Latin letter V pronunciation: /w/ or /v/ ? Latin Pronunciation History

How was the letter V pronounced in Latin? Was it really /w/ like the W of English? This video explores that question in detail.
Subscribe to these channels for outstanding content in Latin:
ALEXANDER VERONENSIS
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SCHOLA LATINA
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RVMAK
Stefano Vittori's wonderful reconstruction of 1cAD pronunciation, from Petronius: • Petronius, Satyricon 4...
⚔️ Jackson Crawford's video on the change of /w/ to /v/ in Norse:
• W vs. V in Old Norse
🇪🇸 Linguriosa's video about the sound of B and V in Spanish:
• ¿Por qué pronuncio así...
🇮🇹 See the Podcast Italiano video on raddoppiamento fonosintattico:
• Doppie FANTASMA in ita...
🔊 Hear the audio of the Montellese language/dialect of Italy (note that the IPA transcriptions are not all accurate)
soundcomparisons.com/?fbclid=...
Many references to the research I cite can be found in the book Social Variation and the Latin Language by J.N. Adams, pp.183-190, available on Amazon here: amzn.to/3f2PlTv
Latin Pronunciation Chronology Spreadsheet:
bit.ly/ranierilatinpronunciation
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00:00 Intro
01:35 The Short Answer
03:13 Modern Spanish B & V
04:02 Do any modern Romance languages have /w/ ? Corsican
06:06 Montellese
10:00 Greek cognates with Latin: vīnum, ϝοἶνος
11:06 When Latin V starts to change
17:19 Stefano Vittori's rendition of 1cAD pronunciation of B & V
19:11 It's absolutely okay to use /v/ for V in your spoken Latin! 👍
21:43 See these videos about Old Norse and Spanish
22:23 Conclusion
#latin #pronunciation #rome

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

How was the letter V pronounced in Latin? Was it really /w/ like the W of English? This video explores that question in detail. Subscribe to these channels for outstanding content in Latin: SATURA LANX kzbin.info ALEXANDER VERONENSIS kzbin.info SCHOLA LATINA kzbin.info/door/7ZWN9ORGp_sqnDm7f74Cqg RVMAK Stefano Vittori's wonderful reconstruction of 1cAD pronunciation, from Petronius: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZnMoKKqmdyZpc0 ⚔️ Jackson Crawford's video on the change of /w/ to /v/ in Norse: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oGWuXqN9hblnbNE 🇪🇸 Linguriosa's video about the sound of B and V in Spanish: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHm1iYOjed1letU 🇮🇹 See the Podcast Italiano video on raddoppiamento fonosintattico: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qIC6aoKlpb6LidU 🔊 Hear the audio of the Montellese language/dialect of Italy (note that the IPA transcriptions are not all accurate) soundcomparisons.com/?fbclid=IwAR2vMZsVi1IAl6H6lNjQKfk3pDa078mjKPDmZA7WjSTr8gWPSnepefiB0C0#/en/Romance/language/Rce_It_Sth_Cpn_Irp_Montella_Dl Many references to the research I cite can be found in the book Social Variation and the Latin Language by J.N. Adams, pp.183-190, available on Amazon here: amzn.to/3f2PlTv Latin Pronunciation Chronology Spreadsheet: bit.ly/ranierilatinpronunciation If you like, consider joining this channel: kzbin.info/door/Lbiwlm3poGNh5XSVlXBkGAjoin 🦂 Support my work on Patreon: www.patreon.com/LukeRanieri ☕️ Support my work with PayPal: paypal.me/lukeranieri 📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com 🏛 Ancient Greek in Action · Free Greek Lessons: kzbin.info/aero/PLU1WuLg45SixsonRdfNNv-CPNq8xUwgam 👨‍🏫 My Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata playlist · Free Latin Lessons: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oGjLlWpvbq6tpLc 🦂 ScorpioMartianus (my channel *entirely* in Latin & Ancient Greek) kzbin.info 🌍 polýMATHY website: lukeranieri.com/polymathy/ 😊 polýMATHY on Facebook: facebook.com/lukepolymath 🐦 polýMATHY on Twitter: twitter.com/LukePolymath/ 🎮 Join the Discord community: discord.gg/u4PN2u2 🌅 polýMATHY on Instagram: instagram.com/lukeranieri/ 🦁 Legio XIII Latin Language Podcast: kzbin.info 🎙 Hundreds of hours of Latin & Greek audio: lukeranieri.com/audio 👕 Merch: teespring.com/stores/scorpiomartianus 🦂 www.ScorpioMartianus.com 🦅 www.LukeRanieri.com 📖 My book Ranieri Reverse Recall on Amazon: amzn.to/2nVUfqd 00:00 Intro 01:35 The Short Answer 03:13 Modern Spanish B & V 04:02 Do any modern Romance languages have /w/ ? Corsican 06:06 Montellese 10:00 Greek cognates with Latin: vīnum, ϝοἶνος 11:06 When Latin V starts to change 17:19 Stefano Vittori's rendition of 1cAD pronunciation of B & V 19:11 It's absolutely okay to use /v/ for V in your spoken Latin! 👍 21:43 See these videos about Old Norse and Spanish 22:23 Conclusion

