ANST - Latin Pronunciation In Period & the SCA

[Jennifer Carlson]

Si tu vales, valeo!

There are several points on which classical Latin and medieval, or church, 
Latin, differ with regards to how they are pronounced.  In classical Latin, 
the letters C and G are always hard, and V is prononced as a W.  In 
medieval Latin, C and G are soft if followed by E, I,  or Y, and V is 
sounded like V.  In medieval Latin, SC is sounded as SH.

One of those old jokes classical Latin students pull on medieval Latin 
students is to hit them with the following phrase, an inscription from a 
monastery refectory (dining hall) door:  Papa fidem scit  (The Pope knows 
the Faith).

Read it out loud, with a hard C, as for good, classical Latin.
Now, read it out loud, with the medieval "sh" sound.


Talana
Who can't believe she's really passing on such a silly old joke, but who 
did survive Latin classes that switched back and forth between a classicist 
and medievalist.


On  Tue, 02 Mar 1999 15:32:33 PST  "Matthew Kies" 
highlycafeinated at hotmail.com wrote:

>as was most recently pointed out (see below), the common usage of latin
>in our fine kingdom stinks somethin ferocious... not only would "vivant"
>[wee wunt] be more correct than "vivat" [wee wut], but to be accurate,
>you are not usually meaning "they live" or "he/she/it lives"... usually
>what you are doing is wishing them well, or congratulations, a long
>life... in which case any of the following are appropriate:(singular)
>"VIVE" [wee way] (PLURAL) "VIVETE" [wee wa tay]
>                       "SALVE" [sul way]     "SALVETE" [sul way tay]


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