Schedule 73. StuTS

In one of the former StuTS I overheard the conversation of two participants talking about the pronunciation of a word in a dead language. One of them claimed that there is no point in discussing this since we cannot know the pronunciation anyways.
In one of the former StuTS I overheard the conversation of two participants talking about the pronunciation of a word in a dead language. One of them claimed that there is no point in discussing this since we cannot know the pronunciation anyways.
As a student of historical linguistics this struck me. Eventhough there always will be a phonetic insecurity, for many languages we have a good idea on how to pronounce them. This informative talk aims at explaining what methods are being employed to infer the historical pronunciation of a language. This will be done by examining the reconstructed pronunciation of Classical Latin. Across the world and the history of Latin being used, there have been many different approaches to the pronunciation of Latin. This talk will not be able to give a full overview on how to pronounce Latin, but rather focuses on how we can know. We will especially look at the pronunciation of the combination 〈gn〉, vowel nasalisation and the allophony of /l/. Clues being examined include: writing system, writing variation, meta commentary, loan words, puns and sound change. The talk concludes with an example of reconstructed Classical Latin.

This informative talk aims at explaining what methods are being employed to infer the historical pronunciation of a language, in this case Classical Latin (81 BCE – 14 CE). Nearly every country in Europe has their own system of pronouncing and teaching Latin in schools. Though they may agree sometimes, they more often vary considerably and are heavily influenced by the phonetic system of the native language being spoken in that country. The pronunciation of Latin may even vary depending of the context (e.g. in church, being sung, …).
People in Ancient Rome will certainly have pronounced Latin differently than all the aforementioned systems. Because the phonetic value of many phonemes are relatively uninteresting, this talk will focus on some of the more “surprising” features. These features will not only be presented but it will be explained why that assumption has been made. The examples include: the pronunciation of 〈gn〉 as [ŋn] because of inscriptional evidence, puns and diachronic change; the nasalisation of vowels according to spelling variants, meta commentary and loans; and allophonic variation of /l/ due to meta commentary, synchronic alternation and diachronic change.
This talk shall not only be a guide on how to pronounce Classical Latin, but also introduce some of the principles in use in historical philology and linguistics. Eventhough the exact phonetic nature of every single phoneme can never be known, after the talk it should be clear that, depending on the source material, we can come pretty close.
Some important sources:
Allen, William Sydney. 1978. VOX LATINA. A Guide to the pronunciation of Classical Latin. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cser, András. 2020. The Phonology of Classical Latin. Transactions of the Philologial Society. Supplement S1. P. 1–218.
Meiser, Gerhard. 2002. Historische Laut und Formenlehre der lateinischen Sprache. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

Info

Day: 2023-05-27
Start time: 16:25
Duration: 00:30
Room: SH 0.106
Track: Historical Linguistics

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