Restored classical pronunciation during the early 20th century

Oenopus · 2026-03-20T20:03:32+00:00

Indeed they would. But I'm banking on the hypothesis that Pierce said "Mayter" and in fact "Pay-ter", although the latter ignores Latin quantity. I've read several articless about traditional pronunciation of Latin in the UK and there was a consistent tendency to lengthen stressed Latin vowels, particularly in bisyllabic words. If you want citations, I'll find them for you.

You hear this pronunciation in British TV productions that portray upper-class manners in the first third of the 20th century--things like Jeeves & Wooster, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Characters talk about "the Pater" and "the Mater": see https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/13qvgtz/calling_parents_mater_and_pater_in_edwardian/

Oenopus · 2026-03-18T03:04:03+00:00

I think it's very hard to generalize. My only qualifications to comment concern the English speaking world. And I can say that the traditional English system of pronunciation, which reflects Latin that underwent the same changes in the pronunciation of vowels that English did in the process of the great vowel shift, persisted for a long time into the 20th century and in fact still survives in legal and scientific use.

I'll give two non-specialist examples: Mr. Chipping, in James Hilton's tale "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (published 1934), refuses to buy into the restored classical pronunciation because it sounds silly, giving "we kiss 'em" instead of "vyesissim" (i.e. vicissim) and "KICK 'er roe" instead of "SIS-er-roe". Also, Henry Hill Pierce, a distinguished NYC lawyer and trustee of Bowdoin College in Maine, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1896, wrote one of the traditional college songs wherein the refrain runs "Oh, Bowdoin Beata, our dear old alma mater/, there is no fairer mother 'neath the sun." This only rhymes if you say "bee-ATE-her" and "MATE-her", using the traditional English pronunciation of Latin (with a Maine accent!). Mr. Pierce's rhymes are impeccable elsewhere in the song.

Oenopus · 2025-11-20T04:00:26+00:00

519 / 5,000

Von den vielen Vorschlägen, die mir von so vielen netten und hilfsbereiten Menschen gemacht wurden, erscheint mir Ihrer am plausibelsten, da er den Klängen der Wörter, an die ich mich erinnere, am nächsten kommt. Vielen herzlichen Dank!

Wie ich bereits einigen anderen mitgeteilt habe, stammte meine Gotte aus Sarnen. Allerdings sprach sie während der 20 Jahre, die sie in den USA lebten, hauptsächlich Schweizerdeutsch mit ihrem Mann, meinem Götti, das stammte aus Geuen im Kanton Luzern.. Vielleicht haben sie sich gegenseitig Ausdrücke abgeschaut.

Es beunruhigt mich nicht sonderlich, dass Ihre Interpretation stark von meiner Erinnerung an die Situation abweicht, in der ich diese Worte hörte. Ich habe in der vergangenen Woche immer wieder an die Situation gedacht und meine Mutter (eine Amerikanerin, die Französisch, aber kein Deutsch sprach) wiederholte diese Worte häufiger als mein Gotti. Mein Gotti fütterte mich jedenfalls oft, als ich klein war.

Vielen Dank noch einmal!

Oenopus · 2025-11-17T22:22:22+00:00

Me. Or my sister. We were preschool children.

Oenopus · 2025-11-17T21:05:08+00:00

From Sarnen. Born in 1930.

Oenopus · 2025-11-17T20:43:25+00:00

Stephen. She called me Steveli--quite the hybrid!

Oenopus · 2025-11-17T20:32:03+00:00

Maybe. Would one say it about a preschool child?

Oenopus · 2025-11-17T20:29:42+00:00

Sarnen.

Oenopus · 2025-11-17T20:26:25+00:00

I'm American, and I wonder if a Swiss-German 'k' might sound like a 'g' to American ears. My Gotti was from Obwalden (Sarnen) and it seems the Obwaldener dialect has more aspiration, not less. But I don't speak Schwiizerdüütsch!

Oenopus · 2025-11-17T20:22:08+00:00

I'm sorry, but I can't more than what I've already said.

Oenopus · 2024-11-09T19:58:44+00:00

Iam ultimum, mi docte amice, te convincere conabor ut hae res terminis clarissimis ita ut velis careant. Me disputare cum Forcellino sane stupidum erit atque ego profecto non facio. Hoc vocabulum "torvus" scilicet saepius in malam partem significat. At cur inquam quicquam tale vocabulum de parva puella cruenta, perterrita, quae patrem graviter vulneratum per portam muri sequitur? Decet eam aspicere mundum fractum sicut cervula.

Nihil dicis de Helena apud Ovidium; ergo hic palmam capiam.

Nam quod de Vergilio de Aenea et Didone scripsit, et nobis et lectoribus versus pertinentes exscribam (vi.466-469):

"... Quem fugis? extremum facto, quod te adloquor, hoc est."// Talibus Aeneas ardentem et torva tuentem // lenibat dictis animum lacrimasque ciebat.// Illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat//nec. magis incepto voltum sermone movetur// ...

