Letters and Phonemes
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In Latin spelling, individual letters mostly corresponded to individual phonemes, with three main exceptions:
- Each vowel letter (⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨v⟩, ⟨y⟩) represented both long and short vocalic phonemes. As for instance montem /ˈmoːntem/ has long /oː/, pontem /ˈpontem/ short /o/.
- Some pairs of letters represented either two separate vowels in two syllables, or a diphthong in a single syllable. For instance, aerivs /aˈeːrius/ starts with two syllables /a/ and /e/, but aeneas /ajˈneːaːs/ starts with a diphthong.
- the letters ⟨i⟩ and ⟨v⟩ represented either the vowels /i/ /iː/ and /u/ /uː/ or the semivowels /j/ and /w/. So ivlvs is /iˈuːlus/, starting with the vowel /i/, but ivlivs is /ˈjuːlius/, with the semivowel /j/.
The other 17 letters had mostly always the same sound value, with very few exceptions, as for instance the word vrbs, which was pronounced /ˈurps/ in spite of the spelling. The Romans didn't write *vrps for the same reason that English spells dogs, not *dogz, in spite of actual pronunciation being /ˈdɒɡz/.
In the tables below, letters (and digraphs) are paired with the phonemes they usually represent in IPA. English upper case letters are used to represent the Roman square capitals from which they derive. Latin as yet had no equivalent to the English lower case. It did have a Roman cursive used for rapid writing, which is not represented in this article.
Read more about this topic: Latin Spelling And Pronunciation
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“The mastery of one’s phonemes may be compared to the violinist’s mastery of fingering. The violin string lends itself to a continuous gradation of tones, but the musician learns the discrete intervals at which to stop the string in order to play the conventional notes. We sound our phonemes like poor violinists, approximating each time to a fancied norm, and we receive our neighbor’s renderings indulgently, mentally rectifying the more glaring inaccuracies.”
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