Latin Pronunciation & Lachmann's Law: The Secret of the Hidden Long Vowels 🏛

Latin has long vowels, which are not the same thing as long *syllables*, in closed syllables, ones that end in a consonant. Why does this sometimes occur? Is there a way to predict this hidden quantity in Latin pronuncation? What is the difference between the ac of "factus" and the āc of "āctus" ? Does this difference really matter in the Reconstructed Classical Pronunciation of Latin? Lachmann's Law of Latin phonology is the key!
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart
#Rome #Italy #Latin
00:00 Intro to Lachmann's Law
11:05 Outtakes

[@rexpolyglotus2802]

I would love to see a series of videos about how we "rediscovered" the true sound of Latin

[@BFDT-4]

Me, too. But only to more solidify this new Native-Spoken Latin pronunciation for all to use and start again to make Latin a Living Language. If they could do it with Hebrew, Middle English, and perhaps even Sanskrit, we can sure do that for Latin!

[@alifputra7369]

@@BFDT-4 We could but I don't think we would; I think even Luke doesn't want it to be natively spoken again. Because Latin is a dead language, it stays eternal, unchanging, so Classical Latin will always be Classical. However, once it becomes natively spoken, it will start changing again; it's impossible to keep a native language free of change. Maybe there will be minor or even major changes which some in the community don't want. I personally want Latin to be a natively spoken language again like Hebrew but I also know and accept that it will change and evolve again.

[@Aditya-te7oo]

@@alifputra7369 There should be an 'Academy of Latin language' which would check or slow down the changes like the French Academy.

[@alifputra7369]

@@Aditya-te7oo Even then, change will still happen and that is not an acceptable thing for those who would like Latin to stay eternal. Since I presume a native Latin would be based around people around the world and not a specific country where internal cohesion could be held, that just increases the likelihood of change since languages are influenced by your local environment; native English spoken by second-generation or even third-generation immigrants can sound different than the local dialect because of the influence of the immigrant language. If this can happen to native languages like English, it can happen to Latin, and that's not good.

[@sebastiangudino9377]

​@@Aditya-te7oo Look at the RAE, and the ways spanish is spoken dramatically different around the world, and you can tell that doesn very little. That will just create diglossia, where people switch between correct latin and coloquial latin Well, actuall, that is exactly where the romance languages come from. And as you can clearly tell, they are very different from latin

[@LandgraabIV]

7:54 I think the /i/ in Spanish "dicho", Portuguese, "dito" and French "dit" is because the Latin /k/ became a yod /j/ when it preceded a plosive, giving /ij/ which was naturally released as a long i /i:/, which in turn prevented it from becoming an [e]. You can still see the yod with other vowels, like Portuguese "noite", "oito" < noctem, octō; "feito", "leite" < factum, *lacte. The yod is also attested because it affricated the /t/ in Spanish "dicho", just like in "noche", "ocho", "hecho" and "leche".

[@Platoqp]

Ha, thought the very same. Though I know more about French. Nox, noctem became nuit; lait from lactem; fait from factum etc.

[@wyqtor]

Just realized that in Romanian we preserved the final -s rather than the -tu- in some participles, like this: ductus -> dus dictus -> zis am zis = I (have) said

[@EGFritz]

Not in French, you would expect the yod to combine with the high mid e and form the diphthong (cf. strǐctu>étroit). The Gallo-Roman reflex of dictus was likely something like *deits but was reformed by analogy with the present

[@frafraplanner9277]

In Japanese verb conjugation, in "godan" verbs that end with /ku/, the "Rentaikei" (attributive form) ends with /ki/ But when the syllables /te/ (for the connective form), or /ta/ (for the past form) are added after /ki/, it changes to /i/.

[@argyrendehringterimksaccu174]

@@frafraplanner9277 2 old forms of that is toute and koute of tou asked by saber from fate series and kou, this reflects the kansai\west Japan variants shimatta is shimouta there, classical japanese got sezuni, Kansai got sa-, standard japanese is shi- that's the 3 stems of modern suru verb

[@user-un7gp4bl2l]

Great video! I read a paper a few days ago showing that the exceptions "fissus" and "scissus" might have belonged to a small class of verbs that had -no participles instead of -to participles in PIE (*bhid-nós, *skid-nós), because they match perfectly with the Vedic Sanskrit "bhinnás" and "chinnás". They would have been regularised to "fid-tos" and "skid-tos" after the operation of Lachmann's law. The author argued that "tūsus" belonged to this class too based on Vedic "tunnás" and Welsh "twnn", but that it was probably regularised earlier in Italic. Italo-Celtic had regular metathesis of "dn", which can be seen in words like "fundus" and "unda", so the expected outcomes are "**findus", "**scindus" and "**tundus" (Welsh "twnn"), which would have been seen as completely irregular. The -no participles are also the ones that were extended to all strong verbs in Germanic. "Fissus/bhinnás" and "scissus/chinnás" correspond to English "bitten" and "shitten" respectively.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Fascinating!

[@Johan-qn8ir]

I can’t even begin to describe how helpful your channel has been for me learning Latin. You are the GOAT!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m glad to hear that 🐐

[@Aditya-te7oo]

Johan What's the full form of GOAT ?

[@altralinguamusica]

@@Aditya-te7oo Greatest of all time

[@Aditya-te7oo]

@@altralinguamusica Thanks.

[@PC_Simo]

@@altralinguamusica Thank you! 😌👍🏻

[@spellandshield]

The crepuscular background only adds to the delightful lecture. Gratias tibi ago, magister maxime!

[@YiannissB.]

