Take my course LATIN UNCOVERED on StoryLearning, including my original Latin adventure novella "Vir Petasātus" : learn.storylearning.com/lu-promo?affiliate_id=3932873 Available exclusively on the StoryLearning platform, I’ve written an original Latin novella about a daring archaeologist, a genius physicist, and a tremulous philologist who are 21st century explorers and fluent Latin speakers, on a quest for a lost relic from the Roman Empire. This novella forms the core of my course on StoryLearning: Latin Uncovered "Vir Petasātus" - an exciting adventure that immerses you in the idiom of modern-day Latin speakers, and with a mystery that’ll keep you guessing right up to the end. There are a lot of ways to learn Latin out there, and you know I espouse many of them, so whom is this course for, and what makes it different? Well, one can learn with a teacher in a classroom, but others work better as autodidacts and prefer to study solo. My StoryLearning course gives the best of both worlds: you get hours of video instruction from me, where I teach you the grammar, vocabulary, how to conjugate verbs, how to decline nouns, as well as the most detailed pronunciation guide I’ve ever put together, along with lots of helpful hints on Latin syntax and idiom - all the things you might get in a classroom, but you go at your own pace, since you don’t have to schedule with any instructors or other students. Thus you get the excitement and personal adventure of learning the language on your own, with all the video lessons you need to master the basics. As for the novella, it’s not a graded reader, and it’s like that by design, because I wanted to challenge you with a real adventure story from the very first sentence. Nevertheless, each chapter has detailed explanations of all the new vocabulary, how all the grammar works, and a full English translation, so you’ll never get lost. And naturally, the audio of the story is in both Classical and Ecclesiastical Pronunciation, and I teach you how to do both, so whichever you prefer is the one you’ll be able to learn. NOTES & FURTHER COMMENTARY The line "have you got your lions crossed" at 7:38 is a reference to Nathan Lane's portrayal of the character Timon in "The Lion King," who has an accent similar to the one I am imitating here. This is also a reference to Erasmus's dialogue "De recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronuntiatione" where the Bear educates the Lion on the correct ancient pronunciation of Latin and Greek. This is referred to more explicitly at 18:20. The line "if raisins/reasons were as plentiful as blackberries" at 11:40 is a reference to this: internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/literature/language/pronunciation.html The comment about "what" is referring to the fact that I started pronouncing a voiceless-w for "wh" in English once I began practicing Shakespearean Pronunciation. The Arnold Schwarzenegger impression is borrowed lovingly from comedian Jim Gaffigan. Foreigners in Italy who ask "How old are you?" often mispronounce "Quanti anni hai?" as "Quanti ani hai?" meaning "How many anuses do you have?" This underlines the non-negotiable importance of geminated consonants in Italian and Latin, as well as phonemic vowel length in the latter.
As a regular TLM attendee, I certainly appreciate Ecclesiastical due to the frequency of exposure and its general beauty, especially when sung. However, something about Restored Classical has a sense of power and imperium behind it.
Salve fratre Another TLM attendee here, I studied Latin in high school and Spanish as well. I learned basic classical pronunciation first and then ecclesiastical- I love both, and both are imo equally authentic, but I agree with “gravitas” of classical pronunciation is unmatched 😊 pax Cristi
Indeed. “Both” is always going to be the best answer, and “depends why you want to learn Latin” is second. If you want to learn it to celebrate the TLM, sing (the music corpus, both secular and religious, almost exclusively was written assuming Ecclesiastical or maybe another Medieval or Renaissance local venacular-inspired dialect) or study medieval or renaissance texts (again, whether secular or religious, they would’ve assumed ecclesiastical pronunciation or a local dialect), then Ecclesiastical will be the more authentic, intended experience, while for studying the classics or a general historical interest in ancient Rome, Classical is more authentic. Context is key for any language.
@@IONATVS Context, exactly! For that reason, it makes no sense to read a late author like Rutilius Namatian with the pronunciation of Julius Caesar. Unfortunately, this is what is done in the US.
