.
If a word has three or more syllables we must first check if the second to last syllable has a long or short vowel before we can tell where to place the accent. If the second to last syllable has a long vowel in it, then we place the accent on that syllable. If the the second to last syllable is short, we place the accent on the syllable before it (the third last syllable from the end). For example, the word peccata is pronounced pe-CAH-ta because the “a” in the second to last syllable is long. The word nomine is pronounced NOH-mi-neh because the “i” of the second to last syllable is short.
The difference between a short and long vowel is simply how long the vowel is pronounced. The short vowel “A” is pronounced “Ah” and the long vowel “A” is pronounced “Ahhhh”

What Syllable to Accent:

Two syllables:
Accent the first syllable

Three or more syllables:
If the next to the last syllable has a long vowel sound, accent that syllable

If the next to the last syllable has a short vowel sound, accent the syllable before it

Memorize the vowel sounds and diphthongs below. Say them aloud repeatedly until you are familiar with them.

VOWELS

		SHORT SOUNDING VOWELS			LONG SOUNDING VOWELS
A	“A”	like the A in “facility”	Á	“Ah”	like the A in “father”
E	“EH”	like the E in “met”	É	“Ay”	like the AY in “may”
I	“I”	like the I in “hit”	Í	“EE”	like the I in “machine”
O	“O”	like the O in “loss”	Ó	“O”	like the O in “for”
U	“U”	like the U in “put”	Ú	“OO”	OO, like the U in “Jude”

Y & Diphthongs:

Y	“EE”	EE, like Y in “family”
Æ	“Ai”	as in “ai” in aisle
AU	“Ou”	as in ou in house
EI	“Ay”	as in “ei” in reign
EU	“i-oo”	spoken fast as a single vowel, not a sound in English, rarely used in Latin
OE	“Oi”	as in “oi” in oil
UI	“oo-ee”	sounds like “ooe” as in gooey, pronounced quickly as a single syllable

CONSONANTS

These letters become soft before e, i, ae, oe and y:		and sound like:
C	“CH”	CH as in “cherry”
CC	“TCH”	TCH as in “matching”
SC	“SH”	SH as in “ship”
G	“G”	G as in “gentle”

These consonants are hard before a, o, u, au	And these are soft consonants before ae, e, oe, i:
C = k as in cot	C = ch as in chain
CC = kk as in accord	CC = tch as in catchy
SC = sk as in tabasco	SC = sh as in sheep
G = g as in go	G = soft g as in gentle
	GN = “ni” as in onion (ny like sound)
	TI – when followed by a third vowel becomes a tsee sound, as in tsetse fly

10 MORE RULES

T followed by the letter I + another vowel, and not preceded by S, T, X	TS as in “Betsy” (ex., “gratia” is pronounced “grah-tsee-ah,” but “modestia” is pronounced “moh-des-tee-ah”)
TH	T as in “thyme”
GN	NY as in canyon, or like the Spanish ñ
CH	K as in “Christ”
X	After an E or followed by a vowel, X sounds like GS, as in “exam” Followed by a consonant, or at the end of a word, X sounds like KS, as in “tax”
R	very slightly roll the R, touching the tip of your tongue to the top and front of your palate, making almost a slight D sound, like a Scottish R
V	V sounds like the English “V”, not like “W” as in Classical Latin
H	silent except for two words, where it sounds like a guttural, German “CH” or K sound as in “ich” or “key”: nihil and mihi
J	Y, as in “young” (J is usually replaced with an I, as in “Iesus” for “Jesus”)
Z	pronounce like “ds”

MORE BULLET POINTS

Double consonants are each pronounced, but it comes off sounding like a single letter that is held just a tad longer, the same way the L’s in the word “tailless” are held longer, but each pronounced so quickly they could almost be mistaken for one sound.
Latin has no letter “J” but you will see it in some Latin text. This was introduced in the 13th century to differentiate between the vowel “i” and the consonant “i”.
The consonant “i” is like the “y” in English. The word “Major” in Latin pronounced “MAH-yor”

WORD ORDER

The word order in a Latin sentence is different to the word order in English. For example the sentence “Dog bites man” tells us that the dog bites a man; if the word order was changed to “Man bites dog” this would give an entirely different meaning. In English the word order tells us who did what to whom.
In Latin, it is the ending of the word which tells us who did what to whom. For example, the Latin word for “dog” is “canis” but this word will change to “canem” to let us know it was the dog who bit the man. The order of words are very different to English. The following Latin sentences all mean the same thing:

Vir (man) mordet (bites) canem (dog),

Vir canem mordet

Canem vir mordet

Canem mordet vir

Mordet vir canem

Mordet canem vir