[@binema5797]

We cannot wait for you to do a nice in-depth video on the Romanian language. The evolution of the language compared to Latin and the other Romance languages. We need you to do some high quality video on the topic. Mulțumesc.

[@Paralyzer]

Can u make a video about the arch of Titus .located on the via sacra in Rome . It was constructed in c. 81 AD by the Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Titus's official deification or consecratio and the victory of Titus together with their father, Vespasian, over the Jewish rebellion in Judaea The inscription SENATVS POPVLVSQVE·ROMANVS DIVO·TITO·DIVI·VESPASIANI·F(ILIO) VESPASIANO·AVGVSTO Meaning Senatus Populusque Romanus divo Tito divi Vespasiani filio Vespasiano Augusto The Senate and the Roman people (dedicate this) to the deified Titus Vespasian Augustus, son of the deified Vespasian Why did the Romans spell that way? AVGVSTO Thanks

[@wordart_guian]

in western (I think) gascon occitan V is pronounced as /w/ between vowels, though this may be a later development since that's also how - v - from latin - b - is pronounced as in imperfect -avi, -avas, -ava. similarly, J and soft g are both /j/. and that causes alternations like blau/blava and roi/roja (m/f), but this is also seen in dialects where v,j are obstruents.

[@wordart_guian]

@@Paralyzer V and u used to be the capital and lowercase (with some more variation)

[@manorueda1432]

Already following Dr Jackson Crawford, Linguriosa and Podcast Italiano since a time ago, they are wonderful channels. I'm going for the rest of your suggestions now! Thanks a lot!

[@DigitalHobby]

Hello from Romania, thank you for not forgeting about us.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

♥️ 🇷🇴 !

[@suppiluiiuma5769]

I love the others, but Romanian is my favourite modern romance language

[@ericbarlow6772]

We won’t forget our cousins who live beyond the forest (Transylvania)

[@UltimaGaina]

Fyi, in romanian egg is "ou", which is pronounced like "ow", an example where the old "v" from "ovum" is pronounced close to "w". I can also think at "rain" which is "ploaie" in romanian. The "uv" from "pluvia"/"pluvium" was replaced by "oa", pronounced close to "wha" from "what". The same goes for "sheep", which is "oaie". The "ov" from the latin "ovis"/"ovium" was replaced by "oa" pronounced close to "wha" from "what".

[@viictor1309]

@@UltimaGaina nice clue

[@pjwg]

When I first heard someone say “weni widi wici” I thought it was the funniest thing! 😆

[@michele3900]

Even funnier is 'veni, veni, veni'.

[@rogeriopenna9014]

weni, widi, wiKi

[@linkgrinmbn]

@@michele3900 "Weni Wedi Weni"

[@hansvandermeulen5515]

Elmer Fudd:" When I wead a wiki...."