I like these kinds of "in place" outdoors videos. I hope we see you one day in Athens or elsewhere analyzing Greek language subjects!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I hope so as well

[@weirdlanguageguy]

This is very interesting! It also reminds me of allophonic vowel lengthening before voiced consonants in English

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Yes good analogy

[@mikahamari6420]

This is a pleasure. You are 100 % correct about phonemic vowel length. We have also in Finnish opposition short vs. long, which is similar to opposition in Latin. As a native speaker the short vs. long is exactly similar to other oppositions, because it differentiates meanings. We have words "kato" 'loss', "mato" 'worm' and "kaato" 'fall'. The opposition a vs. aa is as relevant for differentiating the words as opposition k vs. m. But lengthening the vowel to overlong wouldn't make any difference, it would just mean the same as "kaato" (maybe with emphasis by speaker, but this is more like a non-verbal thing).

[@manfredneilmann4305]

Thank you again for another interesting lecture/lesson on Classical Latin pronunciation while using such a beautiful background!

[@annashaleva4987]

The background is outstanding, isn’t it?!

[@daciaromana2396]

Luke, that column behind you is the reason I exist! 😆 But in all seriousness, thanks for the explanation of why it is important knowing where to stress the vowel in Latin. Sometimes it is tough because it is counterintuitive as we have a natural tendency to fall back on what sounds most familiar to us. This is especially true if you speak a romance language and just assume Latin must have been pronounced the same.

[@Rabuoso]

Regarding dictus/detto/dicho/dit: I find it interesting that in Italian we also have the word "ditta" that still comes from the Latin dictus but through Venetian. You should look it up!

[@wyqtor]

Interesting that in Latvian, a more conservative Indo-European language, vowel length is still a thing and it's written the same as in Latin.

[@justames5979]

Same here in Lithuanian, though we don't mark long vowels (besides grammatical endings). And also short vowels are distinct in quality from long ones because they are lax and more central. I don't think that's the case in Latvian, am I right?

[@wyqtor]

@@justames5979 I don't know, I am not Latvian myself, just a language enthusiast. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to devote to learning Latvian or Lithuanian, they are really fascinating in how you can spot elements from all the other Indo-European languages in them.

[@jemandausirgendwo5317]

Not only, also the vocabulary is very similar

[@povilzem]

In Lithuanian pronunciation, unstressed vowels naturally lose their length. Stressed vowels can be long or short, but those differ slightly in quality: if you were to prolong the short u, you wouldn't get a proper ū.

[@vellruss302]

The historical background settings are really cool, keep them up! It makes me feel the video so much.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m glad!

[@gyost8147]

I enjoyed the video, but I was also jealous watching you walk around in that part of Rome where I have been (and wish I could visit again).

[@daco3557]

In my own italian dialect (central Italian-Umbrian), the past participle of ”dire” is ”ditto”. Both detto and ditto appear in medieval italian varieties

[@unochepassava1403]

Actually the development of modern Umbrian "ditto" is a further innovation, rather than a retention from Latin. Central Italian dialects underwent a process known as "Sabine metaphony", which changed the quality of stressed vowels depending on the quality of the last syllable. So basically this is what happened form Latin to modern Umbrian: 1) dictum > dictu, loss of final nasalization, common to all Romance languages 2) dictu > dectu, lowering of short i to /e/, common to all continental Romance 3) dectu > dettu, assimilation of the consonant cluster, but notice that, unlike Tuscan, Central Italian retained the difference between final -u and final -o 4) dettu > dittu, Sabine metaphony at work 5) dittu > ditto, due to heavy Tuscan and, later, Italian influence.

[@malinpetersson4182]

I watched a bunch of these videos about stress, macrons etc last week (not for school work but for myself), and my Latin teacher just announced that we for this week should find the macrons of the words in a text and mark the stress of each word! I am ready for the assignment :D

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Excellent !

[@Olly133mhz]

Loved the mention of Aulis Gellius’ commentary on the issue at hand, and thanks for sharing his thoughts in the video! I must dig into Noctes Atticae! Such a great video as always - I can’t wait to be in Rome in two weeks’ time to enjoy those tramonti 🤩

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Have a great time

[@haviier9997]

Disculpe, que se sabe acerca de la entonación, la prosodia del latín. No he conseguido encontrar información de esto. Hoc hispánicé scrjpsj cum nóndum récté linguá anglicá scrjbere possim.

[@franzacorsi]

Man, You're a Genius! Thanks from Brazil!!!

[@dennislee9674]

Bravissimus! I learned more about Latin vowel length (esp. the quantity vs quality debate) from you and your videos than in almost 10 years of grad school! Cheers from those of us in East Asian linguistics!

[@alejandromartinezmontes6700]

Great video! In the case of Spanish 'dicho' instead of the expected *'decho', the culprit might be metaphony. Spanish vowels randomly raise in the presence of a following /j/. In this case, the velar /k/ becomes /j/ before /t/ in Western Romance, 'noite' and 'nuit' from 'noctem' in Portuguese and French. In Spanish, this palatalized the following /t/ so 'noche' instead. This yod tended to raise the vowel (you'd actually expect *'nueche' from 'noctem'), pretty consistently in the case of Latin short /e o/, but also in other cases. For example, 'factum' produces 'hecho' not *'hacho' and 'lactum' produces 'leche' not *'lache'.

[@Lobo1888]

spanish had a period od "latinization" during the middle ages, I think during the reign of Alfonso X, that could be the reason.

[@alejandromartinezmontes6700]

@@Lobo1888 It could be, but usually latinate words are very regular, only the infinitive was borrowed. But there were some changes like this, one that comes to mind is the re-addition of the /d/ to 'crudo', it was 'cruo' before.

