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07-15-2019, 08:28 PM
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There's an old argument that Dante more or less invented Italian. I've also been told by Italians, FWIW, that there's no point speaking the language unless you do it like Dante.
Your booklet sounds nice.
Cheers,
John
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07-15-2019, 08:34 PM
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Join Date: May 2016
Location: Boston, MA
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Yeah, John, it seems like it might be what the doctor ordered.
Here it is, if anyone is interested.
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07-16-2019, 12:18 AM
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Thanks for that Andrew. It's interesting that Italians learn Latin with the ecclesiastical not the classical pronunciation. Pronunciation rules for Latin are the same as for Italian, very different from how it's studied in American universities. I already loved Dante before I lived in Italy, but what really blew my mind was hearing my semi-illiterate neighbor in Orvieto (a dear friend, who died not long ago) talking like the characters in the Divine Comedy. That set off an excitement in me that has never let up.
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07-16-2019, 11:31 AM
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The French learn Latin the same way. Not sure about German speakers, but I believe English is an outlier. It's a reminder that Latin was a living language, more or less, in Catholic countries for a good deal longer than in Protestant ones.
Cheers,
John
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07-16-2019, 11:51 AM
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Right. Those who spoke the descendent languages of Latin called it a variety of things, most including a variation of the word "roman." Something like "lingua romana rustica" was common until sometime around Dante's De vulgari eloquentia.
My understanding is that every language group began pronouncing Latin closer to their vernaculars pretty early.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Germans, though, also do the reconstructed pronunciation. The influence of Catholicism was much stronger in France/Italy/Spain.
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07-16-2019, 03:47 PM
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I was going to speculate - Germany has been half-Catholic since the Thirty Years War if not earlier - but then thought I'd just post a link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_..._pronunciation
Cheers :-)
John
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07-16-2019, 05:46 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
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Michael Francis of the Mainly Mozart Festival insists that we sing the Austro-German pronunciation of Latin, since Mozart was Austrian. I go bonkers trying to remember that "pacem" is "pah-tsem" instead of "pa-chem," that "S"s are pronounced as "Z"s before vowels ("Sanctus" is "Zahnc-tooss"), and that "G"s and "T"s are always hard ("gratias agimus" is "grah-tee-ahss a-ghee-moos"). CANNOT...COMPUTE....
In the San Diego Master Chorale, we also occasionally sing the French pronunciation of Latin (e.g., when we sing Charpentier), but that's not so hard for me to adjust to from the more familiar (to me) Italianate pronunciation. The Austro-German stuff really makes my head hurt.
Last edited by Julie Steiner; 07-16-2019 at 05:51 PM.
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07-16-2019, 06:36 PM
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I would imagine that's how Pope Benedict says his Latin. Patzem is kind of funny.
Cheers,
John
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07-16-2019, 07:38 PM
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I just remembered that Orff's Carmina Burana uses a German-influenced Latin pronunciation, too. I haven't sung that in ages.
Returning to Italian--it wasn't until I started studying Italian with an audio component (via Rosetta Stone software) that I finally understood the principle underlying Latin quantitative meters. The difference between the pronunciation of "sete" (thirst) and "sette" (seven) is the amount of time that you stay on the syllable before the double consonant. Time-based long syllables had always seemed to me like a purely intellectual exercise in Latin, until I was forced to pay attention to them in Italian. Now the concept is much more intuitive to me, even though I'm still more stress-biased.
Last edited by Julie Steiner; 07-16-2019 at 07:47 PM.
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07-16-2019, 08:27 PM
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Yeah, the double consonant is fundamental to Italian, isn't it? German is also a great language to write hexameters in. It may be that the best translation of Homer into a modern European language is still Voss, from about 1790.
Cheers,
John
Update: though I know Aaron P is partial to Pope.
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