[@Veni_Vidi_Vortice]

Yeah, it's flippin' hilarious, isn't it? 😛

[@boringextrovert6719]

Hello Luke, This is very similar to Arabic and the language Arabs and Muslims made contact with. Arabic has no /v/ sound. It has the letter "و", which is both the /u/ and the /w/ sound. However, languages like Persian/Farsi, Turkish and Urdu have no /w/ sound, and use only the /v/ sound. For example, the Arabic name "مروة" or "Marwah" becomes "Mervet" in Turkish. The region with sizeable Arabic population is written as "اهواز" in both Arabic and Persian, but it's pronounced "Ahwaz" in Arabic and "Ahvaz" in Persian. Same with Urdu for name like "جاويد", which would be pronounced as "Jawed" in Arabic but "Javed" in Urdu. Interesting topic Luke, thanks again.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

And thanks for the comment! Very interesting.

[@ryuko4478]

this is reminding me of old timey loans Arabs had, like how we loaned /ʃaːwirma/ "Shawarma" from Turkish /t͡ʃevirme/ "to turn over", and /wabbuːr/ "steamship" from French /vapœʁ/ "steam"

[@evan-moore22]

That's fascinating. Since Proto-Indo-European favored the /w/ sound so much, it's really cool that the Indo-European languages of Farsi and Urdu are the ones that today use the /v/.

[@Janshevik]

interesting in persian due to arabic influence they have a lot of "redundant" letters which represent same sound, but are there because many loadwords from arabic, which are pronounced slightly different in arabic, but the same in persian

[@migthulhu]

Egypt and Iraq are separated by a common language

[@pjwg]

I’ve grown to embrace both classical and ecclesiastical latin. I see them as two different manifestations of history.

[@emilia1911]

I think that's the best way of thinking

[@newq]

Ditto

[@kevinclass2010]

One for secular and one for religious contexts

[@ManuelBravo]

Actually in Spanish we do have the /w/ sound, in words like “hueso”, “huevo”, “huele”, and many more, because in most Spanish words, stressed “o” became “ue”, and since in the Middle Ages the alphabet only had “u” for small letter “v”, they wrote it with an “h” at the beginning of a word so that they would know to pronounce it as a “u” and not as a “b”

[@hugobourgon198]

As he said, it comes from a Latin long "o" diphtongization. In Spanish, "ue" or "hue" corresponds to a long "o" in Latin. It doesn't come from a Latin "v". That was the point. In Spanish that Latin sound shifted to a +/- "b" sound. He never said that sound doesn't exist at all in the language, he said it doesn't match the Latin one.

[@ManuelBravo]

@Mr. Rich B.O.B Exactly, that's right, they wrote "Nahuatl" because if they had written it "Nauatl" everybody would have just read it as "Nabatl", the H served to distinguish the u in these diphthongs sometimes. Of course if the H was removed today we would not have any trouble reading it. We as Spanish natives of course don't really hear the /w/ sound, we just hear it as a "ue". Even when we learn English at school we're taught that the W is a Spanish U. Cheers!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That's right! just as in Italian uovo, etc. I meant to say that most Romance languages don't use /w/ for Latin V.

[@sebastiangudino9377]

@@Matfer345 Eso es casi palabra por palabra lo que dijo el OP... Pero gracias por añadir lo de la "hi" = "j"! Eso quiere decir que nuestra ortografía de "Hielo" viene de la necesidad de escribir una palabra pronunciada "jelo"? En español moderno la pronunciación de ambas sería bastante distinta...

[@guidoylosfreaks]

@Mr. Rich B.O.B in modern Nahuatl they actually spell nauatl or nawatl, though.

[@NickUva]

My grandparents' Italian dialect preserved a "w" sound for the "v." (They were from the hill country outside of Avellino.) So, the word for "cow" was pronounced "wacc" with the terminal "a" swallowed. (E la wacc'.) And my last name (the ordinary word for "grape") could be pronounced as U-wa.

[@XxParasite]

Only before an A, or everywhere?

