Is anyone good with latin pronounciation? When I was at school, the last two lines of the school song had 'Vivat' in them. When I first went, it was sung Vievat. Over the years it went over to being Veevat. I hear that now someone has sdecreed both those are wrong, and they now sing Weewat. The song also has Viget (which we used to sing veejet) which has been changed to Wiget (sung weeget). So...who is right?!

Not much help but as a student I shared a house with three people who had learnt latin at school; one had been at school in England, one at school in France and one at school in Germany and they had all been taught a different way of pronouncing latin words.

a friend of mine entered a lot of Latin speaking competitions when we were at school and the teacher made her 'perform' in front of the class.... words starting with v were pronounced w, so villa was willa etc. Also r's were sort of rolled as they are in French, although not to the same extent. Not sure if that's any help but said friend did win rather a lot of these competitions.........

Classical Latin pronounces v as w, hence Viget sounding as Weeget (and I'd put a hard g in there too).

But church Latin pronounces the v as v, so if you listen to the Queen's coronation Vivat regina, is pronounced Vyvat regina with a soft g as in Reggie.

Don't know if that's any help.

Trying to think back a couple of decades I seem to remember that v was pronounced w and c was always hard hard in Latin lessons/speaking competitions (what was the point in those???) but v and soft if considering 'church' Latin.

This has always been my feeling on the matter...

I agree that classical Latin is "w" for a v, and "c" is hard, so Cicero is "kickero" and no "sissero".

Modern pronunciation of church Latin is Italianate in style (historically, English, French and German all pronounce differently and differently at different points in time as well).

So, thinking Parry.... Vivat is "vyvat" and Regina - the "e" is short and a bit like a French e accute so the "reg" is nearer to "veg" but with a sort of "ray" so "ray-jine-a" but they ray is short.

Brings us to a wider question, which is - can the speakers of church Latin understand each other, no matter what their national origins?
We were taught w for the written v, and a hard c, modern Italian would, if I remember rightly, use v for the written v, and a hard c in front of some vowels, but ch for the "softening" vowels. It's a while since I heard German pronunciation of Latin, but from what I remember of my mum's protestations at the 'orrible sound of my school Latin, I suspect that will be different again....and so on. I also remember hearing a slightly manic-sounding priesty person of American origin talking about how he was having to invent Latin versions of modern concepts, giving chewing gum (gomma masticandum, I think) as an example, in order that they really could go on talking Latin in the Vatican.

One thing I do know: the single vowels are likely to have been "pure" - ie not diphthonged the way one tends to do for many vowel sounds in English, thus vivat would be weewat or veevat, not vyvat or wywat....

Our choir uses various different pronunciations, based on where the composer lived. It has left me very confused.

I don't think anyone spoke Latin the way it was written, a bit like Welsh today, hence the difference between Italian, Romanian, Portuguese etc. in fact Romanian is closer to Latin than any of the others. On the other hand the difference between posh and not can, according to some, be identified with the pronunciation of Cicero (posh with a hard 'c')!

One of my chums is a classics/Latin teacher with a Very Big Brain. She say church/sung Latin does use different pronounciation to spoken Latin. If that helps?

Piggo Piggere Snorty Gruntum - the irregular verb to eat too much

Pig-Bag x

The MD of one of my choirs is quite firm with Latin that vowels (as in vivat) that we do not put the diphthong in - i.e. pure vowel and omit the "twist" of the diphthong at the end (usually the "..ye" or "yuh" sound). So vivat would have an "I" (as in Scots "aye") but no "yuh" on the end.

For reasons I won't bore you with, I was having lunch in a refectory (a bit of a clue) one day when I realised that the clerical gentlemen nearby were conversing in Latin.

Listening to the current pope speaking Latin is interesting as he is German. His pronunciation is slightly different as he does the Germanic thing of putting a "v" in words like "que" which in English Latin is pronounced "kway" (e.g. atque or terra marique). Benedict pronounces it as "kvay".

