Latin Help
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,519
    Are Latin vowels really only "ah" "eh" "ee" "oh" and "oo"? What happens with "ae"?

    Would something like a Mozart/Verdi Requiem be considered Ecclesial Latin? Do pronunciations change because of their home country?

    I am in a choir (not the director) and we are singing the Verdi Requiem. The "e" vowels are often pronounced as "ay" thought the director only wants the vowel sounds mentioned above. But, in his examples he never does this. Now, it has taken me a long time (and I often fall!) to THINK about the vowel sounds and listen to what my choir is doing.

    I'm not sure if I'm just being ridiculous at this point. I think that a unified sound would be more beautiful though.

    With my own choir, we have gone from "A LAY loo yah" to "A leh loo yah" and the difference is notable.

    Thanks for your thoughts.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen LauraKaz
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,440
    ...because of their...
    The diphthongs 'ae' and 'oe' are generally pronounced 'ay', as in the word 'hay', following Italian rules. (However, 'eh' would be preferable, to avoid the horrible 'ee' of the diphthong in 'ay'.)
    Yes, indeed country of origin can and does often influence pronunciation.
    Before Italian took over sometime in the XIX century (Vatican I?) Latin was pronounced everywhere as the local language was spoken - and, in England still is in university and secular Latin.
    And, the worlds of Law, Biology, and Science have each their own pronunciations of Latin.
    (I agree with you about 'ah-leh-loo-yah'.)

    When singing 'ay' (diphthong eh-ee) on a prolonged note I always instruct my singers to hold the sound for a very rounded 'eh' until the very end of the syllable and then quickly add the 'ee' in unison at the very last instance of the note's value as one would a 't', a 'd', or an 'm', & cet.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen canadash Abbysmum
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,728
    IPA for the win.

    /a/ (to me, although some diction books describe dark a or rather /ɑ/, but I associate that with Swiss French and would only accept that it comes out in some places in chant), /i/ (but even experienced singers in languages where their variety doesn’t have /ɪ/ realize it in chanting), /e/, /o/ and /u/.

    Then you have some natural variation: even as a CV structure, /re/ in Re-quiem is more like /rɛ/. I suppose that you also have /ə/ or /œ/. My reference is French and people who know French and chant as everyone here knows but this isn’t that far off from what I hear from Anglophones who don’t speak French. The /re/ becomes a diphthong otherwise all too often, and not just /re:/.
    Thanked by 2canadash veromary
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 342
    "ay" is a diphthong. You should be singing pure vowels, either /ɛ/ or /e/. The difficulty for us is that /e/ doesn't exist in American English (or most other varieties) apart from that "ay" diphthong, IPA /eɪ/. Whether you're using the short/open /ɛ/ as in English bed or the long/closed /e/, the pure vowel must end the same way it starts; if you're modifying it at the end, that's a diphthong, not a pure vowel. There must be no glide to a second vowel sound. As Matthew mentions, a should also be quite bright, like the first vowel sound in now, not gnaw.
    Thanked by 5M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen canadash MatthewRoth veromary
  • Bri
    Posts: 124
    The Square Notes podcast has a new episode that may be interest: "A Church Musician’s Guide to the History of the Pronunciation of Latin."

    https://youtu.be/k-lQxoKFGoc?si=Zf7nXFo1lP77m14A
    Thanked by 6CHGiffen canadash Abbysmum bhcordova veromary DCM
  • Anna_BendiksenAnna_Bendiksen
    Posts: 256
    Is His Holiness's name pronounced with the same shifting stresses as LE-o, le-O-nis, et cetera? I daresay I heard a priest pronounce it as LE-o-nis, but perhaps my ears deceived me or I simply do not know Latin very well.
  • Abbysmum
    Posts: 39
    Is His Holiness's name pronounced with the same shifting stresses as LE-o, le-O-nis, et cetera? I daresay I heard a priest pronounce it as LE-o-nis, but perhaps my ears deceived me or I simply do not know Latin very well.


    I've noticed that English speakers tend to always stress the first syllable because that's what's usually done in English. Other languages will place the stress elsewhere.

    I'm also a French speaker, having learned it in childhood. I tend to put stress in Latin on the second syllable (my brain is divided in English/French I think, with everything including Latin, Spanish and Danish getting lumped in the French side. My FIL complains my Danish sounds like I'm French trying to speak Danish lol).

    All that to say, the priest probably did say LE-o-nis.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,728
    It’s on the ó however.

    I have a Franco-Italian accent when I read Spanish lol. I don’t speak it. but with ecclesiastical Latin and having learned to speak French early enough to have a good accent, funny things happen.
    Thanked by 1Anna_Bendiksen
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