The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.1371 Tuesday, 21 May 2002
[1] From: Steve Sohmer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 09:20:34 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
[2] From: Graham Hall <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 15:22:47 +0000
Subj: C rules OK?
[3] From: Martin Steward <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 16:53:16 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
[4] From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 14:07:11 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
[5] From: Fran Barasch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 16:00:09 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 13.1334 Italian Pronunciation
[6] From: Fran Barasch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 16:19:20 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Sohmer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 09:20:34 EDT
Subject: 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
Comment: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
Dear Friends,
To all those who have eruditely (and charmingly) settled my hash on the
pronunciation of "c" and "cc," gratias.
Steve
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Graham Hall
<This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 15:22:47 +0000
Subject: C rules OK?
BBC has interesting tape of ex (and long dead) British PM Harold
McMillan giving a reading in Latin and bemoaning the introduction of the
Latin "hard K" by progressive academics at his public school.
We never had it so good.
Best wishes,
Graham Hall
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Steward <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 16:53:16 +0100
Subject: 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
Comment: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
"PopQuiz: In Caesars time the Romans spoke Latin, and in Mussos times
they spoke Italian. Question: When did they change?"
Of the many and varied Churches I was lucky enough to have a look at in
Rome, one of the most fascinating was San Clemente, located just off the
Via San Giovanni in Laterano. It is really three places of worship in
one: there is a pagan altar (to Mithras?) at the bottom; a
fourth-century Christian Church ontop of that; and finally a medieval
Christian Church to finish off. On the fourth-century level, there is a
fresco upon which can be found one of the first inscriptions in the
Italian vernacular. The fresco shows a jealous husband, annoyed that his
wife is always away at Mass, stupidly mistaking a large column for the
Pope: "Fili dele pute", he complains. Perhaps one of our Italian
colleagues could translate this into English, as my grasp of the
language cannot cope with its apparent strangeness...
m
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 14:07:11 -0400
Subject: 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
Comment: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
>From The Oxford Companion to the English Language:
The pronunciation of Latin by speakers of English and the pronunciation
of Latin words and tags used in English have had a turbulent history. In
Anglo-Saxon times, the pronunciation of Latin had already been somewhat
nativized, and after the Norman Conquest, when Latin was taught through
the medium of French, it took on a French aspect: for example, both the
i in jus and the g in gens were spoken as an affricate (the j-sound in
just and gent). After the 13c, soft c was pronounced /s/, and long
vowels were shortened before two or more consonants, as in census and
nullus, much as in present-day English census and null. In the 14c,
English began to take over as the medium of instruction for Latin,
largely as a result of the work of the educational reformer John
Cornwall, and remained the norm until the early 16c. Controversy was
aroused throughout Europe, however, when in 1528 Erasmus published De
recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronuntiatione (On the correct
pronunciation of Latin and Greek). ...Erasmus proposed that they all be
standardized on certain assumptions about classical Latin speech, such
as the use of hard c and g, voicelessness in intervocalic s, and the
maintenance of contrasts in vowel length.
Erasmian ideas were taken up at Cambridge by such radical young scholars
as John Cheke and Thomas Smith, and met with great resistance. In 1542,
a university edict forbade Erasmian pronunciation, with heavy penalties
that included the beating of offending undergraduates and the expulsion
of offending masters. According to Stephen Gardiner, the Chancellor who
imposed the edict, speakers of Erasmian Latin were unintelligible to
their elders. In 1558, the edict was repealed. The controversy,
however, had been maturing while the Great Vowel Shift was taking place,
and just as this shift was transforming the pronunciation of mainstream
English (and creating many anomalies of spelling and pronunciation), so
it also affected the pronunciation of Latin. For example, the Latin long
vowels a, i, e acquired the values now found in the English words same,
fine, been. A highly Anglicized, non-Erasmian Latin became the norm in
England from the later 16c to the earlier 20c.
Clifford
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Fran Barasch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 16:00:09 EDT
Subject: 13.1334 Italian Pronunciation
Comment: Re: SHK 13.1334 Italian Pronunciation
Pronunciation of the Italian c or cc depends on the letters which
follow; except that double c is held slightly longer than the single.
Neither should be confused with Latin pronunciation of Cicero as taught
in America (Kickero) or taught in the Roman Church (Chichero).
Italians would pronounce C followed by vowels in Cicero as Chichero and
Bariccini as Baricheeni, but Charismo would be pronounced Karismo, e.g.
Best wishes, Fran Barasch
[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Fran Barasch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002 16:19:20 EDT
Subject: 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
Comment: Re: SHK 13.1354 Re: Italian Pronunciation
Sorry, I responded too quickly to request for pronunciation. Please
note that only c followed by e and i are pronounced ch as in chicken.
Cicero (Cicerone in Italian) would follow Anglicized pronunciation:
Sisero. Best,
fkb
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