I have seen the tridentine mass, and to quote lord byron that latin was a "soft bastard" that "melts like kisses". He has to be meaning ecclesiastical latin. because ecclesiastical latin reduced the the differentiation in vowels (7 to 5) and many speakers (erroneously) eliminated vowel lengths. it definitely softens up classical latin with the strong Us and the specific stresses and lengths. thus in conclusion: classical latin is "stronger", more "pronounced", and "stricter", while church latin is "softer", more "fluid", and "easier". this is all just conjecture and depends on the feeling of speech, but you can tell me if you disagree.
I mostly attend Ordinary Form ("Novus Ordo") masses (though I do love the Extraordinary Form ["Vetus Ordo"/"TLM"]), but I'm trying to pray in Latin more often when I say my prayers in private, and I also prefer Classical Latin over Ecclesiastical. I sometimes jokingly grumble about wanting "to speak _Latin,_ not _Proto-Italian",_ and that really, truly is a _joke,_ but I feel like there's a tiny grain of honesty in there that I just can't articulate. I'm no Latin snob; I know Classical and Ecclesiastical are mostly just distinguished by pronunciation, and Ecclesiastical Latin _certainly_ isn't _ugly,_ but... y'know?
Tanto divertente, bravissimo!!! Ma parliamo un po' della pronunzia: allora, se soltanto negli anni venti de XX secolo Papa Pio X scelse come pronunzia universale della Chiesa quella che da tanti secoli era stata utilizzata nella Penisola Italica, perché mai chiamarla "pronunzia ecclesiastica"!? Fu la Chiesa ad inventarla? Perché se quella pronunzia veniva già utilizzata in tutta la Penisola da parecchio, il suo nome dovrebbe essere "pronunzia italica" o "italiana", che soltanto nel tardo secolo XX fu adottata dalla Chiesa come la sua pronunzia universale. Non c'è né ci fu mai una "pronunzia ecclesiastica"! C'era una pronunzia tradizionale de Latino utilizzata nella Penisola da secoli, scelta dalla Chiesa, nel XX secolo, come la sua pronunzia universale. Punto! Utilizzare la pronunzia italica o italiana va bene. Utilizzare la pronunzia "ecclesiastica" va malissimo, perché non esiste nessuna pronunzia "ecclesiastica"; esiste soltanto la pronunzia italica o italiana. Prima della decisione di Papa Pio X, cento anni fa, che nome aveva la pronunzia del Latino utilizzata da secoli nella Penisola Italica? Il nome di quella pronunzia "ante Papam Pium X" è la sola accettabile. La pronunzia del Latino utilizzata nella Santa Sede non può venir chiamata "ecclesiastica", semplicemente perché non ebbe origine nella Chiesa, non fu creata né inventata dalla Chiesa, non appartiene neanche al patrimonio storico esclusivo della Chiesa... È un fenomeno, con tutte le lettere, moderno. Chiaramente, l'espressione "pronunzia ecclesiastica", all'orecchio dell'ignorante, (e dei propagandisti dell'ideologia anticlericale) suona a Medio Evo. Ma no! Per quanto riguarda la Chiesa suona, con tutto il rigore e precisione, a secolo XX. L' espressione "pronunzia ecclesiastica" sempre ed ogniqualvolta che venga utilizzata, anche dall'ignorante, sarà sempre l'affermazione propagandistica di un'ideologia concreta. Inoltre, la Lingua Latina, prima di qualsiasi altra cosa, è una lingua dell'Italia, del popolo italiano, del patrimonio storico e culturale degli italiani. Esiste la pronunzia italica o italiana del Latino che, pochissimo tempo fa, fu adottata dalla Chiesa come la sua pronunzia universale. Ma universale è la pronunzia italiana, mai la peggiorativamente propagandistica "ecclesiastica". E prima di Pio X, che nome davano gli italiani alla pronunzia del Latino utilizzata in Italia? Perché quella è la legittima pronunzia universale del Latino. E se pure scientificamente coerente, la "restituta" non potrebbe mai venir in uso senza il "placet" dello Stato italiano.