[@guillermorivas7819]

@@Lobo1888 , This period of latinization happened across Western Europe during the middle ages/renaissance. Spanish also lost some Latin words no longer used like: et, cras, etc. It also dropped f on some words like heno, hierro, hacer (feno, fierro, facer). It lost some stuff yet gain some structure to be consistent with Latin -- as many other romance languages were moving in this direction.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Excellent! Thanks

[@Lobo1888]

@@guillermorivas7819 y Alejandro thank you both, interesting how ferro is retained in ferrocarril and in aragones "despierta ferres" catalan "desperta ferro!"

[@edheil]

VERY HELPFUL THANK YOU. This makes sense of a lot of things.

[@veefernaodias4134]

I love your channel Luke. Polýmathy is indeed one of the best channel for learning Latin. I'm learning Latin, a beginner to be precise. 😊😊

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Great! You’ll find much more on my other channel ScorpioMartianus

[@veefernaodias4134]

@@polyMATHY_Luke thank you, I'm really in love with the Roman history as well, I'm reading the book on " Early history of Rome" by Titus Livius or Livy.

[@hawaianico]

great video!!! sth new learnt today!

[@iteradaeaeam]

Iterum valdē bonam pellīculam nōbīs ostendis. Grātiās, Lūcī!

[@gabriellawrence6598]

I'm loving those videos with Roman background. When I was at Rome its was more than a transcendental experience, thanks for helping bringing it back. When it comes to long/short vowels, one can benefit from studying Persian phonology, where the distinctions are quite noticeable. However it's wierd to know that the long/short vowel distinction is not taken into account in Latin poetry.

[@DiomedesDioscuro]

This one has been particularly interesting. Gratias!

[@Pakanahymni]

This kind of morphophonological alteration is really interesting, I never knew, thanks for sharing.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for watching

[@orleanslecanut3031]

Incredibly useful video! This is specifically a subject that have been bothering me for a long time as I couldn't find any consistent scheme. Jam rēs clāriōrēs sunt. Other interesting and important matter: the variations and the variety of the verbal forms (present, perfect and supine and how they are cast in the four conjugations).

[@VenomVaxo]

Как всегда на высоте

[@y11971alex]

In this particular instance I actually prefer many Old Latin spellings because they contain diphthongs like and , which point to length in both lexical words and grammatical affixes. In this way I don't need to remind myself that the 3rd decl. nom. pl. ending -es is long because (despite everything) it isn't cogante with Greek -ες, but a contraction of *-ei-es.

[@jamiemattinson]

Luke, it would be great to get a video with insights into your day to day habits and routines with regard to study and learning. You've already explained methods you use to acquire languages for instance, but if I'm not mistaken you haven't yet shared things such as how much time per week you devote to study of different topics. In other words, insights into how we can be polymaths like you. Hope that makes sense

[@DeinLateinlehrer]

I think you made the point: We should try as best as we can. It is about making Latin sound like a spoken language. Quantity matters! In fact there are even in German many words with equal spelling but different pronounciation and meaning i.e. homographs: "Lache" (with a long a), means "puddle", "Lache" (with a short) means (laughter), "Rast" (short a): break or rest, "rast" (long a) means ro race. If you observe the right quantities and the common stress rules, you are able to recite any Latin verse even though you may not know the metre.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Danke! I didn’t know those two examples in German. British English even has a few stresses long vowels which are essential in RP phonology.

[@DeinLateinlehrer]

@@polyMATHY_Luke and there are quite more examples in German: Hochzeit (o short): wedding, Hochzeit (o long): blossoming time; modern (long o): modern, with short o: to rot. Sometimes the stress makes the difference like in übersetzen (stress on paenultima): to translate and übersetzen with stress on the first syllable: to ferry across. cura, ut quam Latinissime valeas!

[@lancelotscart582]

Tibi gratias ago, Luca, pro his emissionibus faciendis, præcipue non longe a conventu meo!

[@AliShah-er7iu]

Interesting even for English, might be the reason why we have scribe and script

[@BFDT-4]

I like that! In my teaching of English to spanish speakers I have to always remind them of lengthened vowel sounds as in scriiiibe and seeeen. √ Thanks, Ali!

[@theophonchana5025]

Stem ag‐ (verb agere) + ‐tus past participle suffix → agtus → actus (assimilation, devoicing) → āctus (lengthening)

[@Brandon55638]

I know you're in the process of making videos on Ancient Egyptian, but will you make a video on Latin vowel mutations (e. g. frangere < frēgisse)?

[@BFDT-4]

Not in this video, but in some other resource, at least to me, it would be great if (and I guess I am volunteering???!!!) we could group these words in pattern clusters, showing similar lengthening from short or going short from a long vowel. And then to use this to mechanically train the muscles in groups of words, rather than in isolated examples. I do this when I teach English, as it happens, by clustering all the irregular verbs, nouns or adjectives, so that a learner can learn a pattern rather than memorizing isolated orthography. I am in the middle of this video now, and thoroughly fascinated, and as I said above, almost getting Word out and reviewing all the examples here and making a table of patterns for recognizing and producing these patterns. If one could, how many patterns are there, d'you think? If there is anything that has really charged up my interest in chugging through Latin, it's videos and other kinds of lessons like these!

[@thomasruhm1677]

Deine Aussprache von „liegen“ ist sehr gut.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Danke! kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYqkkI2bi9WAg5Y

[@tepan]

Thanks for teaching Lachmann's Law! I start to visualize a "g" as a "voice + c" = "´c", and when a "g" hits a "t", the "voice" ("´") splits off of the "g", merging with the previous vowel. So "ag + tus" is like "a´c + tus" = "āctus". Maybe "G" is "C + apex" in the first place? I'm definitely overthinking this, but thanks nonetheless.

