Dē rēctā Ecclēsiasticā prōnūntiātiōne - Correct Ecclesiastical Latin Pronunciation 

Please read more Church doctors in the original Latin. That was wonderful. You are gold.

In Italy, we consider the long and short vocals when we're studying poetry (in poetry we also eliminate the intervocalic "m" at the end of a word and also the "am") or when we don't know where the accent is supposed to be.

This is the Latin Eggman

An important message for those who believe the Italian Ecclesiastical Pronunciation is somehow more "natural" than the "artificial" Restored Classical Pronunciation, please watch this video I made for you! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XeqTuPZv9as.html I have attached some links to this comment down below, please do take a look at them! 😊 There are a lot of misconceptions out there about the "natural" sound of Latin. Let's start with what we know: there are two common pronunciations of Latin most people know about today: 1) the Restored Classical Pronunciation and 2) the Italian Ecclesiastical Pronunciation. The traditional Italian Pronunciation of Latin was selected by the Catholic Church in the first decade of the 20th century to be the pronunciation used universally by clergy. Before that, in the countries outside of Italy, Latin was pronounced by means of different traditional pronunciations. These traditional English, German, Polish, French, Spanish pronunciations of Latin were mostly subsumed by the Italian version by the mid 20th century in the Church. However, the study of ancient Latin phonology, which was begun famously by Erasmus, had progressed so successfully by the late 19th century that most academics and scholars had adopted the Restored Classical Pronunciation for all their communication in Latin, which is a faithful revival of the sound of Classical Latin circa the 1st century BC. So, one important thing to observe is that, in our modern world, the Restored Classical Pronunciation was a universalized entity before the Ecclesiastical Pronunciation was. That doesn't mean one is better than the other - still, I've heard the contrary used as an argument, so I want to dispel that idea, so I'll reitarate: universal Restored Classical Pronunciation predates universal Ecclesiastical Pronunciation. What's *really* fascinating is that Latin pronunciation by the end of the Western Roman Empire had actually changed *very* drastically away from the Classical Pronunciation you hear in the above video; it sounded much more like modern Italian, because: 1. final consonants -m -s -t had become silent 2. short u became o 3. short i became e 4. stressed short e became ie 5. stressed short o became uo 6. between vowels b became v and many other changes! The 5th century AD Latin pronunciation is unrecognizable to most people as being "Latin." I demonstrate it in a video below. Here is a written example: "In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum" in the 5th century AD (the time the Latin of this Bible was written) would sound more like: "In princepjo era verbo, e verbo era apo dio, e dio era verbo" another example: "in ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum" in 5th century AD Italy: "in isso vita era, e vita era luss uomino" Thus Latin retained a written standard founded in the Classical Pronunciation that had deviated from normal phonology by quite a lot over hundreds of years (just as Modern English spelling corresponds mostly to Middle English phonology). So, since it obviously is not a natural evolution, where did the Italian Ecclesiastical Pronunciation come from? By the early 9th century AD, the situation had become very difficult for the clergy of Charlemagne, the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In his Empire, Latin is all written the same way, but it is pronounced like Proto-Italian in Italy, like Proto-Spanish in Spain, and like Proto-French in France. Now, keep in mind that 9th century people living in Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy all believed they were speaking "Latin," but if we heard them speak we would merely say they were speaking older forms of Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. To facilitate spoken communication throughout the Catholic world, Charlemagne hired Alcuin, who was from England, to standardize the pronunciation of Latin. He based it on his own pronunciation of Latin, which in England was quite conservative and most like Classical Latin, and he refined it by instituting that Latin would thenceforth be spoken with just one sound for each letter. Thus Alcuin and Charlemagne restored Classical Pronunciation to be very similar to what I use in the above video: the post-Erasmian Restored Classical Pronunciation. Thus began the first Renaissance, the Carolingian Renaissance, wherein everyone who read Latin had to *speak* written Latin with this new, restored Classical Pronunciation where the final consonants were all enunciated, the vowels were not diphthongized, etc., reversing all the natural evolutions of the Late-Late / Early Romance tongues of the previous eight hundred years. Therefore a man in Spain could only "know" Latin if he learned to read and thus pronounce the written language in this highly artificial, restored classical manner. And thus the spoken Spanish and spoken "Latin" in Spain no longer became mutually intelligible with the Church Latin. So, what was this guy "speaking" at home if not "Latin"? he surely thought to himself. From then on, the idea of distinct Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and other Romance languages began to develop, and were written down phonetically. And *this* is when Latin *died.* Said better, it became *immortal,* because it took on a nearly-Classical pronunciation system that matched the Classical literary style, a style remains intact to this day. Latin from the 9th century branched off from the Romance languages - sort of the opposite of the normal idea that the Romance languages branched off from Classical Latin, which they did in the spoken communities - or to put in another way, written Latin was *artificially* made an entity *separate* from the natural spoken Romance languages. And this is the origin of the Italian Ecclesiastical Pronunciation we know and love today. In time, even this restored Classical pronunciation of Alcuin and Charlemagne gradually became nationalized and influenced by the written languages of the Romance world that started to come into being, such that eventually Spain, Poland, Italy etc. all had slightly different variants of Latin pronunciation. Thus, only the "naturally evolved" pronunciation of Latin is merely the modern Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian languages and their sister tongues themselves. The Italian Ecclesiastical Pronunciation of Latin - much to the horror of the patriotic Italian, I imagine, heh - is actually the result of an artificial restoration of Latin pronunciation devised by an Englishman, instituted by a Frankish King of a Germanic Empire. 😂 Does that make it illegitimate? Of course not! Both the Carolingian Restored Classical Pronunciation (which becomes what we call Ecclesiastical Pronunciation today) and the post-Erasmian Restored Classical Pronunciation, which with each passing year becomes more and more true to the sound of 1st century BC Latin, are mutually intelligible, and are acceptable conventions of Latin pronunciation. One is not better than the other per se. All we *can* say is that some people have a subjective preference of one to the other. And that's just fine! One should use whatever convention pleases most - and better yet, I recommend everyone learn to recite Latin in both pronunciations, to develop and aesthetic appreciation of each, and increase our tolerance and acceptance of the other. Please see the links to my videos below; they will fill you in on the details I left out here. My talk on Latin & Greek Pronunciation Evolution 500 BC to 500 AD ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-c_Giy_LHAlU.html In Defense of the Ecclesiastical Pronunciation of Latin ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zq3FJNibKHk.html Gospel of John with 5th century AD Latin pronunciation: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NIpG2Vte9F4.html Ranieri's Latin Pronunciation Chronology Spreadsheet: bit.ly/RanieriLatinPronunciation

