The pronunciation of Latin rests upon surer ground

In the first place, there is not the difficulty of transliteration to contend with; in the second, the modern languages derived from Latin afford us more evidence as to the ancient language than is the case with Greek. At the outset it must be explained that the custom in English has been to disregard the obvious facts of the case, and pronounce Latin as though it were English. There is, however, in the present day a consensus of opinion against this practice, and the conclusions to which modern scholars have come as to the pronunciation of Latin are briefly stated here. IMG:content-1212.png:[blocks in formation] j , as y in year . v, as w in wine. must always be trilled, whether in the middle or at the end of a word; e. g., per must be pronounced as the perr in per-ry. s, always sharp, as in hi ; never as in his ; e. g., dens is pronounced dense . bs , as ps. ti before a vowel has its proper sound, and is never pronounced sh , as in ph, ch , th , were not pronounced as one sound, as in English, but as p -h, English. k -h, and t - h . In the table given, those consonants only are set down the pronunciation of which differs from that to which English people are accustomed. The consonants omitted in the list are pronounced in Latin precisely as in English. QUANTITY. Every vowel in Latin is either long or short, according as the voice dwells upon it or not. In pronouncing Latin a distinction must always be made between long and short vowels. For instance, we should say ă-mo, not 6h-mo.