[@rdreher7380]

What you're talking about is using autosegmental phonology to describe the underlying theory of a phonetic rule. Autosegmental approaches are super fascinating, and oh this makes me miss my phonology classes with Professor Bickmore. Autosegmental analysis started as a way to describe rules in tone or pitch-accent languages. Another name for it "non-linear" as it sees not only a single stream of linguistic information, but two layers, one for the "segmental" information (the consonants & vowels), and another for the tone information. You can then describe how these features interact. Maybe you have a pitch-accent language like Japanese, where there is an underlying "high-tone" feature (like an accent), and it can either start attached to a syllable, or start unbound to any specific syllable. Then you can write rules under this framework that describe how the tone feature is moved or spread to fill out the pitch-pattern of the word. This then created a revolution in phonology, as the idea was had to do use autosegmental descriptions for distinctive features of the consonants and vowels too! In the more traditional linear approach, you would describe Lachmann's Law as the consonant losing its [+voice] feature, it just goes away, but in the autosegmental approach, you can describe the [+voice] feature as "detaching" from the consonant, but still existing. This feature needs something to connect to, so a space is made between the previous vowel and the consonant to hold this feature. This space is then further filled by the quality of the vowel, thus lengthening the vowel. Before this, just using generative phonology, you'd have to describe this rule as V → [+long] / _ C[+voice]C[-voice], in other words, a vowel becomes long before a cluster of a voiced and unvoiced consonant, and then C → [-voice] / _[-voice], a consonant becomes unvoiced before an unvoiced phoneme. This series of rules can account for Lachmann's law, but the idea of a vowel lengthening because of this specific cluster combination feels strange, doesn't it? What the autosegmental approach gives us is a whole new way to understand and explain the naturalness of these mechanisms; we have pieces of these sounds not being deleted or added, but being moved and spread!

[@tepan]

@@rdreher7380 Thank you very much. I have learnt a lot today.

[@soulfulserenity403]

Love all your little ending clips of human moments 😄

[@AlessandraSalvaggio1973]

Amazing! You know how to pronounce correctly long and short vowels in italian, while I (a native Italian speaker) don't even know that. I need to check it in the dictionary 😂. In school or at the University we knew that latin use to have long and short vowels, but in reading (with the classical ecclesiastic pronunciation) we simply ingnored that...

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Ciao! Sì infatti, un peccato perché è la parte più essenziale della lingua latina, guarda questi kzbin.info/aero/PLQQL5IeNgck0-tQ4AZgKFMlQCJud_VY_H

[@AlessandraSalvaggio1973]

@@polyMATHY_Luke grazie!

[@flyingjay85]

du machst fantastische videos, ein glück für mich, denn ich bin ein begeisterter hobby-linguist. danke dafür. ich las, dass du auch deutsch kannst. viele grüße !!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Vielen Dank!

[@doodmonkey]

Good stuff

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@oliverrust8993]

I love this channel

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

It loves you back

[@OrolesMagnus]

In Romanian the Latin verb dicere become "a zice" (is pronounced like Ah zeecheh). By the way on Trajan's Column is depicted the war between the Dacians and the Romans, from 105-106 which led to the conquest of some parts of Dacia, one of them being called later TRANSYLVANIA.

[@wolfgangk1]

How would you write the command: Pray always or Always pray Thank you

[@nikecatania95]

Sei bravissimo! ^_^ Mi piacciono tantissimo i tuoi video

[@pabloamadomontero664]

Nescivi lex Lachmanni. Novam rem linguae latinae disco.

[@dangerich530]

It's incredible that as a native Italian I understand everything when speaking English and running in trouble when speaking Latin

[@user-yt4wo7jx5i]

About frango, in what ground can we say it has "fractus" with long a in its past participle? It comes from an example of some romance language?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Many such long vowels are attested in ancient Roman inscriptions, as you see in the video I recommend you watch. Additionally, here we have an n which vanishes, and in this environment the vowel usually lengthens, it’s just by a process different from Lachmann’s Law

[@CloudslnMyCoffee]

Do you have a video on short vowel pronunciation? I’m getting confused with differing curricula

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yes, this is a long video essay but it definitely contains what you need: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6aQpJ-Fd9qlrK8si=qJr_lzp0Py4WAdRo

[@impCaesarAvg]

Lēgem Lachmannī ignōrāuī. Lūcius est magister magnus et rēx rētis.

[@user-mb4ux7xv4j]

Luke, do you have a Discord? I have some questions about Latin, e. g. on divergencies between what you say about Latin phonology versus what Wikipedia says, and a Latin-interested community forum may be a fun thing, I don’t know where else to ask those :)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I don’t have time for Discord, but asking on Reddit will usually get you some informed responses

[@shookone568]

I’ve never really fully appreciated just how much Latin has influenced English. Dictate, script, scribe etc. I didn’t know that’s how it all worked.

[@DerMelodist]

Hey Luke. I've been using LLPSI for a while now (I'm conquering chapter 16 at the moment), and I've really been enjoying it. Would you answer a question for me? Hans (and you in this video) both have used the symbols < and > to communicate some sort of connection to words and their meanings or relationships. I understand that it has something to do with a noun and verb relationship, but I'm still confused as to what Hans exactly means when he uses these symbols. Would you explain this for me? Gratias tibi et vale!

[@weirdlanguageguy]

Basically, the > means "turns into". For example, /bt > pt/ means /bt/ turns into /pt/

[@bruno-bnvm]

It also used to designate when a word comes from a verb. Sapientia

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Hey there. They’re just arrows. They’re used by linguists pretty often.

[@DerMelodist]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Gratias omnibus!