thank you , so much, from México, muchas gracias desde México , i preffer the ecclesiastical latin pronunation, i am studyng italian , now

I can't believe how easily I understood everything you said, not the case with the classical pronunciation 😂😂

Excelente exposición. En mi formación, desde Argentina, muchas veces prevaleció un sesgo ideológico al momento de presentar estas dos pronunciaciones. Tus aportes son verdaderamente criteriosos. Gracias.

Thank you so much for sharing your amazing talent! I have recently discovered your channel. I’m studying Italian & this helps me to connect words to the roots.

You know what would help a lot? A video on how to pronouce Catholic latin prayers WITH vowel lengths.

Oh my God, what a beautiful language and pronunciation also!!! Bravo!

I found your channels a couple of days ago, and they are highly interesting ... This is the first latin-only video of yours I am watching, and the weirdest thing is that I understand most of it without having ever studied Latin. Being French-Italian might be the reason why, but still, I’ve never been in the situation of understanding, however imperfectly, a foreign language I’ve never learned ! Makes me want to learn Latin for real :)

I found it helpful in learning Portuguese that not m but intervocalic n likes to hide - lat. "ponere" -> pt. "pôr", tenere -> ter, persona -> pessoa, luna = lua, vanitas = vaidade, panem = pão, canes = cães, mano = mão, etc.

I love that you made this video in Ecclesiastical Latin! I have a question: I want to incorporate proper vowel length into my Ecclesiastical Latin, but I am having difficulty visualising how to do so "sounding natural". As in, in your video you are speaking with a lot of pause so that we can more easily understand (when I was an English teacher I used to do that too), but I was wondering how a more "casual" or "fast" talking Latin would sound like with Ecclesiastical pronunciation. How to differentiate between stress and vowel length and how to speak fast while still respecting vowel length. If you have a video exemplifying that I'd love to see it!

I'd read somewhere that short and long vowels aren't only different in length but also in quality in Classical Latin, (except the /a/), so that the short /e/ and /o/ are actually like the open ones in Italian, and the long ones are like the closed ones, and that the short /i/ and /u/ sound like English /fit/ and /put/ respectively, but like in Italian when long.

Thank you for answering my question on use of long vowels in Ecclesiastical Pronunciation.

