Is Latin "o" really always open?
  • Schönbergian
    Posts: 1,063
    I have been singing lately with an extremely pedantic conductor who insists on, among other peculiarities, all "O's" in Latin being pronounced as an open vowel (like "aw", rather than "oh") I was surprised to note that most pronunciation guides online agree with this pronunciation unabashedly.

    Yet, in all the churches I've sung in, nobody has ever pronounced "Hosanna" as "aw-san-na", "Hodie" as "aw-di-e", or "dona nobis" as "doh-na noh-bis". It feels extremely foreign to the language and to Italianate pronunciation as a whole (which almost never opens the O vowel, and certainly not on unstressed syllables like "Hosanna") Obviously in words such as "Domine" the open vowel makes more sense.

    I wish to clarify that this is supposedly an attempt to reconstruct "Italianate Church Latin", according to the conductor, and is not some other regional pronunciation.

    Am I just totally off-the-wall in thinking this, or is there some error in the conductor's thinking?
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    The accepted pronunciation is "oh." There is a small but noisy school which utilizes classical Latin pronunciation (not "church Latin" which is really Roman Italian) and that's where you're getting that "aw."
  • Schönbergian
    Posts: 1,063
    That's what I have always believed as well (along with intervocalic S as a slight "Z", slight brightening of the Latin E to something in between "ay" and "eh", and so on), but Carlo Rossini's 1933 guide (on Corpus Christi Watershed) agrees with this conductor on many tenets, which is what I find so surprising (as does Solesmes' own guide)

    Interestingly enough, Wikipedia's own Latin IPA/pronunciation guide is how I have always heard it pronounced and pronounced it myself, yet it does not agree with many "official" pronunciation guides and it also provides no sources.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,801
    ɔ is indeed the only option given in some guides and the error is perhaps not in the thinking but in the ear: as I've asked before, who pronounces both o's of Domino identically? Copeman takes Schadenfreude in observing that even Italian conductors often honor the precept of 5 vowels only while in practice using ò along with ó, é & è. 'Open' and 'closed' are of course relative (fr:Aux is not the sound of it:sol) so one might imagine the query being answered yes, and sometimes even more so ;-)
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    One part of vocal technique, whether one is singing in English or Latin, is that the vowel the singer hears and intends may not be exactly the same as the vowel perceived by the listener. So we have to accept that at times we need to sing vowels in an artificial way in order for them to be recognized by the audience in the way we intend them.

    If the choir's "aw" sound (IPA: [ᴐ]) comes across recognizably as Latin "o" and has good tone, that's a reason to use it. If audiences don't perceive it as "o", then it doesn't work.
    Thanked by 4Liam WGS JonLaird Carol
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    Wikipedia offers more then one guide, it may depend on what the hearers ears are attuned to, see here. Note that 'English Latin' has lots of diphthongs!
    As a child in 1950-2 I learnt Greek for two years, rendered more difficult by switching pronunciation halfway through, when Oxford University dropped its resistance to the Cambridge pronunciation.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Directors can sometimes regret what they ask for, and instead get ... ah.
    Thanked by 1Casavant Organist
  • JonLaird
    Posts: 245
    The two principles I use to guide this question are (1) intelligibility and (2) beauty (perhaps more specifically, euphony). I think perhaps this is another way of stating what chonak was getting at.

    And whether the vowel be open or closed, the more important thing is that the singers’ throats always be open.
    Thanked by 1chonak
  • Schönbergian
    Posts: 1,063
    My confusion stems from the fact that this conductor also speaks Latin this way (eg. Donna for "dona") in addition to requesting it be sung that way, whereas others I've worked with will always speak it according to the "Italianate" method but occasionally open the E vowel to avoid a diphthong, for instance.

    Is this an American Latin thing, by any chance (seeing as this conductor is American and my only other exposure has been singing Latin in Canadian Catholic churches)?
  • Incardination
    Posts: 832
    I've sung in a lot of different (American) choirs, parish and secular, that sing varying degrees of Latin repertoire. I've never encountered this particular linguistic direction.
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    Better to stick with what the Liber says:
    O is pronounced as in For, never as in go.
    Thanked by 1WGS
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    MadOr: that's also Rossini's advice. But just for fun, sllllloooooooowwwllyyyy enounce "for." Maybe it's a shade less open than "go," but only a shade.

    That said, Chonak's advice above, combined with "EUPHONY!!!" is best.
    Thanked by 2chonak Liam
  • David Sullivan
    Posts: 355
    Is this an American Latin thing, by any chance...


    I rather think it is an American thing--perhaps with a tad of Irish influence. When I read your initial post, my mind immediately flashed to the old newsreels of Cardinal Cushing singing "in nahminy Dahminy."

    Here in the US mid-Atlantic region, it's something I keep an ear out for and try to correct. It seems more likely to happen with a Latin word that looks like an English word that we pronounce with an ah sound rather than oh: think of consubstantialem. Less likely on a word like Hodie or Gloria.
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