[@CannedMan]

Norwegian has three levels of length to consider: short vowel + long consonant long vowel + short consonant long vowel + long consonant The latter is lost in many dialects, but is still quite prevalent in dialects that palatalise, e.g. /mɑɲː/ (man) v. /mɑːɲː/ (the man); the latter is further pronounced with a circumflex toneme in the west and the north (as in Ancient Greek), and the prior usually with a rising pitch (same, also as in Ancient Greek).

[@Galenus1234]

I know that both words have a slightly vowel quaility, but maybe pairs like kill/keel or still/steal can be used to teach the importance of vowel length to English speakers.

[@gerardomalazdrewicz7514]

Cue for Achmed the dead terrorist: "I keel you"

[@xmini-ul7je]

In spanish there's something "similar" to latin long vowels, words like "leer", "poseer", etc, but you don't pronunce them like with an extended vowel but something like a repetition of that vowel, but with the accent in the second one, does it have something to do with latin long vowels?.Great video, see ya.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yes, these are indeed long duration vowels. Italian has it in the word cooperare

[@bushidog6915]

I've watched so many of your videos by now without quite understanding the importance of vowel length, but today I watched a video of an American man practicing his Thai. I'm Laos myself and hearing him pronounce ພາສາ (pasa, the word for language) sounded very weird to me. I think I'll be emphasizing vowel length when studying other languages now.

[@theogerrardanderson7229]

The comment about the end about poetry confused me somewhat. Are you saying that in poetry the first syllable of āctus and factus are treated the same because they are both long syllables in the metrical rules of Latin and so are effectively the same in terms of how they fit into the meter? But even with that being the case do you still pronounce the a in āctus slightly longer in poetry but just not long enough to effect the scansion? Thanks for the great video!

[@rossanofragale7470]

Hi! I think that luke was saying that this doesn't change much talking about poetry because it's just an adjustment to better recreate ancient pronunciation. Thus, when reading ancient poetry with correct long and shorts, we just need long and shorts vowels that are not really long per se but just longer than the shorter and the short shorter than the long, no matter HOW much they are long

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yes exactly, they sound different, but in Latin meter a long syllable counts as long and that’s it.

[@theogerrardanderson7229]

Thank you!

[@Cyclonus2377]

Hey Luke! I think you may have talked about this in another video. Either on this channel or on Scorpio Martianus. But would you say that learning Italian first would make learning Latin a bit easier? At least the pronunciation of it? Because it seems like Italian makes a lot of use of the long vowels in a lot of her words. And seems to place stress on such, just like Latin. Plus, at least to my ear, properly pronounced Classical Latin sounds very much like spoken Italian. Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts! 🤔🤔🤔🤔

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I did indeed talk about it here kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHmYpnWph5uSntU

[@Correctrix]

Learning either first will definitely make learning the other later easier. But of course, the fastest way to learn any given language is to just get down to studying it.

[@theophonchana5025]

#lachmann_law #vowel_shortening #shortening #vowel_lengthening #lengthening #long_vowel #vowel_length #length #short_vowel #consonant_assimilation #assimilation #devoicing #consonant_devoicing #voicing #consonant_voicing #voice #voiced_consonant #voiceless_consonant

[@vytah]

Is this related to the fact that in many dialects of English vowels are slightly longer before voiced consonants?

[@BorisNVM]

it is like stressing the vowel in the wrong syllable, it is not the worst thing, but doing it in every word def makes you sound weird

[@matthewbbenton]

I wonder about dialects in Latin. I’m new to the channel, so apologies if this has already been addressed in another video - but I assume people in different parts of “Italy” (let alone the whole of the Roman Empire) would have had drastically different native accents, just as we do in modern languages today. Did the ancient grammarians consider only the dialect spoken around Rome to be “correct” Latin? Or maybe just their own?

[@prototropo]

I feel yes-seems almost certain that Cicero, Quintilian and Tacitus spoke “BBC-style” Latin, not just anyone’s dialect.

[@Philoglossos]

There is evidence of dialectic variation, but during the classical period it was certainly quite limited - Latin was spread across a vast area over a very short period of time, so at first there would have been very little regional variation outside of the traditional latin speaking areas. A good modern example of this phenomenon is Russian - in the traditional Russian speaking heartland there is dialectal variation, but in all the areas where Russian was spread very recently there's extremely little divergence. A native russian speaker from Tashkent can go to Moscow and they won't sound out of place. Similarly, a native Latin speaker from Gaul or Britain in 50 BCE probably sounded a lot like a Roman. In 350 CE they probably sounded quite a bit different.

[@francesconicoletti2547]

@@prototropo I wonder how much of Cicero or Quintilian’s dialect would be a product of the same thing RP was, a deliberate classic education. In Britain’s case it would be British Public Schools teaching Latin as an ideal, for Roman orators it would be learning the Greek of the fourth and fifth century’s BC. Then using in both cases as much as possible the structure of the older learned language in the native language of the speaker because the older language is deemed superior in circles the speaker moves.

[@mattiafioravanti8475]

Very nice city in the background. Where's that? 😏

[@mdlahey3874]

Well but, if what you say about vowel length being, I guess, elided under "metri causa", is accurate, it would have had substantial impact on poetic recitation, and perhaps on the possibility of using rhyme-graphs to generate archaic pronunciations. Just speculating, here... (Some commenters get so mean.)