This is exactly the video I needed tonight. You rule, Scorpio! -professor_seven

Maravilhoso ✨💕👏🏻

Gratias tibi ago! I've been feeling an inner pull toward Ecclesiastical Latin, but the prospect of dropping syllable quantity has scared me off... feels like a whole other language, and the morphology stops making such beautiful sense! I dearly hope you'll do more videos with the Ecclesiastical scheme now and then. Thanks as always for the fantastic content!

Ecce orator! I'm sold.

Is there an edition of the Vulgate that shows vowel length?

Koran dankon, Lucius, pro tiu interesega klarigo pri la latina lingvo! Vi estas ege inteligenta kaj amuza homo kaj mi lernas multon kune kun vi. El Dominika Respubliko, mi deziras al vi sanon kaj prosperon. Ego Rafael sum et tibi gratias deo. :-)

"Correct Ecclesiastical Latin Pronunciation" Uses Macrons.

When I first studied Latin in high school we used the 'restored' or 'classical' pronunciation though we never called it that. What a shock it was when I went to university at a Catholic college where the priest of Irish extraction uused Ecclesiastical Latin while teaching Catullus. One word I remember in particular: 'COGITATIONE'. It wasn't just the soft 'g' before the 'i' or the 'ti' that was treated as a sibilant but the exaggerated stressed 'o' of the penultimate syllable and the clipped final vowel left me thinking that I had ventured into the wrong language class. It gave the language a very Italian sound. ScorpioMartianus, would what I think we would call the characteristic intonation of modern Italian have been a feature of Latin at any time in its development historically or geographically? (Boy, what I wouldn't give to hear you speak Latin with Mary Beard, the Cambridge Classics scholar.)

Dear ScorpioMartianus, Just for your curiosity about ancient ecclesiastical chant: maybe you'd be interested to discover this (but maybe you already know): do you know the singer Damien Poisblaud? He has made a reconstruction of Gregorian chant according to traditional singing techniques. He is one of the few who sings Gregorian chant not according to the reform of Solesmes' chant (which follows an aesthetic of the 19th century even if beautiful) but according to philological rigour, since he sings respecting the most ancient musical notations (the neumi) and musical treatises contemporary to Gregorian chant, both for theory and practice (voice emission, performance of ornaments; ornaments are very important even if today they are almost always forgotten, despite the fact that they are written in medieval notation [IX-XII centuries]). He is one of the few who sings Gregorian chant not according to the reform of Solesmes' chant (which follows a 19th century aesthetic even if beautiful) but according to philological rigour, since he sings respecting the most ancient musical notations (the neumi) and musical treatises contemporary to Gregorian chant, both for theory and practice (voice emission, performance of ornaments; ornaments are very important even if today they are almost always forgotten or reproduced in the baroque manner, although they are explained otherwise in medieval musical texts [especially 9th-12th centuries]). Great academic experts in Gregorian as Luca Ricossa or François Cassingena-Trévédy have defined Poisblaud's interpretation as the most realistic, correct and probable reconstruction. Exemple, Benedixisti: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z0E1E3_KwuU.html

Have you ever made a video pronouncing common Catholic prayers in Ecclesiastical Latin? Common resources tend to conflict with each other here and there, and I've yet to see anyone take into account vowel length. A quick recording of the prayers of the Rosary, for example, would be immensely helpful to those of us who tend to pray it in Latin daily, and for those who want to start. Much of the Latin found in Catholic circles can be far from the prescribed "Ecclesiastical" pronunciation, and it can be very confusing.

As a classicist I much prefer the restored pronunciation, it just feels more authentic.

Salve Luke! Ti scrivo in italiano visto che so che lo conosci. Vista la grande importanza che la pronuncia ecclesiastica ha avuto in Italia per la religione cattolica, mi chiedevo se potessi fare un video dove mostri Pater noster, Ave maria, Gloria e magari anche il Simbolo Apostolico con la corretta pronuncia (ecclesiastica). So che ci sono altri video e siti che spiegano questo argomento, ma quasi da nessuna parte si trova la giusta lunghezza delle vocali!

Salvete plurimum! mihi placet ecclesiasticam pronutiationem eam didici in schola!

l m a Roman old man who grew up in USA who chose lrish Gaeilge as his heart language but Latin is my DNA when l hear Latin ss spoken language l get thrills emotions besides l understand most of it BENE BENE very good Luke n gang keep doing more of it---STEF now living in TOKYO japan

assolutamente eccelente!! grazie per il Suo lavoro perche volevo sempre sapere come hanno pronunciato ilLatino vulgare dei romani! Brilliante davvero!

