latin words

[lefay82]

it's very funny how strangers can pronunciate latin....
i know it's difficoult, but for italians it's nearly the same thing as their own language (no.. we don't speak latin in everyday's life (!!!!!! fortunatly!!!!) but the fonetic is the same!!!)
so when vintersorg sings:
mens agitat molem... it sounds like he sings mens agghitat moulem.
the 'g' is soft as in 'jump' or 'just' (the most similar sound i founded in english)and not hard as in 'goal' or 'guest'
and the 'o' is open as in 'doctor' and not closed and similar to a u (like the german umlaut)

ok i know it's stupid thread!!!!

 

[Thidrek]

hmm... I don'tthink it's right what you say.
In Latin every c was spoken out as [k] and every g as [g] and it did not matter whether they stood in front of bright or dark vowels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spelling_and_pronunciation

 

[lefay82]

this is what we learn at school!!!!
gens which is the word for people or clan is gens-gentis not ghens-ghentis...
but who knows???

 

[Gaunerin]

Nobody does really know
That it appears similar to Italian to you is because the pronounication of Latin differs from country to country and is just pretty Italian in....Italy . It's noone's mothertongue, we cannot ask anybody what is 100% right or wrong...and so over the time ppl adopted things from their own langues into Latin when they learned it. Or something.

 

[lefay82]

yes but you must take present that italian comes from latin, they are very similar and have very tight relationship. some words are the same, others have the same root. latins are something like our old mothertongue.
i made an exemple before for gens-gentis: you say gente in italian.
we have a lot of experts and classicists here... their culture is our culture... latin is still the language of the church so you should listen it at the mass or at the tv during important events.
an other exemple is the altar 'ara pacis' in roma.. you should have heard of it, it's quite famous all over the world... i don't think you will call it ara pakis!!!!
anyway i've got a friend of mine (a metal-head ) who teaches is a classical high school.. i will ask him !!!
valentina

 

[Thidrek]

Spanish stems from Latin aswell and they pronunce things in a different way.
The pronunciation of nowadays Romanic languages stems from Vulgar Latin the language of the people while classical Latin was mainly used when writing or in official issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin

 

[Mantis]

I cannot but quote Thidrek who explained it very well, the pronunciation of us neo-latin country comes from vulgar latin and not from "high" latin, every "c" is pronunced as a "k" for example peole said "cena" with a c like ch in church but officially it had to be pronunced "kena" the same goes for "g" always like "g" of green and not like "g" of "George" and so on with "gn" that we pronunce like one sound but that officially was pronunced two different sound and also the "y" we pronunce it like a normal "i" but it is a "ju" sound. It's funny but the best "sayers" of latin are not we latin-offsprings, but germanic-descending countries