Saturday, May 03, 2008

Litugical Latin Pronunciation

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Fr! Pleeeze!

Anonymous said...

This was fascinating and useful information. I first learned the Pater Noster and Ave Maria whilst listening (in secret) to Vatican radio as a teenager and find it difficult to drop the Italian accent as it flows so beautifully as demonstrated by the video. An English accent, especially when agnus and dignus become ag - nus and dig-nus seems harsher.

Last year I had a discussion with a french priest regarding the return of Latin in the Mass. He was very much against it and cited as a reason that people think that it sounds the same the world over but that it does not. He then proceeded to have my friend and I in stitches reciting some Latin with a Chinese accent! Of course neither of us recognised the prayer so he had a point.

Latin spoken by Europeans is understandable - the differences between French spoken Latin and english spoken Latin seem to be mainly on the accented syllables.
We say - DOM inus vo BIS cum - the French say domin US vobis CUM but both are understandable to the other.

I'd like to add, Father, that your singing yesterday evening of the 'Adoremus in aeternum' was beautiful and hope it becomes a fixture after Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.

GOR said...

One of the interesting things in Rome 40 years ago was to hear Mass celebrated in Latin by different nationalities. It was recognizable, but varied widely. The speakers of the Latin languages (Italian, French, Spanish) were obviously influenced by their native tongues, but were close to Irish and English natives. Accents played a part also.

The ones that stood out for me were the German speakers. Lots of hard guttural sounds and heavy German accents. It sounded more like ‘classical Latin’ pronunciation than Church Latin. Which may make some sense as I understand that what we know as ‘classical Latin pronunciation’ came from German scholars back in the 18th or 19th century. Proponents of this maintain it is a purer form of Latin pronunciation.

My argument against that has been that the Church has been doing this longer than anyone else and has experience on Her side! I never could get used to ‘Cicero’ pronounced as ‘Kickero’ or the Cof E: “In nomin-eye Patris et Filee-eye et Spiritus Sanct-eye…”

Not having hear 'Chinese' Latin Pelerin, I can't speak to that - but, like Chinese itself, it would probably be 'Greek' to me!

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