[@j2zel]

Can anyone help me out with this? In the word ductus, the first syllable (duc) is "long by position". So in order to pronounce "duc" long (because long syllables are pronounced twice as long as short ones), what sound should be lengthened? Doesn't the "u" keep a short length? So would that mean that the lengthening of the syllable is coming from the "c"? If so, how do you pronounce a "c" in a long way? What I'm trying to say is, I don't really get how a syllable that is long by position gets pronounced longer if you are keeping the vowel short.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Hi there, the vowel is phonemically long; this playlist should teach you everything you need to know: kzbin.info/aero/PLQQL5IeNgck0-tQ4AZgKFMlQCJud_VY_H&si=4scbD_07yqqduqG-

[@veta2023]

I was trying to find why and when double L in Spanish transformed to sound jj (not sure how to write it correctly) . In all other latin based languages - double L sounds like double L . I could not find the answer, may be you know it?

[@guillermorivas7819]

Sardinian tends to shift the "ll" towards "dd". For example, bello (Spanish) becomes beddu (Sardinian)

[@marinaaaa2735]

became /λ/ in old iberian romance and then merged with in most dialects of spanish. Argentina takes it even further and turns both and into a sh sound.

[@alejandromartinezmontes6700]

The same change happened in French, for example, 'vaillant'. It's a merger of , the sound /ʎ/, written in Portuguese, and , the sound /ʝ/. Some Spanish dialects still keep them distinct and the exact pronunciation varies.

[@user-un7gp4bl2l]

@@alejandromartinezmontes6700 I think she means the earlier change from [ll] to [ʎ], which also happened to [nn].

[@alejandromartinezmontes6700]

@@user-un7gp4bl2l Ahh, that makes sense. That's shared with Catalan and some other Iberian Romance languages The merger of Latin /lj/ with /ll/ as /ʎ/. As you mentioned, geminates become palatalized in Spanish. Catalan actually does it to initial /l/ as well, Catalan has 'lluna' for 'luna', pronounced /ʎunə/.

[@amywalker7575]

I love Latin, although I know I'm going to have trouble learning it. Spanish was not a piece of cake, but at least you didn't decline the nouns and adjectives, too. By the way, could you please explain how the word "tenet" (belief or principle) ended up in the middle of the present-tense conjugation of "tenere" (to hold)? The second meaning came before the first, I'm sure, but WHY???

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

The word was borrowed directly from Latin without regard for its native grammatical usage

[@amywalker7575]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks. :) Another question I have about "tenere" is why its derivatives ("tener," "tenir," "tenere" in Italian) are irregular but the original verb isn't (I think...?).

[@zagorilterribile3793]

Grande!

[@BramVanhooydonck]

In my dialect of people pronounce the short letter i almost like a short /é/, while across the river (known by Romans as Scaldum) there's a heavy emphasis on the letter i, pronouncing it as if it were /ii/. So for example the word 'in' would be pronounced here like it would in English, but across the river it would be pronounced like it would in Latin. Oddly enough as a consequence, over here the short letter e tends to be pronounced closer to a short /ae/ or /ä/ while across the river it's voiced the same way as the way we pronounce the short letter i. I have plenty of reason to believe it's just one of the many dividing phenomenons that are a result of lasting impressions by Roman occupation.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Where is your linguistic variety?

[@BramVanhooydonck]

@@polyMATHY_Luke I'm from Flanders, and east of the river is Antwerp. The pronunciation would hypothetically be traced back to the Nervii tribe, where the Romans had good connections, both in mobility and trade.

[@KeithDvorak]

OH! sorry! the c of duc isn’t voiced. never mind. 😜

[@jamessutton9323]

When I was at school (in the 60s) the latin teacher made us (the whole class) write "līber, lībera, līberum = free" 500 times (with the horizontal line over the i). because we said "liber" (=book) instead of "lĪber". I never forgot it after that, but what a waste of time!

[@ldmtag]

Is there a possibility that when talking about long and short vowels grammarians actually meant something different, like tongue shape, length of lips, slight j sound added/removed like in russian letter "short i"?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

While an interesting thought, no, long vowels are of duration. See this playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLQQL5IeNgck0-tQ4AZgKFMlQCJud_VY_H&si=qMPKIhLBAwUanwN_ This should help you give a very intuitive understanding

[@ldmtag]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks! I'll watch it! It's fascinating how Latin, a 2000+ y.o. language is similar with my native tongue Russian in all those inflections and general logic... all fascinating until you come across something as weird as long vowels, and it makes you super nervous, you revise the entire phonetics of all languages you speak to find traces of the same concept, but it doesn't really work.

[@silvermane5695]

You know it is interesting that you mention the long vowels in Latin, in Spanish depend on the region in Latin America; there are lot of people who speak Spanish with a slow intonation that you can hear them pronouncing words with long vowels. I thought this was a pronunciation mistake but then I realize it was the way they all learned to speak the language like that, kind of like a regional pronunciation.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

It’s not really the same thing; this is just the same phenomenon as in Italian, where vowels are pronounced for a longer duration in stressed open syllables. In Latin they can happen anywhere

[@aureliengellio7302]

Salve magister, legem Lachamannis (?) didici. At longas vocales puto tantum esse quia duas consonas praecedunt , ut in poematis videre licet. Immo, de verbo "ducere", "du" constat longam syllabam esse . Cur autem Italice habemus "dotto" et non "dutto", si bene omnem sermonem tuum intellexero ? Plurimas gratias tibi ago ! Beate tu in foro trajano ambulans !