That's what my Latin teacher taught me too.

Surely Wiget is pronounced "widget"?

I may suggest that

Think you have some good replies, SG.
However - before I switch off -

Caesar adsum jam forte
Brutus adarat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Brutus sic inat.

I thangyou.

I've always reckoned there were three latins: Kickero latin (classical as taught in school ever since I was doing it), Tchitchero Latin, which is church latin and more or less conforms to the pronunciation of Italian in this country, but is different again in both France and Germany, and Sissero Latin which is the old-fashioned "pronounce it like it looks" type - is this what is used in legal Latin? I have a suspicion that the pronunciation is a bit like what used to be taught in schools in classical Greek, but I couldn't swear to it, never having done Classical Greek.

Recordings of Parry's "I was glad" from the coronation have this thrilling sound of the boys of Eton College singing Vivat Regina. I'm not sure if it was just the choir or all of them (at least all those who could sing) but it's a slightly unpolished and ghloriously full-throated roar. And it's definitely Vyvat Rej-eye - na (to rhyme with China) Elizabeetha.

In my first term at university we had a joint concert with a visiting student choir from Germany, and the mix of languages was great; we sang Oh Clap Your Hands Together in English, Komm Jesu Komm in German, an anthem by Peter Phillips called Ecce Vicit Leo - which the Germans found extremely funny to sing in "our" as they didn't usually sing Etchay Veechit but Etsay Veetsit; then we finished off with the Pergolesi Stabat Mater in German Latin which we had to learn specially. All great fun.

I'm not sure I'd sanction singing the Faure requiem with a British choir in Britain with French Latin, though. ("sonk-tewss", pardon my approximation)

I've heard that before, but not for ages!


I think it must be. I was really surprised when I found out that lawyers pronounce sine die exactly as written, so that it sounds as if they hate trigonometry!

I remember a female Latin teacher at oour school becoming very frustrated with a boy who couldn't bring himself to say a particualr word in Latin. I think she was so used to it that she couldn't hear herself saying "Come on, don't be silly, just say it! CAUSAS! Cow's ****! Cow's ****!" while the rest of the class stifled their giggles.

I know the Hungarians definitely pronounce Latin quite differently.






Bag and Mag

Anyway, now we've been all round Europe at least, on the subject, what was the reason for your question S_G - do you have a particular piece in mind?

Do let us know what pronunciation you've decided to use!

That wouldn't be Gaudeamus Igitur by any chance? If so, I used to have to sing that at school as well - with all v's pronounced as w's.

Our copy of Gaudeamus Igitur was in a German songbook, when I was a kid. We therefore sang it "in German" .

It was only much later that I came to realise it was a mainstay of the German universities fraternity system, and as such somewhat suspect...

A bit of digging seems to show it's quite widespread around Europe and also Ivy League USA and elsewhere.

Charliebus sittibus,
On the deskinorum.
Deskibus collapsibus,
Charlie on the floorum.

I got 'B' in GCSE Latin, using the legendary Cambridge Latin course...

(and was told to pronounce 'v' like a 'w')...

No, that was the girls' grammar across the other side of the hedge

Actually, if you pronounce the "i" in "vivat" as the Scottish "aye", it's still a dipthong and not "pure". It's not the "ye" or "yuh" twist at the end that turns it into a dipthong. Even the "purer" "aye" sound is produced by a combination of vowel sounds - starts as as an a and ends as an i (ee), so a dipthong. Pure would be "veevat" (or "weewat"). As far as I know, the pronounciation of "i" as "aye" (dipthongisation) is an idiosyncracy of English speakers.

I'm with anacrusis on this one.

Caecilius est pater
Metella est mater
Quintus est filius
Clemens est servus
Grumio est coquus
Cerberus est canis....

We were a bit more old-fashoned: Labienus posuit vastum ad urbem - Labienus was always laying waste to something or other...

