Patrick Roper schrieb:
> Since my objective is to enjoy what Virgil wrote and try to reach up
> to his mind, is it better to carry on with what I know in terms of
> pronunciation, or try to change? And if I do carry on with what I
> know, will I be missing much? Can the essence of Virgil adequately
> survive not sounding as it would have done to him, or is this so
> unnatural that it would be better to read the material in translation?
>
> Patrick Roper
This discussion seems to be everywhere, also here in Germany.
Some standards are so clear, that they might be out of discussion:
In classical period (Cicero-time)
c was always spoken as guttural explosive (in Germany: k)
- absolutely not in the church-Latin way with Italian "ci",
but also not in the French way as sharp s -
and it changes in late antiquity;
r with the top of the tongue (what the Germans cannot do except the Bavarians)
s always sharp - the soft s between vowels had been changed to r - (Germans use
to speak every s softly)
v as sounding bilabial: dubble-u (Germans mostly speak a dentolabial for v)
The discussion goes on about the diphthongs: I prefer to speak "ae" as the "i"
in words like "like" or "wise", but school-pronounciation in Germany is "ä",
like in English "let" or "many"; and Germans speak "oe" as "ö", similar to the
vowel in English "burn", and "eu" as "oi" like the diphthong in English
"voice";
but I think this "oi" is better to take for "oe", and "eu" should be spoken as
"ev".
"ä" for "ae" is so terrible! hear a verse like:
si canimus silvas silvae sint consule dignae
that lives from the diphthong in Kontrapunkt to the bright i and the
silversound
of whispering s - ?
And I think, the vowels are often the "problem" in the "English" pronounciation
of Latin verses.
But! Yesterday Mr Piech of Volkswagen taught us a new pronounciation for
Phaeton
- he said, the new name of the new VW-luxuscar produced in his house shall be
"feuilleton"
with an ö (as in "burn") in the first syllabe and a French nasal at the end (as
in French "bon"). "Feuilleton, the son of Helios" (or maybe better "Heelaies"
with long i in the beginning etc. - ?)
(A right and true destined accident-car, - we must expect this from the myth.)
The worst example for the English Verballhornung of old names is the name of
the searching engine "lycos":
1. with c for k (Greek word!)
2. spoken with a diphthong for simple y (between u and i, German: ü, or at
least
pure u).
o and o, these changings of names in the streams of English - - djeewiz!
grusz, hansz
Hans Zimmermann
http://home.t-online.de/home/mosaiken/ekloga4.htm
http://home.t-online.de/home/hanumans/hansz.htm
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