Grazie! Appunto, si chiama "la pronunzia italica/italiana" de facto, e de jure ecclesiastico adesso è anche la pronunzia ecclesiastica, della Chiesa a Roma. È un semplice cambiamento di termine, but il termine più storica va benissimo.
fun fact: the distance between Luke 1 and Luke 2 in this video is approximately 3km in straight line, yet they are able to have a conversation edit: and even have a fight
I love how the ecclesiastical pronunciation character has the Basilica as his background while the classical pronunciation guy has the Anfiteatro Flavio.
I prefer the classical pronunciation since this is not only the original, but also gives Latin its independence and identity compared to other Romance languages, and is not influenced by Italian
As an extremely devout Catholic and passionate Latinist, my opinion, before even playing the video, is that Classical Latin is most proper for academical study, whereas Ecclesiastical Latin has an eternal place in liturgy and worship.
Ah, yes, the Roman cult of pederasty, misogyny and homophobia. Has your archdiocese declared bankruptcy yet due to all the sexual abuse lawsuits? #pitiable
Since my friend is a Roman Hellenist, they use Classical Latin as a Liturgical language themself. It's quite interesting how both are educated, and both can be liturgical.
Ha ha. As a little Roman Catholic in the 1950s and 60s I learnt both. Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation on Sundays and classical Latin pronunciation in Latin lessons during the week. Then after a few years 'they' changed how we pronounced 'w'. Cant recall now which way round the change went. Dominus vobiscum. ❤
I've found learning the classical pronunciation incredibly helpful, even though I'd never claim to speak it. I'm a folklorist by trade, and learn the WAY things were meant to be heard is just as vital for understanding them as learning what they say. The meter and rhythm of Latin matters immensely to the intended experience of, say, poetry and speeches.
Could you PLEASE do this with Greek? I love your pursuit of historical precision while allowing for subjective preference. For instance, in Braille the rough breathing is identical to the English “H,” so I always tend to pronounce it as such. Your videos have helped me sort that out
@@polyMATHY_Luke that I am not sure of. It would be interesting to hear a breakdown of Herasmian pronunciation. Basically, I want to hear more Greek #linguisticmasochist
My Latin is extremely basic, I was only able to read the story of Pandora’s box using very simple Latin and that was years ago. I kind of gave up learning more, but this video has encouraged me to jump back in. The course looks really fun and engaging, I was studying books solo so it got kind of boring and I didn’t have much guidance, so this looks really cool and what I’ve been looking for, especially since I mainly want to be able to read Latin texts when I encounter them.
Luke you are the man. I took a few years of Latin in school; I loved it at the time and had a teacher who was also really into it and surely gave me far more info than I could wrap my (already much too small) high school brain around. However I wasn’t the best student and struggled with things like, school attendance lol. In my twenties I started to get insanely interested in history-especially Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages in Europe, and it also led me to become really interested in languages again, Latin being at the top of the list by far. I started relearning some of the grammar and whatnot, and it’s been going well, but discovering your channel has really made me believe that this IS possible to do without going to school (which was a frustrating roadblock that kept popping up the further I went with it). I think I’m going to pull the trigger and check out your course; it really looks like the way to go. Thanks again for all the work you do and info you put out there on the great language of Latin. It is so appreciated!
I definitely need to check out this class of yours. I want to learn Ecclesiastical Latin as I attend a Latin Catholic Mass. I can understand most of everything but would love to be able to speak it.