We did eventually get to "quidquid id est, timeo danaos et dona ferentes" from the Aeniad*, but the Cambridge Latin course was the most ghastly language course I've ever had the misfortune to come across - the story lines were, I suppose, quite cute, but as a method of teaching a language, somewhat dire. They were having to cope with teaching it to a generation which hadn't been taught English grammar, I guess, but it felt very dumbed down to be taught about Form A and Form B (nominative and accusative) in secondary school when we'd already been taught the proper grammatical terms in Latin lessons in primary school .

*in case anyone is even vaguely impressed that I can remember that quotation - I only do so because it cropped up in Asterix in Rome .

They're the ones! With strange lines above some of the vowels...

I suspect the Danae are a bit short of lucre for gift bearing....

The Cambridge course was after my time. I started Latin at 11 and it was compulsory to O Level. Old-fashioned approach using Kennedy's Shorter Latin Primer (published in 1866) plus the written work of Caesar, Cicero, Pliny etc.

When I encountered the Cambridge course a few years ago I was appalled at its lack of content.

The strange thing is, I wasn't a classicist at school. As I've got older I've realised how useful it was and how important it is to the understanding of language. I'm now of the opinion that it ought ot be compulsory!

were your copies, like ours, universally defaced to "Shortbread Eating Primer"?

We did De Bello Gallico I which begins "The whole of Gaul is quartered into three halves"

I recently discovered Ovid's Amores* which is wonderful

*OK, it's in translation, but at least it's a parallel text so I can look at the original and wonder if there re completely different ways of interpreting what must be slightly contorted Latin i order to scan

All I can remember about our Latin was that faced with the alternatives for O level of "Caesar's battles" or Bede's History of the British people (or something similar), we, being all girls in a girls' grammar, voted forcefully for Bede.

Our Latin mistress (who looked the part, complete with pebble glasses and generally peering expression - and who could not understand that our lives didn't revolve around Latin declensions) was quite upset. Apparently, the "Caesar's battles" would have been in good, proper, classical Latin, whereas Bede had apparently mangled the Latin a bit.

That is roughly what my Latin teacher thought of he Cambridge course. She rescued a set of an oldfashioned textbook that another school was going to bin. She then did a took the approach of teaching us the English grammar before the Latin version. We felt slightly hard done by as it was a lot more work than the other teacher's group had to do but with hindsight it was the right way to teach me. My French improved massively as well when my teacher was swapped from one who used the 'this is the phrase than means' approach to a much more grammar based approach. I'm sure it's not right for everyone but it suited my mindset.

Our best ever Latin lesson was in 1964, my O-level year, and our new teacher (the second while I'd been at that school, and determined that he was going to have us enjoy the lessons) walked in and said "OK, I'm going to write some sentences on the board and we're going to work out together how we put them in Latin"

If there were any silent groans they were soon eliminated and then turned to cheers. His first word was Cassius. You have to be over 60 now to have got this one already,

Cassius said he was the greatest.
He said he would float like a butterfly and sting like a bee
If he got sore, he would get him in four.
and so on

Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston in six rounds and later that year changed his name to Muhammad Ali

Thanks, Mr Redston, that was one of the most memorable lessons in all my time at that school. He hadn't prepared the answers, we worked it out together, which showed us that we could do what he could do

Have just googled : the Cambridge Latin Course is still going...

I look a bit like the Latin mistress, then - pebble glasses and peering expression.....

My primary school was odd, and gave us the option of learning Latin rather than do hymn practice: my atheistic tendencies having already surfaced by then, I jumped at the chance to get out of the latter. I even went in on Saturday mornings to do more - at least until Saturday gymnastics started for me, at which point I elected to go for the pain and suffering of bending and stretching muscles into extreme positions rather than that of brain-cudgelling.

