rules for classical Latin: the c was ALWAYS pronounced like k: [kéntrum], [ká-e-sar] (Caesar) the u was always WRITTEN as V and pronounced like the u in [buk] (book) Latin Pronunciation (phoneme): IPA : /k/ (Ecclesiastical) IPA : /k/ IPA : /ɡ/ (Ecclesiastical) IPA : /ɡ/ Letter. The first of these is the Classical Pronunciation, which is the way we think Latin was spoken prior to around the third century or so. The pronunciation \KELT\ started being heard as early as the 18th century, which, in time, ushered in the variant spelling Kelt. Notes. HowToPronounce.com is a free online audio pronunciation dictionary which helps anyone to learn the way a word or name is pronounced around the world by … Doubled vowels are pronunced separately. Learning the Latin alphabet is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. The Romans themselves wrote a lot about their language and how to pronounce it “correctly.” Public speaking was a high art and many rhetorical ‘handbooks’ about how to speak and how to pronounce words, survive. up to about 2000 years ago, latin was written as spoken. The evolved consonants - c, g, h, s, v, y . Inscriptional evidence as well as texts from ancient grammarians tell us how the Romans pronounced Latin during the classical period. Latin Pronunciation Guide Latin may be a dead language but it is very much alive when you read it and speak it. Without it, you will not be able to say words properly even if you know how to write those words. The same process of c being pronounced as 's' when preceding e/i has happened in Latin American Spanish, while in Castilian Spanish in such cases the c is pronounced as the 'th' sound in the English word 'think'. References. The better you pronounce a letter in a word, the more understood you will be in speaking the Latin … c and g The 2 consonants were "hard" everywhere in Classical method, but are softened before "soft vowels" in Ecclesiastical Latin. C in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press The above consonants are subjected to some phonetic change when Latin evolves. About the pronunciation of the letter "C" in Latin I'm a complete layman when it comes to the study of Latin, that's why I am posting on this thread. (In French and Latin, the 'c' is pronounced \s\, as in the last name of the French painter Paul Cézanne and in Latin century.) The Roman empire was bi-lingual. Latin Alphabet. Following its French and Latin predecessors, early pronunciation of Celt was actually \SELT\. * In Latin, the letter C was used for the ‘k’ sound. Today, there are two main ways of pronouncing Latin. but from then on, a lot of pronunciation changes occurred, in Italy proper as well as in the Roman provinces. Ecclesiastical (Church) Latin pronunciation. C = [ʧ] before ae, oe, e, i or y, and [k] elsewhere; G = [ʤ] before ae, oe, e, i or y, and [g] elsewhere; H is silent, except in mihi and nihil, where it is pronounced /k/ S = [z]between vowels; SC = [ʃ] before ae, oe, e, i or y, and [sk] elsewhere The Pronunciation of Latin. It lives in the echo of the words that were spoken long ago by the great men of Ancient Rome. Thus they sounds differently between the two methods in certain circumstances. 2. This is the main letter in Latin for that sound. C (upper case, lower case c) The third letter of the Latin alphabet, written in the Latin script.