Thank you very much I love to learn latin when I was a child but it's hard to learn somewhere because everyone was scared here in my country. but now I I already grown up and internet is easy to get I can easily learn now ^^

When I have a better Latin, I will use the ecclesiastical pronunciation, following your advices of course, but for the prayers it is a bit difficult to know the long vowels, mainly because they are not marked in the texts, so I wanted to be able to please if you could help us with the texts of at least the basic prayers (Pater Noster, Ave Maria, etc.) with the marks of the vowels, please.

Luke, do you have any tutorials specifically on the elision of vowels and the dropping of vowel + m before upcoming vowels within a sentence? I also noticed you were eliding vowels as you read the poem. If these are supposed to be done in ecclesiastical as well as classical pronunciation, it is never mentioned that I know of in ecclesiastical pronunciation tutorials. I teach using both pronunciations (because I have classes at secular and Catholic institutions), and would like more practice and examples with these features of pronunciation. I don't hear a lot of Latin speakers observe them in conversational Latin. I was originally taught they were conventions observed only in classical poetry. More on this, please! Thank you.

Bellissimo 😍

Gratias ago.

Just trying to make sure that I understand this properly (I'm making my own recordings of LLPSI with Ecclesiastical pronunciation and the Calabrese vowel system for practice) when I say the phrase, "Magnum est Imperium Rómánum!" I should drop the final m in magnum and Imperium, but preserve it in Rómánum?

gratias.

I'm Italian and one thing AMAZED me. How come I understand better when you talk with the pronuncia restituta than with the ecclesiastic one. It doesn't make sense but still... :o

Bene!

I'm Romanian with only a few classes of Latin in school and it sounds like I understand every word but for some reason they just don't seem to form real sentences.

Hi Luke, what do you think of the following excerpts on pronunciation taken from the beginning of “A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin” by John F Collins? ā as in father a as in carouse ē as in they e as in get ī as in machine i as in fit ō as in no o as in soft ū as in tuba u as in put ae like ē au like ou- in out oe like ē ui like -wi- in dwindle It also explicitly states that the short e, i, o, and u differ in quality as well as quantity from their long forms. There is no mention of a dropped final m, merely stating that there are no silent consonants in Latin (though I believe you’ve argued that the final m is a type of vowel). I’d be really interested to hear your perspective on this, since it seems to be a bit different from how you say things in this video, at least to my ear.

Ecclesiastical Latin actually sounds really nice

Ecclesiasica pronuntiatio optima invenitur in ore Gallicano Helvetico. Illic audiri potest vaccarum mugitus. ;)

Would you react to the Latin spoken in The Passion Of The Christ. Which is the Ecclesiastical pronunciation of Latin

This guy looks like an ancient Roman too

Pelliculae vetustiores Lucī habent charisma certam, nōn possum explicāre ;)

The importance of vowel length in one Latin phrase: "casa cása est".

Incrível achei não aí entender nada consigo entender 50 por cento fica muito feliz a língua latina e muita bonita

In regards to poetry, are there rules for the pauses (caesuras)? Or you just pause whenever you feel it's necessary? For example, there are prescansioned (or prescanned?) verses of the Aeneid out there, could be possibly exist some divergence as to where to put those pauses?

Quam pulchra est hanc prōnūntiātiōne Italiana!

Semper ascendens!! Viva la lengua latina 🇻🇦💛

Why aren't macrons used in texts on Vicipaedia? la.wikipedia.org

Are there [e] and [o] vowels in the Ecclesiastical Latin like in Italian or has it got only [ɛ] and [ɔ]?

Johannes tibi salutem dicit! Thank you for your accurate historical reconstruction. However I am Italian and I do prefer speaking with my Italian accent, in English just as in Latin. But why am I writing in - bad - English now? Vale!

Hoc est mandatum pro te: ita ad orientes ut invenias usum vivum Byzantinum de lingua Romanorum cum pronuntiatione eorum ex rebus imperii et ecclesiae. Cur non?

I just started learning Latin in less than a month. I cannot tell the difference between the 2 pronunciations yet.

I think I am the only one from Italy that do not use the church pronunciation xD I can only understand your usual pronunciation. By the way thank you very much for your videos are so interesting and I can actually pratice latin with your videos. ♥️♥️

I do ecclesiastical, but more in Spanish. Beati hispani quibus vivere est bibere!

now i try to comunicate with my friends in latin

I'm not so sure about maintaining syllable quantity. If you look at ecclesiastical poetry, it is not based on quantity, but on accent, as in modern English.

Oh that's the right pronunciation!!!

Italica! 🙋

Meletus scribo. Placet, mi luci, te hoc in modo audire etsi dubio me umquam latine hacce pronuntiatione loqui potis fore!

Perbelle! Vivite diversitates!