[@NickUva]

@@XxParasite Hmm. Pretty much before everything. The king was Wittor’

[@dariobenini7532]

È davvero incredibile come tu spazii nell'immenso universo delle lingue, citando dialetti che neanche so che esistono... Lezione bellissima. Grazie

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Sei molto gentile! Grazie

[@jantala3243]

You know its a Polymathy vid when a a simple question is a 24:51 min vid

[@iberius9937]

Corsican is sure a revelation! A romance language that still preserves Classical Latin V=W!!!

[@pier.gio_o]

Well, also in Italian, in some cases, the letter U acts as a semiconsonant and is pronounced /w/. The sound /w/ appears in diphthongs, when the "u" is close to other vowels. Examples: "uomo" /'wɔ.mo/; "quando" /' kwando/; "ruota" /'rwɔta/ However, in Corsican, the /w/ sound is best represented. ~ greetings for Corsica ~

[@varuna918]

About corsican it's not just B and V. The language does it for every consonant, each has a strong and weak pronounciation (depending on when the letter is between 2 vowels or not), T is either pronounced T or D, D is D or W, V and B are B or W like said, C before A or U is either Ka or Ga, C before e or i is either Tsh or Dj, M and N have stronger or softer pronounciations, S is either S or Z, Z is either Ts or Dz and so on. It's important to note that in the southern part of the island they have harder pronounciations overall, so the W sound usually becomes V (you can even hear L pronounced as D when in strong position, like Bellu (beautiful) can be heard "Beddu"). Also there is a small error with the example "e voi" at 5:30, it should be written "è voi". the word e means "the" (in plural feminine form), whereas è means "and", and there is a rule that says that every consonant that follows a word that ended with à, è, ì, ò or ù is pronounced in hard form (because it virtually doubles the next consonant like it's said just after in the video), so "è voi" is heard "è boi" because of it, "e voi" would be heard "e woi" (but no one would say that, it has no real meaning, people would say "e vostre", which is pronouced "e wostre").

[@AmandaSamuels]

In the classic British history satire “1066 and all that”, they interpret “veni vide vici” as the Roman assessment of the ancient Britons, “weeny, weedy, weaky”.

[@DrWhom]

not just the ancient ones!

[@isobellabrett]

Being severely dyslexic, I totally feel with the author who spelled words wrong, because certain letters kind of sounded similarly to others. Glad our kind is of use. 😄

[@servantofaeie1569]

there wasnt really such a thing as a "wrong" spelling back then. the way i feel is that even today there shouldnt be a "wrong" spelling. only good and bad spellings. "rait" is a perfectly good way to spell "right", but "shdbeidcjdne" is a bad way to spell "right". As someone who has been obsessed over spelling reform my whole life, i see dyslexia not as a disorder but as a perfectly normal side affect of people being made to spell words as if they were pronounced thousands of years ago with different spelling conventions from many different influencers all smashed together.

[@servantofaeie1569]

Ƿi ſ̌ud jwz ledŗz lajk pejnc an y kenƀıs, nat æz kympyƿnınc yƀ fıkſt lyƿgyƿgremz. We should use letters like paints on a canvas, not as components of fixed logograms.

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@AndrewTheFrank rate is reit. rait is a perfectly fine way to spell right. spelling reforms are not "slang" or "incorrect".

[@AndrewTheFrank]

@@servantofaeie1569 but spelling it as rait in way way shape or form has me thinking right. I'd rather stick with right than reform to rait because it only invokes rate in my mind. But then again i don't make an /a/ sound when saying right.

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@AndrewTheFrank but we do. right is pronounced /ɹait/.

[@adrianoropeza8558]

OMG i’m a spanish speaker and didn’t even noticed i made the weird “v” sound while saying “a veinte”, thanks Luke

[@kaisermarcqui3471]

In my native language, Catalan, Latin syllable-final ⟨v⟩ (also intervocalically due to the loss of word-final vowels) evolved into /w/ (written ⟨u⟩). For example "nou" (new, nine, nut), which in Spanish is "nueve, nuevo, nuez". Also, that u-z alteration in "nuez" is due to Old Occitan final /t͡s~d͡z/ becoming /w/ in Catalan.