I do think though that such Latin as I learned later was in spite of and not because of the Cambridge course. I really am so lucky to be bilingual (thanks, mum): it's given me a degree of flexibility when it comes to languages in general, and I love looking for the links between words in different languages. I do wish though that British schools would start teaching languages much earlier - we're already handicapped by our pronunciation of sounds, in particular our diphthongised vowels, which make it harder for us to get our heads round trying to speak European languages: the later language teaching is left, the more difficult that becomes to do well. Having more than one language, if they're related tongues, helps us to acquire a better vocabulary in both: I can guess the meanings of words from their roots fairly readily through having German and English, and having learned French and Latin at school. I read Chaucer without much difficulty, where my classmates struggled along with a glossary: I also had a much easier job of learning anatomy and medical terminology than many of my colleagues did.

So Clemens est in horto, Clemens in horto laborat still..... and no doubt Cogidubnus is still in his palace in Fishbourne, rambling through the gardens full of Acanthus, and walking over the hypocaust-warmed Boy on a Dolphin mosaic indoors......

I do agree about schools introducing languages much earlier, and I share your fascination with languages, anacrusis.

This whole Latin thing is amusing just now: one of my students is Head of Classics at a nearby school, and is on a trip to Pompeii with a group of pupils at the moment. He posted a photo on FB yesterday which he said would ring bells with anyone who had learned Latin with the old Cambridge Latin Course.

I sadly wasn't able to do Latin at school beyond the first year or two, because of timetabling clashes. I regularly sing in church Latin though, which goes some way to keeping the interest alive.

Having seen a pic of you performing I have to say you look nothing like our Latin mistress! You're much more elegant and with-it.

Chaucer was another success at O level and possibly the Latin helped. I was sincerely happy that we just had the Prologue to the Canterbury tales to learn, because I'm absolutely hopeless at learning who wrote what poem and was dreading having to learn a selection of poems and their authors. (I have similar difficulties with who wrote what pieces, except I've developed a few strategies to help over the years. )

It was one of our 'college songs' at university! Just been digging around and found the German version too.

I've always found the words unbearably poignant.

Tenor Viol - I also think the learning of Latin should be compulsory. It grieves me that my boys didn't learn it in school; instead they have had to put up with me pointing out at regular intervals: That's from the Latin 'paganus', or whatever!

Anacrusis and Maggiemay: languages fascinate me also (my studies were in German/Latin, then history of German/English/French/Teutonic languages etc (including Gothic!)



(still not learnt how to quote more than one reply in a post though!!)

There's a quote button on all posts, click on it and it'll turn red. Then click 'reply' and all the red-clicked posts will be quoted in your reply window

aw, thank you....
*informs daughter, who looks sceptical *
Myopia meant that the viewing distance required for a book was always going to make reading the most attractive occupation for me - so authors I remember, but am appalling with faces instead. For music there are biiiig gaps, an inevitable consequence of playing a largely baroque repertoire.

Languages help with musical terminology too, of course

Actually, not all lawyers do. I've commonly heard it pronounced "sign-y dye" - when it's used at all. Lord Woolf was rather agin the use of Latin, and most of the old Latin phrases used in court proceedings have been replaced with rather dull English terminology since his reforms of the court procedure rules.... sic transit and all that....

Ha! "Grumio est in culina" If only I knew then how useful it would be later in life I'd have tried a little harder, possibly!



Prima facie is the one that makes me laugh. Most acknowledge it's stupid to have these archaic phrases and say 'preema fay-see' but there's always one who asserts authority with 'preema fakee-yah'!

In my day we used Civis Romanus and its companion, Mentor.


Feci! (I did it) !! Thanks, b-c.

Ah! Civis Romanus rings a bell. Probably a year 8 bell.

I remember Civis Romanus. The copies we had were ancient and had, at some earlier stage of their lives, been vandalised by changing the Ci to El and the us to ic. Just about every book in the class set had been treated the same way.

Gosh - we weren't quite that inventive in our comprehensive school! Mind you, we were taught Latin by the Headmaster, who put the fear of God into us.

But is there a way to quote posts from different pages? If there is, I haven't fathomed it out yet.