I learned Latin 40 years ago in school in Austria (I finished the "Latinum" quite well but I have to admit I forgot a lot over the 40 years in behalf of grammar + vocabulary which is another story)...our pronunciation which we got taught was neither classical nor ecclesiastical....we had to pronounce "C" before the vowels i + e + ae like "Z" (meaning the German way to say "Z" obviously and not the English buzz sounding one) and "C" before the other vowels like "K"..(but based on the Nominativ pronunciation of words meaning for instance "amicus" is pronounced like "amikus" so "amici" is also pronounced like "amiki" and not like "amizi" although there is now an "i", but maybe that´s just an "austrian habit" and Germans from Germany do it differently, I don´t know, but we Austrians do alot different than Germans when it comes to language, that why our "Standard German" is bit different than Germany´s "Standard German" as well). And that´s "the German(Austrian) way of Latin" as you already mentioned that there is one ..which I just mention for those who might be curious how that sounds like, basically foremost like "Classical Latin" except that "C" ...even our catholic priests (who were all very old men by the way) during church service did it like that and not ecclesiastical but which you might expect at least from a Cleric but obviously not from a native German speaking Cleric. By the way your "Arnie" is hilarious I even noticed a little bit of his Styrian accent which made me laugh because the Styrian accent + dialect is one of the funniest sounding one from our 9 different ones. Apropos accent your "Ami classical Latin guy" sounded at some point a little bit like New York for me especially when you said the word "or"
What debate, ecclesiastical is a joke. However classical i believe will remain a mystery, there are all sorts of modifications in every Romance language, we wont ever know the rhythm of the language, the cadences, the exceptions… 🤷🏻♂️ It is proven that someone could speak a live language the funny way for years without improving, imagine a dead one.
As somebody who has completed much of the StoryLearning course, I can say you should give it a try if you are interested in learning Latin! Lūcī! Mihi valdē placet haec pellicula optima!
Have you played "pentiment" video game? If you love latin and late medieval history you'll just love it. Latin knowledge is not mandatory, but it will give you some hints. A real art work in my opinion.
Luke, take a glance at how Pali (cousin to Sanskrit) is pronounced in Cambodia vs. Myanmar (vs. Laos)... it makes Latin look easy, AND IT IS! I know you've studied and taught Japanese: Latin seems like a dialect of English compared to that. :-/
@@polyMATHY_Luke I can’t say that I who they are. On another note I have to say I’m happy that you’re trying to speed spoken Latin. I was always taught in my brief stint with Latin that “Latin isn’t a language we speak only a language we read and write.” I always found that concept strange because the words are written right there and we knew how to say them so why don’t we speak the language. So from a guy with many different interests one of which being languages. thank you Luke.
I was literally just looking for a method of learning Latin without having to schedule it, so I'm pretty stoked that you made something specifically for me 😃
By the way, I'm curious how the diacritics evolved in the Romance languages, and why each language has different rules. Spanish and Portuguese mark all nonstandard stress, but treat final "-ia" the opposite, Italian marks only final stressed syllables. All three use different stress marks in different ways. French uses all three of these diacritics (acute, grave, circumflux), but uses them in completely different ways for non-stress purposes. Spanish has tilde-n and uses "ll", while Portuguese has tilde-a and tilde-o and uses "lh" and "nh". All these languages inherited the memory of Greek tone marks and Latin long-vowel apex, but they ended up in different places. How did that happen? Were there ever any movements to reduce the cross-language differences? I'd be eager to watch a video on this.
Really? I’m delighted and amazed if that’s so haha. My “British” accent is terribly inconsistent in this character, and I get a few things consistently wrong. If it sounds like a real person, I’m very glad
It makes sense to me to choose Latin pronunciation for Latin over German or Italian pronunciation. I am done with people ignoring the vowel length, misplacing the stress and adding extra word-final swa.
Dear gods, which classical Latin? There are several hundred years of "classical latin". And at the same time, are we talking about Ecclesiastical Latin of TODAY, or that which was used from the fall of classical latin completely in the 500s and 600s, turning into Medieval Latin, which is the basis in part for Ecclesiastical Latin. It's like which Spanish to learn? Mexican, Argentinian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, Cuban, Puerto Rican, need I go further, and then of course Continental Spanish, and, oops, which dialect? Point is, learn one to begin with, then learn another. Do this in terms of the research and teaching and living latin that you will need to be a success. OH, one more Latin. Living Latin, that which is being attempted to be resurrected as a modern language. That would be my choice.