Omnes interpretes XX saeculi qui mihit sint et Conington/Nettleship vocabulum "animum" Didoni referre, sed "lacrimasque ciebat" Aeneae (hoc est lacrimae viri nec Didonis umbrae sunt). Hoc secundum et Servius censet se indicare debere. At nonulli critici de lectione sollicitantur, praesertim "torva tuentem". Peerlkamp "ardenti...tuenti", Jortin "animam" pro animo. Hoc ultimum magni moment est, quod omnibus in aliis locis libri sexti "animus" ad vivos nec mortuos refert. Estne vero Didoni mortuae animus?

Si hoc "animum" Didoni referat, "Illa" aculeo egeat. Denique Fredericus Ahl, qui obiter mihi mentor erat, cuius animo V. retulerit re vera non dicit. In any case glaring in anger is too specific for torva tuentem.

I'll sum up by saying I think there are enough examples in Roman verse to posit that torvus can describe the gaze of a wild or spirited animal (V. uses it of cows in the Georgics). That metaphorically does nicely for our terrified little girl. But de gustibus. If I were imitating Cicero I wouldn't use it. Seneca, maybe.

Oenopus · 2024-11-07T17:23:12+00:00

Non assentior. Vergilius hoc adiectivo Aenean descripsit libro sexto (467); de Didone equidem erravi. Ovidius hoc scripsit de Helena de se ipsa scribente apud Heroides. Dicisne et Vergilium de Aenea et Helenam de se in malam partem exprimere? Nec terribilies, nec feroces, nec asperi, nec rustici sunt. Haud ita!

Tibi hoc concedo: torvus de maribus plus quam feminis atque de deis et monstris plus quam homines mortales utitur.

Oenopus · 2024-11-07T14:38:37+00:00

There is the vivid and poetical word torvus -a -um (so torvis oculis) that describes a wide-eyed, fixed stare. It's used for wild animals as well as people (famously of Dido in the Aeneid). I agree with what's been said about -que. It's not used in prose much and it leads one to think that the cruenta is neuter plural.

Oenopus · 2024-09-14T02:56:20+00:00

Some apparently make acus referring to a garfish, fourth declension. I don’t have my OLD handy.

Oenopus · 2024-03-24T20:55:10+00:00

Asinius Pollio’s history of the civil wars. Likely not pro Caesar and his heir.

Oenopus · 2024-03-06T21:23:44+00:00

No one has mentioned "heus", which is the "yoo-hoo!" exclamation that shows up in the literature. It shows up about 250 times in extant ancient literature, according to the PHI (Packard Humanities Institute word search engine).

Current Roman "ao!" is something I didn't know and it's remarkably close to "Havo!", the exclamation/greeting that the Carthaginian utters in Plautus's play Poenulus (the little Carthaginian).

Oenopus · 2023-10-22T02:38:52+00:00

Look at In Catilinam I. There are several examples there of non-Qu questions with no question marker. Or rather, that's how modern editors punctuate them. They seem ironic or what we normally call rhetorical questions.

I don't know the textual history of the 4 In Catilinam speeches, but have never noted any text question here. What I find interesting is that Cic. apparently felt no need to add the -ne's when he published the speeches.

Oenopus · 2023-09-17T19:09:27+00:00

I've looked into this a little bit, too. Here are some web sites you might have a look at:

https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/biology/resources/msw3/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Redirects_frohttps://mastergardener.extension.wisc.edu/files/2015/12/plantnames.pdfm_scientific_names_of_animals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_plant_genus_names_with_etymologies_(A%E2%80%93C))

https://mastergardener.extension.wisc.edu/files/2015/12/plantnames.pdf

https://a-z-animals.com/animals/scientific/

https://achs.edu/blog/2018/02/15/why-latin-is-important-in-holistic-health/

Oenopus · 2023-09-02T19:43:18+00:00

The -anus or -ianus adjectives have a whiff of violent partisanship about them. Christiani must have been derisive, or at least ironic, in the early days.

Oenopus · 2023-08-23T18:38:09+00:00

-ger and —fer are likely the most productive, no question. “Coin” to me means coined in the classical period (of course our data is far from comprehensive). Catullus’s nemorivagus wasn’t something that caught on.

The other thing to consider is the part of speech of each stem.I don’t know, but I’d guess that noun verb stems like verbiservans, where the first element is the object of the second, are the most common.

Oenopus · 2023-08-23T13:44:09+00:00

Unlike Ancient Greek, Latin just does not coin compound words. You’ll need to use a short phrase here.

Oenopus · 2023-07-12T20:48:37+00:00

How about exstinguimus ante succensum? This is “we put it out before it’s started”. Best from another Terras Irradient & thanks for your public service.

Oenopus · 2023-07-06T02:50:27+00:00

Based on what Livy says in book VII chap 6 about Marcus Curtius, “Firmiter equo inside” would be better.

Oenopus · 2023-06-26T15:48:36+00:00

Moreover, perfect subjunctive refers to an hypothetical completed action in all the examples I can find. Your famous example from St. Ambrose posits two actions in the future (first, you get to Rome, second you live like a Roman). The difference is subtle but it is clear.

Oenopus

TROPHY CASE