You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.46 AVERAGE
4.46 AVERAGE
VOX LATINA is W. Sidney Allen's reconstruction of the pronunciation of Latin in the classical period using a variety of ancient sources. It is a companion to his VOX GRAECA reconstruction of Attic Greek pronunciation and, like the Greek work, *the* work on the subject.
VOX LATINA presupposes no knowledge of general linguistics and is accessible by any undergraduate studying Latin. It includes a ten-page introduction to phonetics to get the reader up to speed. The reconstruction pronunciation is divided into six areas, these being consonants, vowels, vowel length, vowel junction, accent, and quantity. A series of appendices contains selected quotations from Latin grammarians and a chronology of these sources, a history of Latin pronunciation in England, and the names of the letters of the alphabet in Latin.
My only real complaints are the same as those I have against VOX GRAECA, namely that Sidney Allen uses "y" to transcribe one of the semivowels instead of "j" as the IPA would have it. And though the IPA (with Allen's idiosyncracies) is used through most of the book, the quick-reference "Summary of Recommended Pronunciations" at the end gives examples with analogies to undependable Received Pronunciation English, French or German sounds ("o as German 'Bott'", "short u as in English 'put'").
If you are a Latin student interested in broader themes of historical linguistics, VOX LATINA is an essential purchase, as is its companion VOX GRAECA. A secure knowledge of the reconstructed pronunciation will be of enormous help in drawing comparisons with other Indo-European languages and memorising Proto-Indo-European roots.
VOX LATINA presupposes no knowledge of general linguistics and is accessible by any undergraduate studying Latin. It includes a ten-page introduction to phonetics to get the reader up to speed. The reconstruction pronunciation is divided into six areas, these being consonants, vowels, vowel length, vowel junction, accent, and quantity. A series of appendices contains selected quotations from Latin grammarians and a chronology of these sources, a history of Latin pronunciation in England, and the names of the letters of the alphabet in Latin.
My only real complaints are the same as those I have against VOX GRAECA, namely that Sidney Allen uses "y" to transcribe one of the semivowels instead of "j" as the IPA would have it. And though the IPA (with Allen's idiosyncracies) is used through most of the book, the quick-reference "Summary of Recommended Pronunciations" at the end gives examples with analogies to undependable Received Pronunciation English, French or German sounds ("o as German 'Bott'", "short u as in English 'put'").
If you are a Latin student interested in broader themes of historical linguistics, VOX LATINA is an essential purchase, as is its companion VOX GRAECA. A secure knowledge of the reconstructed pronunciation will be of enormous help in drawing comparisons with other Indo-European languages and memorising Proto-Indo-European roots.
This book was an engaging introduction to the scholarship on the so-called "Reconstructed pronunciation." Especially helpful were the appendices, which included quotes (in Latin) from period grammarians and authors on the pronunciation of Latin, a history of the "Traditional English" pronunciation, and a review of the scholarship that happened between the two editions.
The scholarship isn't entirely current. (It was, after all, written in 1989.) In particular, more scholarship has been done on the vowels, and many persons are claiming a 5 vowel system (with no open/closed variants of u and i), including Calabrese. But this read was fun and engaging (insofar as a scholarly text on Latin pronunciation can be), and it was accessible to someone with little formal linguistic background.
The scholarship isn't entirely current. (It was, after all, written in 1989.) In particular, more scholarship has been done on the vowels, and many persons are claiming a 5 vowel system (with no open/closed variants of u and i), including Calabrese. But this read was fun and engaging (insofar as a scholarly text on Latin pronunciation can be), and it was accessible to someone with little formal linguistic background.