@@polyMATHY_Luke - Of course you clarify this! I am just doubling down on this that for the uninformed that it's not just classical or current day (if such yet exists) ecclesiastical Latin. :) If English can change from when I was a kid to now, owing to various factors, then in scarcely XX (not gonna say!) years, Latin could have done that, too, over and over, especially because it was not tied down by pervasive documentation and text as we are now (and English still changes!). Cheers!
"Should you learn Classical or Ecclesiastical Latin?" Are You a Roman legionarius reenactor or a Christian priest? What do you want to understand better, the Roman Empire or the Catholic Church?
Thankfully that’s not really a factor; neither pronunciation inhibits your comprehension of virtually any Latin, though it’s proper to argue for the Classical pronunciation for Classical literature.
I've taken up learning Latin as a hobby these last few years, and your videos have been helpful. Especially the summary point: there are histories and merits supporting both conventions, so have it!--But Nail Those Long Vowels haha As I've gotten deeper into study, my highschool Spanish muscle memory has semi-revived, having seen a lot of root words and ancestors. I began wondering, how would the Iberian Latin have sounded back in the day, and boom, here you reminded me you list a lot of sources over later latin in different regions. Thanks!
Ecclesiastical Latin is the Latin pronounciation used by Italian education, the Roman Catholic Church & is the national language of Vatican City. It is heavily influenced by modern Italian. Classic Latin is the pronounciation system used by academia outside Italy and is the reconstruction of the Romans actually spoke. Both have their uses.
My take is that Church Latin is for all intents and purposes "living Latin" where for all its benefits reconstructed pronunciation is the study of a fossil.
Thankyou for the entertaining and public answer to my question, Luke, and for the learning advice! I want to start doing this; I spend a lot of time discussing biblical Hebrew metre with my colleagues at the Society for Biblical Literature, whereas I could instead make more of a living for myself if I put my knowledge in a public and digestable form like this; and then I could send RU-vid videos to my colleagues instead of long e-mails that took 3 hours to write!
@@polyMATHY_Luke There are, I for one am majoring Hebrew at uni and I'm sort of a "taliban" of the reconstructed pronunciation. The difference between Reconstructed and Israeli is larger than Classical and Ecclesiastical, since Israeli completely lost long/short vowel distinction. I noticed that when you recite the psalms taking vowel lenghth into consideration, they sound much more poetical and musical.
@@gabriellawrence6598 And yes! I'm arguing with and working with Hebrew linguists and Masoretic scholars to reform how stress and syllable-length is understood with respect to Accent and Punctuation. The current textbooks have it wrong and haven't incorporated the latest recitation ethnomusicology. Fortunately, Professor Khan's work on early pronunciation has been accurate; but I'm working with Dr. Sophia Pitcher and Prof. Miranda Crowdus to link a Linguistic understanding of Biblical Hebrew Prosody with a comparative analysis of the Diaspora's Hebrew Cantillation traditions. My friend Isaac Treuherz is also touring the world to survey Hebrew Psalm-recitaton and hence demystify it.
"Stultíssimus sum virōrum; et sapiéntia hòminum nōn est mēcum. Non dĩdicī sapiêntiam ; et non nōvī sciéntiam sanctōrum . Quis ascèndit in caélum, atque descèndit ? quis contĩnuit spíritum, in mânibus suīs? quis colligāvit áquās, quãsi in vestīmènto? quís: susxitāvit õmnes términos têrrae? quod nōmen est è-jus et quod nōmen fīlliī êjus, sī nòstī?" -Prōverbia XXX, with non-macronned syllables with prosodic pitch-accents, being indicated (for lack of a cantillation system that be typable in a RU-vid comment)
Awesome format and acting! I’m a lowly Novus Ordo attending Catholic with little knowledge on Latin but this video kept me watching! Subscribed. Hope to learn more.
