Traditional English Pronunciation of Latin - Overview

Overview

In most cases, the English pronunciation of Classical words and names is predictable from the orthography, as long as long and short vowels are distinguished. For Latin, or Latinized Greek, this means that macrons must be used if the pronunciation is to be unambiguous; for Greek, long versus short α, ι, υ must be distinguished, as they are in A Greek–English Lexicon. However, the conventions of biological nomenclature forbid the use of these diacritics, and in practice they are not found in astronomical names or in literature. Without this information, it may not be possible to ascertain the placement of stress, and therefore the pronunciation of the vowels in English.

Note that the following rules are generalizations, and that many names have well established idiosyncratic pronunciations.