From Vietnamese love. Jacqueline🥰🥰

How do you do these vowel qualities if you’re one of the few people left who actually use the traditional english pronounciation ? 🤔😛

Grazie per questo video, Lucci, che appassionato! Personalmente, penso che la gente dovrebbe rispettare il modo in cui i Greci parlano greco antico tanto quanto gli italiani parlano latino. I studied languages at Princeton then lived 8 years in Syria. I like the way Syrians pronounce and sing Syriac, Arabic and Greek in their churches - totally different than I had been taught. Did you know that St Ambrose imported antiphonal singing from Syria, which became the basis of Gregorian? I realized they have a living tradition that is unbroken, particularly in monasteries and rural towns like Maalula, while our western pronunciations are speculative reconstructions at best and "stuck up" at worst. Morando os ultimos 9 meses em Tanzânia me mostrou de novo a alegria e suprema imporância de *intonação correta* e ritmo como você diz. Luc mon vieux,, comment oses-tu de reconstruire ces choses dès que tu les as tirées hors du contexte autoctone et vivant?

Por isso português espanhol italiano romeno francês são os idiomas lindos latim e uma língua belíssima

Both versions are clearly recognizable albeit different. I saw the Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/Latin “name that word” post and immediately thought French and Romanian would be interesting additions. It also really begs the question about English as a hybrid and “successful medieval Esperanto” rather than a true Germanic/Nordic language. Great

I prefer it. Ich liebe diese Aussprache. Eu prefiro essa a pronuncia eclesiastica. - Brasil -

Politianus came from Montepulciano, as his surrname says (Mentepulciano in latin is Mons Politianus). So he wasn't florentin like you said.

Oro Officii Psalmos Divini Latine omne die cumque recte vocales perdidicissem dicere coepi sentire quasi in caelo essem.

0:10 : [ōkenin] in tempore anni... - What does [ōkenin] mean?

Anyone with me on thinking he's a time traveler from the 4th Century?

Not knowing anything about Latin and its history or pronunciation, I just reasoned Rome was where Italy is. And so what we know of Italian today is probably the closest descendant of Latin, which would mean Italian 'way' or accent/style of speaking is probably the closest match to how it was spoken in the old days. Not so?

👍

Like it but would be nice if he read a text at speed and with less emphatic pronunciation so we have an idea of the melodic flow of Latin.

Sounds a bit weird and forced. The *correct* received pronunciation of Church Latin does not observe long/short vowels. For example, it would be perverse to try to sing Gregorian Chant that way.

Tibi gratuitum consilium dabo: noli poesim legere, vita lectionem metricam - canticum tuum simpliciter tragicum - bene legere rhythmum habere oportet, quantitatem, sensum poeticum in mente.

Ecce Hymnum Sanctæ Aeulaliae Virginis!

What time was Latin spoken with this accent and this words?

"Cor Palpitans"

More ecclesiastical Latin! :)

Mihi placet! 7

bene dictum

Perhaps he could read from and ancient text or the Mass to give us an idea of spoken language at normal speaking speed?.

I am romanian and at school I learned this year that V is like the english V, Ce, Ci, Ge, Gi are like in Italian, Qu+vowel is Cv and Gu+vowel is Gv. I sidn't learn to write with macrons. The word Vōlo is pronounced like Volo, not Wolo. It's a bit stupid that europeans learn latin differently. Isn't it the same language?

Ecco, questa è quella che usiamo noi a scuola!

I wish you would liaise with the 'Open University' and devise a proper degree in Classics that everyone in the world could access!

Who else has fallen in love?

Pulchra sunt poemata quoque lingua vulgari id est Gallice :

I understood every word. I will lay you odds that 80% of the people who understand Latin in the 21st-century understand church Latin. I think there are very few classicists who actually use it in conversation.

These eyebrow movements are so....

That is so beautiful! I personality find that, unlike the reconstructed classical pronunciation, Latin should be pronounced using a 4th or 5th century, pronunciation. Something close to what St. Augustin used or what was used in Hispania, Gallia or Africa at that time.

Came here to learn latin...

Good video, keep tradition

Lol does anyone think he looks like Noho Hank from Barry? Thumbs up!

Luke: “sahl-VEHteh ah-mi-CHI” Me: *infuriated screeching

dude looks like younger Scipio Africanus Maior

If I must use ecclesiastical pronunctiation at school (because i must) I'll do it correctly! Peccato che sul mio libro indichino raramente la lunghezza e in genere indicano solo se è breve :( PS. I think I'm ging to ruine the ferfection of 1111 likes