Arnold actually uses an alveolar tap (or trill, not too sure about it in german) R, like many (but not all) southern German, Swiss and Austrian speakers, but that is slowly fading and more and more just becoming a rural phenomenon. When speaking German, Arnold has a rather rural pronounciation, which obviously carried over into his english pronounciation. Not sure if his non-rhotic pronounciation also carried over from there, since the system of pronouncing Rs in german works very similarly to non-rhotic varieties of english, or if it's because up until recently, vaguely british english varieties (certainly non-rhotic and british spellings like colour) were exclusively taught in most of Europe.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Totally. I think Ecclesiastical has its place in opera (or music in general) because to certain people (incl. me) is has more sonically pleasant phonetic qualities.
In Romania, most of us study Latin in school at some point. I was taken aback by the pronunciation of some words as it is different from what I learned in school. I was curious if it had to do with some 'new wave' of spoken Latin or something like that? I don't think I was aware of it until I came across your videos. E.g. I would pronounce 'facere' as 'fah-che-reh' instead of 'fah-ke-reh' and 'aquila' as 'ahk-vee-la' instead of 'ahk-wee-la'. P.S. I love your Latin and your online content! It's an absolutely amazing idea to promote this beautiful language the way you're doing it. Greetings from APVLVM, my hometown, which was the largest Roman castrum located in Romania and the seat of the XIII Gemina Legion.
Ecclesiastical Latin always seemed like the one I should learn, as I want to read the scripts of Irish Saints(pre-schism), and perhaps write a bit of Latin using Insular Latin script, which I use to write Irish in the form of Cló Gaelach, as script descended of Insular Latin script.
Ciao Luke! I've got an idea for a potential video that could be interesting, it seems (according to some of the best studies) that Sardinian is the most conservative romance language. So why not do an experiment in Sardegna (isola davvero meravigliosa) as you did in Rome to see if people understand latin! It could be great to see as there would be only 8% of evolution or differences between the two! Keep on doing what you do, your channel is a beautiful bet !
I like your post modern approach where your true American aviator personality is 'subjectly right' while Cleeze is 'subjectly wrong' @06:41 . I studied Latin from High School back in 1965+ and it was Classical Only ! Yet, as a Christian, I used the Vulgate to memorize vocabulary. That was a good example of 'wrong' Latin that you chose, but it was Jerome's slavish translation of the Greek New Testament that guided his translation which in turn was a slavish Aramaic use of 'quia' in that sentence. Anyway ! I read 99% Cleeze Latin daily and your explanation of it is 100%. I even prefer your Cleeze moustache over da udder guy! Thanks !
Scimus verum esse. = Classical Scimus quia verum esse. = Ecclesiastical Iskimus que est veru. = Sardinian. Sabemos que es verdad. = Spanish Sappiamo che è vero. = Italian I have always preferred Classical Latin's pronunciation. Ecclesiastical Latin sounds way too much like Italian, I could see why normal people would believe Italian would sound like Latin, thereby be closer to it. When we all know that Sardinian is the closest to how Classical Latin.
What to say if I preferred to learn vulgar Latin as spoken in the fourth century? But is it possible? Why? Because it was the informal Latin spoken by ordinary people just before Romance language began to appear.
You should read "Minus, lapsus et mordicus" from Henriette Walter who seems to have a quite different point de vue. "Henriette Walter (b. Henriette Saada, 5 March 1929 in Sfax, Tunisia) is a French linguist, emeritus professor of French at the University of Rennes 2, and director of the Phonology Laboratory at the École pratique des hautes études at the Sorbonne. She is known for both her specialized academic work and her popular linguistics publications". But I agree with you that saying that I would prefer learn the informal latin of the IV ou V century would be more correct.