[@aureliengellio7302]

Poematibus !!! Veniam tuam peto

[@Glossologia]

'Vocalis longa' non significat idem atque 'syllaba longa'. Hac de causa discrimen est inter 'ductus' -> dotto et 'lūctus' -> 'lutto'. Et 'lūc' et 'duc' sunt *syllabae* longae, sed 'lūc' habet etiam *vocalem* longam, 'duc' vero vocalem *brevem.* Syllaba longa est quae *aut* in consonantem *aut* in vocalem longam desinit. Ergo: du = syllaba brevis quia desinit in vocalem brevem dū = syllaba longa quia desinit in vocalem longam duc = syllaba longa quia desinit in consonantem dūc = syllaba longa et quia habet vocalem longam et quia desinit in consonantem

[@aureliengellio7302]

Multas gratias tibi ago hujus responsi causa. Jam enim audiveram hoc discrimen esse, credo, inter vocales et syllabas longas in Graeca lingua , ut in homericis carminibus . At quomodo possis explicare quamobrem in verbo "dicare" "di " est brevis syllaba, cum in verbo " dicere", "di" est longa (sic legitur in meo "Gradu ad Parnassum") . Ignosce mihi si asinus pertinax tibi videor esse. Vale et MACTE VIRTUTE! @@Glossologia

[@aureliengellio7302]

"sit" (et non "est" post "quamobrem etc ...) Erubesco !

[@Glossologia]

@@aureliengellio7302 Hoc rogatum ad etymologiam pertinet potius quam ad grammaticam. Ut videtur 'dīcere' et 'dicāre' non habent eandem racidem.

[@bartoszwojciechowski2270]

I find it really hard to keep the distinction between long and short vowels, especially when they occur in multiple syllables within a single word and when they are in an unstressed position - it's a little counterintuitive that a longer syllable should not be the most prominent (=stressed) one in a word, especially since I'm used to the rhythm of the English language. But I have the same problem with learning languages such as Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian which all have vowel length distinction and a fixed stress on the first syllable. Now, the latter wouldn't be much of a problem since my native Polish also has a fixed lexical stress on the penultimate syllable (with a few exceptions) but when I try to pronounce words like "agyvelőgyulladás" in Hungarian, I really struggle to either put the stress on the first, very short syllable "a-" or to pronounce all the long vowels correctly. Do you also sometimes struggle with this in Latin? I know that English does have vowel length but it's not phonemic and in most cases, the longer vowel is the stressed one and you reduce most unstressed syllables so it's much easier to pronounce. Maybe you've got some tips?

[@Correctrix]

Vowel length is semi-phonemic in English though: it's tied to different timbres, rather than being completely independent or merely allophonic. Moreover, although unstressed long vowels are often shortened, they are not always so. ‘Race-car’ and nowadays also ‘happy’ are stressed on the penult, with a long final unstressed syllable. When speaking Latin, what I find hard isn't making sure long syllables are long, but ensuring that short ones stay short, as it's easy to accidentally lengthen them because they are in stressed open syllables (where it's mandatory for them to be long in Italian) or because I linger on them as I think about getting the grammar of the next few syllables right.

[@bartoszwojciechowski2270]

@@Correctrix There's no such thing as "semi-phonemic". Long vowels in English are a product of both allophony and phonotactics, in this case, longer vowels depend on syllable structure which doesn't make them contrastive by length but only by quality, hence length isn't phonemic. Also, I myself did say that not all unstressed syllables are reduced. Italian is lovely but it also doesn't seem to have contrastive vowel length, it's also rather the result of its predictable syllable structure. Anyway, Polish doesn't have vowel length at all (of course, stressed syllables may be slightly longer but it's purely allophonic and can I never hear the difference) so it's really hard for me to even accept the concept of a phonemic contrast between long and short vowels.

[@Correctrix]

@@bartoszwojciechowski2270 Do you know what I mean but want to cuntily object to my terminology, or do you actually not understand?

[@bartoszwojciechowski2270]

@@Correctrix Why are you taking it so personally? I understand what you mean but it's just that there's either a phoneme or an allophone (+complementary distribution sometimes, but the boundaries between the latter two are somewhat unclear) and nothing in between. Linguists usually take a minimalist view on this issue and when such features are dependent on syllables instead of individual words, they are not treated as phonemic. Otherwise, we would have to treat palatalised consonants in Romanian in some environments as independent phonemes. While they are indeed phonetically distinct, they come from assimilatory processes triggered by the following /i/ sound. No hate at all, I actually think you're pretty smart and you sound like you have some linguistic background. I just don't like it when linguists try to impose their views on others when there can be, and usually are, different analyses. Anyway, I still struggle with Hungarian and Czech. It's unfortunate that they have a phonemic contrast in terms of vowel length + fixed stress. It's too much for me.

[@argyrendehringterimksaccu174]

@@bartoszwojciechowski2270 if it's not heavy vs light matras of ancient Greek or vedic Sanskrit eg pavaaka vs paavaka, or japanese mora vs English stress not pitch accent hecc ur not at hmong or Cantonese tones, u got no sandhi of that like vietnamese register or Thai Bangkok official name etc. It's not worth it child play military linguist killing you is much more honorable like how bully Maguire from the movie brother and laoshu Moses is killed for knowing too much dolittle programming used in nannking

[@Nikioko]

The difference between "venit" and "vēnit" is very important. The first one means "he/she/it comes", the latter "he/she/it has come". Present and perfect. Two different tempora. Venire, venio, vēni, ventum.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Right.

[@flippert0]

Should be noted, that Lachmann's law is somewhat disputed among scholars.

[@stjacquesremi]

I'd be curious where the latin's vowel lengthening came from and came to be

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Many of the vowel lengths came from PIE

[@mtblp7459]

doesn't acta means "shore" / "sea side" while ācta means "things that happend"?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s right! I forgot to mention this is a minimal pair. This if one actually means acta and not ācta it’s fine.

