§8. Pronunciation
The so-called Roman Pronunciation of Latin aims to represent approximately the pronunciation of classical times.
| VOWELS: ā as in father; | ă as in idea. |
| ē as eh? (prolonged), or a in date; | ĕ as eh? (clipped) or e in net. |
| ī as in machine; | ĭ as in holiest or sit. |
| ō as in holy; | ŏ as in obey. |
| ū as oo in boot; | ŭ as oo in foot. |
| y between u and i (French u or German ü). |
| DIPHTHONGS: ae like ay; | ei as in eight; | oe like oy in boy; |
| eu as eh'oo; | au like ow in now | ui as oo'ee. |
Consonants are the same as in English, except that—
- c and g are as in come, get, never as in city, gem.
- s as in sea, lips, never as in ease.
- Consonant i is like y in young; v (consonant u) like w in wing.
- n in the combinations ns and nf probably indicates nasalization of the preceding vowel, which was also lengthened; and final m in an unaccented syllable probably had a similar nasalizing effect on the preceding vowel.
- ph, th, ch, are properly like p, t, k, followed by h (which may, for convenience, be neglected); but ph probably became like (or nearly like) f soon after the classical period, and may be so pronounced to distinguish it from p.
- z is as dz in adze.
- bs is like ps; bt is like pt.
J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.