JN Adams is more current and covers vulgar or informal Latin in much greater detail and with more linguistic rigor. The point regrettably is that it’s not something you can learn; it would be a conlang. The best you can do is master of the style of the Vulgate Bible
@@polyMATHY_Luke Using just accusative and nominal case with prepositions and articles? Like something in this sentence "E(g)o parlo (il)la lingua(m) latina(m). By the way, what do you think of Lodge R. Anthony who wrote a book intitle "Le français" and present the evolution to proto-roman from popular latin?
Weird how Romanian is usually ignored in these conversations although it is about 85% pure Latin. If you only considered the most used 3000 words, it's most likely closer to 90%.
To be honest, Ecclesiastical latin sounds more beautifully and gracefully to me. I want to study latin in italian tradition. I don't like weni widi wiki😂😂😂 I would like to follow the way pope pius 10th offered. Just a taste...no more debating.
papae! magis magisque optimus "praesentator" et histrio fis! Quid autem nobis respondendum est? Scilicet est maximi momenti linguam omnibus esse discendam Latinam!
Mark McCummins I am a traditional Latin mass Catholic. I am a certified Latin teacher. A little note to all. St. Augustine, a Father of the Church, knew the Latin of his time - classical Latin. If by the Will of God that I am ever hired to teach again, I will teach classical - and Latin IV will study Augustine.
Honestly, unless I was unimaginably lucky so far, apart from a couple hard-chargers in either camp, everyone's been pretty chill about pronunciation. I attended classes where all students used the one they liked the most (and there was something innately Polish about hearing 4 variants in a group of 6), and never had anyone blow their gasket about it. My teacher put the reasons/etiquette really well: 1. Learn/use whichever you like, but learn it well and be consistent. 2. If you can, fit your pronunciation to your interlocutor's/listeners', especially if you're the more advanced speaker/writer. 3. If you can, use the pronunciation that fits the period the most, AKA don't pretend your *preference* is a one-size-fits-all solution for two and a half bloody millennia Latin had to evolve. 4. Just be happy you have someone to speak with instead of looking for trouble/divide.
The only thing I disagree with is #3. Metrical texts of course require certain pronunciation, but for the most part any literature can be enjoyed using any pronunciation. There's absolutely no need to change pronunciation for every author or period.
@@Philoglossos There's no *need*, but it doesn't hurt to try. Kinda like 'Football Hooligan' or Brummie accent won't hurt your ability to appreciate Shakespeare, but it doesn't mean there's no merit in making an effort for more period-authentic sound.
@@dylutant I think in most cases it does hurt to try. The point of learning Latin is to have largely unimpeded access to 2,000+ years of literature, but the reality is that Latin pronunciation differed drastically throughout that time. It was in constant evolution based on time and place until the 9th century, and then after the carolingian reform it was brought back in line with the spelling, but was rapidly adapted to the spelling and phonology of every local vernacular language, which of course then continued to evolve. It would immensely hurt my reading of, say, Isidore, if I could only read him by reconstructing his 7th century southern Iberian pronunciation. And then if I want to read something written in 15th century England, should I first learn to pronounce 15th century English so that I can then accurately use the author's pronunciation when reading Latin? Of course not. If you have a particular interest in reconstructing 15th century anglo latin pronunciation I think that's wonderful, but it's of less than zero relevance to most readers. The whole point of Latin is that one size fits all - one grammar, one vocabulary, one pronunciation. If you learn that, you get to read everything, and the differences in style/vocab/grammar you can largely pick up along the way. The case of Shakespeare is like the example I previously gave of Latin metrical texts - the sound is part of the composition of the literature, and so it's worthwhile to reconstruct a more period accurate pronunciation. But surely nobody would say that I can't read Tolkien unless I learn to copy his accent! An accent nerd may enjoy such an enterprise, but there's no point in recommending it to every American or Australian or Scot who wants to read the lord of the rings.