[@mtblp7459]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Yes. Otherwise it would be weird. Just imagine: "have you read the acta diurnī?" "No, why should I read the daily seashore???" "What? I mean the newspaper..." "Ooohhhh, you mean the ācta diurnī" 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@sammcpeak6854]

Do my eyes deceive me or is that the APFU cold weather cap?? Truly nothing keeps your head warmer!! Gratias!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Good eye

[@luszczi]

You are sometimes pronouncing them much longer than necessary for emphasis, right? A long vowel should be about twice as long as a short one, right? Just checking.

[@Glossologia]

Yes he's exaggerating for emphasis since a lot of people have trouble hearing the difference haha. Listen to the new version of his familia romana recording that he just posted on scorpio martianus, there he does vowel length very naturally :-)

[@luszczi]

@@Glossologia Cool, I was wondering about his old reading of FR too actually. I checked out the new one and my question is answered. :)

[@luszczi]

@@IcyTorment Latin textbooks generally say "twice as long", but they don't mention why that is. I guess you could get an idea about this by analyzing how metric poetry is written or perhaps through more modern linguistic research that apparently found that the information conveyed per unit of time in spoken languages is roughly constant.

[@razvantataru262]

The word "SUNT" it is also in the Romanian language 🇹🇩

[@xmini-ul7je]

In argentinian spanish you have "vos podés" instead of "tu puedes", "volvé" instead of "vuelve", etc, to many different conjugations from the spanish from Spain, i've heard that the argentinian spanish is a more previous version of spanish. Is it more related to latin than the modern version of spanish?. Fun fact, in argentinian spanish there are many italian words incorporated as slang, and you even have at least one taken directly from latin like "manducar" for "eat" again as a slang word. See ya.

[@DonPaliPalacios]

The vos forms in Argentinian and some other varieties of Latin American Spanish are related to 2nd person plural forms that are still preserved in Spain Spanish (vosotros podéis, volved, etc.) These come from the Latin 2nd person plural, so Spain Spanish preserves their origin as plural verb forms.

[@yenotich]

I always thought that all closed syllables are long, and now my world is broken and falling apart... 😂😅

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

They are, absolutely. But they don’t necessarily contain long *vowels* which is the key difference

[@yenotich]

@@polyMATHY_Luke They are pronounced as short, but in terms of the stress rule they count as long ones ? I beg your pardon for my bad English, I hope it's understandable

[@hakarthemage]

Wait? Does English get Ditto from dictus?

[@guillermorivas7819]

Yep. Well, English gets it from a combination of dictus (Latin) and detto (italian). That's my understanding. Or, it may have come from an older form of Italian.

[@Glossologia]

Probably from Italian detto actually.

[@bruhwhat7863]

did the romans actually speak the way luke does? it feels like its too formal and proper and perfect for everyday conversation

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

No idea why you would think that. It’s not. The way I speak is exceedingly similar to attested conversational Latin from ancient times.

[@EriniusT]

He speaks slowly and enunciates really well. Maybe someone giving a speech or teaching Latin to foreigners would've talked like him

[@Glossologia]

It depends on what you mean. Informal speech was definitely different than formal speech like in any language, but don't imagine that things like vowel length were ignored in informal speech. For instance Japanese is very different between formal and informal speech but you can't speak Japanese without properly observing vowel length.

[@Correctrix]

That is entirely your cultural overlay.

[@mtblp7459]

Well yes and no, Luke uses (mostly) classical latin with a restored classical pronunciation. This was the gold standard of latin in ancient times and used by the educated - at least in formal settings. We have plenty of evidence that many of latins great authors and emperor's used a more colloquial ("vulgar" pronunciation) for example suetonius tells us that Vespasian apparently said "plōstra" instead of "plaustra". When a guy called flōrus correcred him saying it should be "plaustra", Vespasian greeted him the next day as "flaurus". This is a great example that even educated often used pronunciations closer to what is attested of "vulgar Latin" HOWEVER they had been extensively mocked for that by other educated Romans.

[@pterispertinax2868]

Schrödinger vowel: it’s both long and short at the same time.

[@elisabettamacghille4623]

Here in northern Italy we say 'tètto' for roof but it's not an important issue, anybody in Italy understand you are speaking of the roof even if you say tètto and not tetto.

[@KeithDvorak]

i’m sorry, but i don’t understand why it’s ductus, and not dūctus. i’ve rewatched a couple times, but i think i’m missing something.

[@carterwood4197]

I think he's saying that the precedig vowels in this case will always be shortened. It just happens that if the root had a voiced consonant after he vowel, it will lose its voicing and relengthen the vowel. But with ductus the consonant was unvoiced so the vowel loses its length and doesnt regain it during the loss of voicing because there is no loss of voicing. It is already unvoiced.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I see you found the answer 👍

[@martinomasolo8833]

I can't actually find a sense in the choice of openness of E in Italian words. It's completely random

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

It’s often etymological

[@imbricitor]

whats with pictus?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

It’s short. pictus

[@jeffersonleonardo2]

Shouldn't we use the romances languages as examples for pronunciation of classical latin when they came from vulgar latin? I mean, was the pronunciation the same? In every single romance language there's a difference about phonemes.🤔

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m about to make a video on this kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpi1qaiGr8l8pKs

[@giulianomerelli8546]

El problema con las vocales largas es que ningún maldito texto las marca, por lo que suerte tratando de aprenderlas

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Therefore, we must *insist* publishers print them. That’s how it will change.

[@mturynP]

Was there any disagreement about this? It is far from unknown to see one grammarian's matter of great import be another grammarian's object of scorn as nothing or a mere affectation….

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

There is no disagreement on this subject

[@guillermorivas7819]

Primus sum

[@ShaareiZoharDaas]

How in HELL are you getting more HANDSOME? Not only are you keeping my Latin fresh ,you are looking fresh doing so, KUDOS.