re: US English? page 11

Mark Brader filted:

I imagine the way the Romans said "Boadicea" was very ... fact, very close to "Boudicca" apart from the extra vowel.

In classical Latin pronunciation as understood today, "C" would be a K sound, not a G sound as mentioned in ... syllables Boh-a-***-eh-a with the accent on the EH if that was a long vowel and the otherwise.

I've never encountered the name in either form other than in print, until last week...one of the "Jeopardy!" contestants trying unsuccessfully to unseat champion Ken Jennings (18 straight wins at this writing) pronounced it "bo-DEE-sha"...I expect I'll have to fight to dislodge that now..r

I imagine the way the Romans said "Boadicea" was very ... fact, very close to "Boudicca" apart from the extra vowel.

In classical Latin pronunciation as understood today, "C" would be a K sound, not a G sound as mentioned in ... syllables Boh-a-***-eh-a with the accent on the EH if that was a long vowel and the otherwise.

I didn't think the Romans did stress. I thought (in poetry at least) it was all to do with long and short vowels - something I never did quite grasp. Sorry I missed out the 'a' vowel when I said 'the extra vowel'. Also, at the time I wrote, I assumed the "Bou" indicated something like French "beau", rather than "boo".

Rob Bannister

In classical Latin pronunciation as understood today, "C" would be ... if that was a long vowel and the otherwise.

I didn't think the Romans did stress. I thought (in poetry at least) it was all to do with long and short vowels - something I never did quite grasp.

Latin poetry is all to do with long and short vowels, but the language also had stressed syllables (which weren't relevant to poetic meter). As Mark suggests, stress was on the penultimate syllable if long, the antepenultimate otherwise.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

I didn't think the Romans did stress. I thought (in ... and short vowels - something I never did quite grasp.

Latin poetry is all to do with long and short vowels, but the language also had stressed syllables (which weren't relevant to poetic meter). As Mark suggests, stress was on the penultimate syllable if long, the antepenultimate otherwise.

Thank you for that. I had the idea that Latin was in the process of moving from musical intonation to stressed, but hadn't quite reached that stage in Classical Latin. I learn so many things in AUE.

Rob Bannister