@@Philoglossos What about 'try to' is so ambiguous to you? Because, for whatever reason, you equate 'try to make an effort *if you can*' with whatever you're trying to exaggerate my words into. 'Cause I certainly didn't say you can't appreciate, or even read, X author of Y period from Z country if you can't do their accent/pronunciation, but you decided to read it another way altogether. I don't appreciate hyperbole in place of argument. Read with comprehension and good will, or go argue with someone else. If you felt offended by my example, sorry, but it wouldn't change my point if I placed equally ill-fitting RP instead of Brummie.
It’s a pronunciation model of a language. Unfalsifiable. Predicting the past is not difficult, requires effort, more likely involving overfitting of data points. Predicting the future is difficult, and it will never have to predict a new Romance language, so it’s a purely academic exercise.
Well, for me , classical Latin sounds more original. Despite that, ecclesiastical Latin sounds prettier but the "new" phonemes apparently copied and pasted directly from Italian, well... It's like a successfully cloned mammoth, but thanks to a huge chunk of DNA from a indian elephant
could you do a video about late latin literature, for example in the Renaissance and in the 19th Century. If you want I can point you to some documents, one I would love to see you look at is Issac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis.
I'm 100% biased and subjective. I prefer Ecclesiastical because the Traditional Latin Mass is what got me to fall in love with Latin, and so I adore the pronunciation of it. Also I'm Italian and so Ecclesiastical is much easier. But of course, as Cleesey said, de gustibus..... Interesting history regarding how Alcuin's standardization made Latin a "dead" language. I wonder of this could have eventually happened with the various Greek dialects had multiple Hellenophone states developed around the same time. Though I assume there were more similarities between the Greek dialects of the time than between Latin and the budding Romance languages?
The comparison with Greek is apt: Modern Greek is naturally just as different from Ancient Greek as Italian from Latin, just as the Proto-Italian of 800 AD was quite different from Classical Latin; nevertheless, there was never an impetus to distinguish them in the Greek world, leading Greeks to the mistaken conclusion that AG and MG are the same language.
This is awesome. I watched the video first before reading the comments. I laughed out loud at the Lion King line and "Quanti ani hai?" (Thanks to your 'Life of Brian' breakdown!) It's also a good lesson in debating. That's something that has been lost in the UK school system. That lesson makes it even more funny with the line "I am subjectively right and you're subjectively wrong."
Thanks, Rhydian! I’ve never written a dialogue or a debate like this before, but it was enjoyable supporting both sides, showcasing what I believe to be fallacies as well as important facts often overlooked or unknown.
As I become increasingly enamoured with your channel, here is an interesting observation: My love for Latin stems from my time at school here in Austria where I had six years of Latin *and* my Latin teacher was hands down the best teacher I've ever had - a combination of very demanding, but also capable of really conveying her passion for the subject to the students. The pronunciation we learnt, was, for want of a better word, the "German flavour of ecclesiastical pronunciation". Like this (highlighting the differences to both classical and ecclesiastical): Aurea prima sata'st *ä* tas, ku *ä* (or even: k *vä* ) vindi *ts* e nullo Sponte sua sine le *g* e (the g pronounced as in German, not as in Italian) fidem rectum *kv* e (or *ku* e) colebat. My parents who are from Switzerland (both from protestant cantons) had learnt it this way in 1960s Switzerland: Aurea prima sata'st *ä* tas, ku *ä* vindi *k* e nullo ... etc. (so the consonants: classical, the diphthongs: ecclesiastical) My 10-year old daughter will start Latin at school in a bit more than three years, I'm already curious what she will be taught. The language nerd and history buff in me really prefers classical pronunciation, but I have to admit: The few videos in which you interview people from the Vatican using ecclesiastical pronunciation are really easy to follow for me without subtitles or pausing the video (it may also help that I speak fluent Italian), but when you speak with classical pronunciation, I have to either pause the video all the time and re-process what you just said or use the subtitles. So the argument I can see for ecclesiastical pronunciation is that it is much easier to understand for people like me who just happened to learn Latin at school because they are from a country in which Latin is still very much part of the curriculum in our equivalent of high school. However, I personally find the classical pronunciation much richer and more beautiful.
