Does anyone know how to pronounce Latin?

[The Other Librarian]

Either "dyuss" or "DEE-uss" depending on whether the 'i' is long or short.

I think it has to be the long, although the original poster did not specify. Dius, in the sense meaning 'divine" seems to be a contraction of Divus -a -um, meaning divine, or as a substantive, god/godess. Divus at least uses the long i vowel.

Both words have associations with open air also. Sub divo means "in the open air", and apparently dius has those same connotations, which is why I suspect its a contraction of some sort.

 

[The Other Librarian]

Of course we could just throw out alll the dry academecians and follow Byron's pronounciation key:

I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth.


woof.

 

[Desdichado]

And about the most important language in history, that's probably Sanskrit not Latin.

You think so? I'm curious as to your reasoning there. I'd say the two are broadly similar in their historical impact, as well as their use (or the use of their daughter languages) today. And frankly, I think English is already turning out to be historically more important and widespread than either anyway.

 

[JesterPoet]

I believe it would be (la_t'n)

 

[reciprocalzero]

I really don't know whether my school latin was corrcect in any way (as correct as it can be ), but are you sure that all of your examples are true diphthongs? We always spoke 'ae' flat like the vowel in 'bad', and 'ei' was handled as two truely separate vowels ('de-inde'), 'oe' was also a flat sound like in 'fir'. We handled 'au', 'eu' and 'ui' (as in your example) as diphthongs, though. As I said, it's just school latin, so it may be wrong.

I'll go with you on the 'ei' (especially for deinde, which is after all just a combination of 'de' and 'inde'), but I've never seen 'ae' pronounced as anything other than 'eye' in Latin, although it is pronounced as in 'bad' in Old English.

 

[The Other Librarian]

And frankly, I think English is already turning out to be historically more important and widespread than either anyway.

For now at least. I think Mandarin could soon take over. It's already poised to overtake english in volume on the web. Obviously you never know quite what the future holds, but it wouldn't suprise me. The world of Firefly today? Well, maybe tomorrow, anyway.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

Why do I keep seeing this statement all over the place?

Barbarian is *not* a Latin derivative word. At least, not originally.

It's a Latin mutation of the Greek word "βάρβαρος" - specifically, it refers to the "bar, bar, bar" sound the Greeks heard in non-Greek languages, and meant "foreigner" or "non-Greek," and, by extension, "uncivilized."

As an answer to "why you keep seeing it" I can tell you I've heard it from two of my latin professors (one in high school and one in college) and I've known I've seen it in writing at least two times, one of which was in a history book of mine in my Ancient Rome class.

I know that doesn't really help much, but once some things get going and just sound smart, then they just keep rolling.

Concerning the pronunciation of "ae", we pronounced it as a long 'i' (or the actual word "I").

 

[Desdichado]

Well, it's not necessarily wrong. It's unlikely that, say, English, borrowed the word barbarian directly from Greek. It probably came through Latin, via their word barbarus. The thing is, though, barbarus is very clearly traced to the greek barbaros (to not use the greek letters) making it the ultimate source for that word.

 

[woodelf]

Nonetheless, it was spoken by every citizen (if you couldn't speak it you were considered to just say ba-ba (like a baby)...hence, our word babarian) and you could only be considered a citizen if you spoke it.

Um, the full etymology is that the Latin barbarian is an almost-direct porting of the greek barbaros--it was the Greeks who originally labeled foreigners as sounding no more intelligent than sheep. The Romans just inherited the concept/word. The rest of your points stand.

 

[Vartan]

dee-oos (emphasis on the first syllable)

dee (as in "we"), oos (as in "noose")