Talk:Latin/Lesson 2

Untitled
From the article: " whilst many pronouns can be modified to indicate case (who versus whose) or gender (he versus she, his versus hers)" -- Shouldn't this be "who versus whom"? Also, "whilst" is a little archaic for non-native speakers.


 * The example is correct, who, he and she are nominative case, and whose, and hers are genitive case.Gaius Calvus 12:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know if "whilst" is considerd archaic, where I come from (Worcestershire) it is still commonplace.Gaius Calvus 12:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It's commonplace in the UK, but considered archaic in the US. I don't know what its usage is like in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, etc ... --Bazzalisk (discuss • contribs) 16:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me if I'm not doing this correctly, but should there be a mention of the different pronunciations? As in c pronounced softly and so on?

Warning: This grammar introduction (particularly the part at the end about adjectives taking such-and-such declension) is extremely confusing for a novice. Are adjectives just repurposed nouns? Do adjectives have separate declensions? Also, referring to 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. declension endings is extremely confusing for new folk when it's done without reference to an example. It would be clearer to say "First declension adjectives modifying masculine nouns take first declension endings (-a, -am....)" instead. This is of particular concern given that the introduction is perforce dedicated to new learners. I would make these changes myself, but I feel I should probably learn Latin first before making substantive edits :)

Pronunciation of 'all' Latin letters would be appreciated, even the ones that are supposed to be similar to English. That doesn't tell me a lot.

Pronunciation
Which version of the Classical pronunciation is followed here? I currently know of FOUR different ideas of what the Classical pronunciation is supposed to sound like. Each one is supported by different groups of universities but they are far from unified. The only thing they agree on is that you should not use the Catholic Pronunciation but I do not see the reasoning behind this. The Catholic pronunciation makes perfect sense to me, I can do that without having to stop and repronounce every word. When the Pope gives a speach he uses the Catholic pronunciation and he is the only one I know of who is giving speaches in Latin these days. If I want to understand what the Pope is saying then I need to know the Catholic pronunciation right? Please do not tell me that the real reason the Classical pronunciation exist is because of Anti-Catholicism. If we really know how the Ancients spoke Latin then how come there are FOUR different rule sets, each claiming to be the 100% correct form?

Diphthongs?
I was taught that ae, oe and au were the only diphthongs, yet it says 'The dipthong "ae" is pronounced as the "ai" in "aisle". The dipthong "au" is pronounced "ow". The dipthong "oe" is pronounced "oy" in "boy". The dipthong "eu" is pronounced as "eh-oo" The dipthong "ou" is pronounced "oo". The dipthong "ui" is pronounced "we".'. I'm definetly sure that ui is not a diphthong, or "fuit" would be a monosyllable, and ou seems suspicious too... Are there any objections to the removal of those?
 * &lt;ae, &lt;oe>, and &lt;au> are the only phonemic diphthongs as far as I know; however, &lt;ViV> is realised as [Vi̯.jV], so while &lt;ui> in &lt;fuit> /fu.it/ [fʊ.ɪt] is two separate vowels, the &lt;ui> in &lt;cuius> /ˈkuj.jus/ [ˈkʊi̯.jʊs] contains a phonetic diphthong. It’s possible that some Greek loanwords containing &lt;ου> were borrowed with &lt;ου> represented as &lt;ou>, and was pronounced /uː/ in educated speech, although that would be a digraph rather than a diphthong. I’ve read that in Greek loanwords, s between vowels are geminated, so &lt;eu> could possibly be realised as [eu̯.w], but I’m sceptical of that. -Apatora (discuss • contribs) 00:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Letter C
In the text say that the letter C is always hard. I don´t think so, ´Cause when we say for example Regina Caeli: is "Sh-ai-l-y" and not : K-ai-l-y. Excuse me for I Speak spanish. Pax et Bonum!--R Católico (talk) 14:42, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Odd Example
In what pronunciation is the English word "odd" pronounced part way between "ah" and "uh"? It's pronounced with the most definite 'o' I can think of in RP.

--Bazzalisk (discuss • contribs) 16:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The Letter Q
In your letter pronunciation guide, there's no mention of the proper pronunciation of the letter 'Q'. Seems important since it's not always a universal pronunciation. Knowing Spanish makes me assume it's like a hard C, but I imagine it may be more like the English |ku|.

--BrianCole100 20:47, 07 June 2012 (MST)

Edits to vowel sounds
Hi there, I hope it's ok to say but a couple of the examples here of Latin vowels seem a bit old fashioned, in that they point towards approximations rather than more Mediterranean sounding vowels. I think these could be improved. Wiktionary has some great Classical pronunciation audio, the examples there would give some indication of what I mean. These are listed here; for example fēmina the e sound is here said to be like "hay"; but the Wiktionary example is clearly a flatter "eh" sound, rather than a dipthong. Similarly i's are a less flat sound than English "hit".

I think it would also be helpful to suggest that Italian and Spanish give a general sense of the likely sound and cadence, more than than English or German for instance. (Thus if your Latin sounds like English, then it's probably not quite right!) JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 15:51, 4 April 2019 (UTC)