Pronunciation Guide – Ecclesiastical Latin
Since English borrowed its alphabet from Latin, the pronunciation of individual Latin letters is close to that of English. The differences are mainly the vowels and a few consonants.
VOWELS
In singing, the distinction of long and short vowels is lost:
The distinction between a short or a long A in spoken Ecclesiastical Latin is how long the vowel is actually pronounced. The long A is simply held longer than a short A, Ahhhhhhh versus ah.
Long | Short | In Singing: reduced long/short distinction |
A as in father | A as in Dinah | A as in father |
EH as in they | E as in met or pet | EH sound as in met, pet |
I as in machine | I as in pit or hit | I as in machine |
O as in note | O as in ought | O tends toward the long as in note |
U as in rude (oo sound) | U as in put | OO sound as in tutor, coo |
CONSONANTS
Consonants are generally “hard” (examples: CH = K sound as in the English “ache”, R = slightly rolled or “flipped”; S is never “z”; Z = dz), BUT —
H = silent except the medial H in words like mihi, nihil, when it has a K or softened K sound
Some consonants take a hard sound before some vowels and a soft sound before other vowels:
These consonants are hard before a, o, u, au | And these are soft consonants before e, i, ae, oe,: |
C = k sound as in cot | C = ch as in chain |
CC = kk sound as in accord | CC = tch as in catchy |
SC = sk as in tabasco | SC = sh as in sheep |
XC = normal KS C as in ex con | KSH (common example: excelsis =ekshelsees |
G = g as in go | G = soft g as in gentle |
| GN = “ni” as in onion, nyet (consonental ny sound) |
| TI – when followed by a third vowel becomes a “tsee” sound, as in tsetse fly exception: pron. “tee” when preceded by S, T, or X |
Sometimes one will see a “j” in Latin. Technically Latin has no letter J. It was introduced in the 13th century or thereabouts to differentiate between the vowel i and the consonant i. The consonantal i is like our y. “Major” in Latin is pronounced as MAH-yor. Until this last century, most printed Latin texts used the j to indicate the different sounds. Today the j’s are usually replaced with the more classical i’s.
DIPHTHONGS / 2 DIFFERENT VOWELS TOGETHER
ae – as “ay” in say |
au – not a diphthong : ah-oo as in house |
oe – as “ay” in say |
eu – not a diphthon: pronounced eh-oo |