[@TeutonicEmperor1198]

I would love to see a video about the transition of the Greek letter Θ from the sound of T+H to the sound of the letter thorn or the transition of Ф from P+H to F

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That is going to be a future video!

[@barrigudo00]

Salve mestre da língua Latina!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Salvē et tū!

[@barrigudo00]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Confesso que quando escutei-te a pronunciar a letra "V" como um "U" achei estranho, todavia acostumei-me e hoje acho que soa bem.

[@robinlutjohann6408]

Growing up in Germany, I learned “Schullatein” (school latin), which is an ahistorical Frankenstein that mixes aspects of the German traditional pronunciation and the reconstructed classical. So we say v and ae like Italian, but c and ti(vowel) like classical, and then oe like the German ö and qu like kv. It’s a strange mix, and many Germans are now striving for a more proper classical pronunciation. That said, I do respect why it was chosen, to make acquisition of the language easier for native German speakers. It also has the advantage of allowing you to appreciate both classical and Medieval or Neo-Latin literature because your pronunciation has features of both. As someone who mostly reads late Medieval / early modern Latin, there are common alternative spellings (penitentia for poenitentia, celo for caelo or coelo, ecclesie as a genitive, and the infamous “eciam”) that pop up so frequently that insisting on classical pronunciation actually makes things more confusing. So, I admire your approach, Luke, in staying flexible and being willing to adjust pronunciation to context. At the end of the day the Schullatein I learned in 5th grade will always be the sound Latin makes in my head. And I guess that’s okay!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yes, that's quite common in Germany. I think that's fine. It's not a big deal. 😊

[@wazzup233]

And ironically both Latin and German are part of the Indo-European language and they're quite common when it comes to pronunciation, grammar, diphthongs, etc.

[@danielimmortuos666]

In Portuguese sometimes b and v are interchangeable, so people say both brabo /brabu/ and bravo /bravu/, travesseiro /traviseru/ and trabesseiro /trabiseru/, assoviar /asuvia:/ and assobiar /asubia:/ etc... Also, notice how Portuguese pronunciation is so different from Portuguese orthography? Portuguese phonology seems so distant from Latin phonology. I'd love if you made video about the most divergent romance languages from Latin, in terms of orthography and phonology.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Great suggestion! Thanks for your comment. I love Portuguese so much.

[@barrigudo00]

@@polyMATHY_Luke e nós te amamos 👍

[@drogadepc]

On a side note in some regions of Brazil "bravo" and "brabo" differentiated in their use. "Bravo" usually means "brave", "corageous", "valiant", whereas "brabo" means "angry", "annoyed", "aggressive" or even "prone to violence"

[@RafaelFernandes-mt3td]

Portuguese orthography is mainly designed to fit European dialects of Portuguese, which is kind of weird, considering there’s a lot more people in Brazil and other Portuguese speaking countries. Nonetheless, if you look at the phonology of European dialects compared to the orthography, it will be closer. So, for example, taking “assobiar” (by the way, in European dialects you won’t generally see assoviar with a v), you would pronounce it more or less like ãsubiar, at least in the Lisbon dialect. Besides that, the weird orthography that doesn’t seem to translate well into pronunciation is, for the most part, just a way of distinguishing between different realizations of the same phoneme that are context dependent. Using the word above, the double s there is used to indicate that the sound there is actually an s, whereas you would normally pronounce it as a z (because it’s intervocalic).

[@GutoKowalski70]

@@polyMATHY_Luke We love you, too.

[@stefanodadamo6809]

Eloquent and insightful, as always. Ave, Magister!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks very much!

[@danieled1135]

Ciao Luke, nella variante romanza (considerata dialetto, ma a tutti gli effetti una variante linguistica) della zona in cui vivo (nell'alto-milanese, a nord-ovest di Milano, anche se ci sono differenze con il "Milanese" un tempo parlato a Milano) la "V" non è mai pronunciata con il suono "W" ma a volte è molto debolmente pronunciata e a volte omessa. Ad esempio: nella frase "T' é 'istu?" sarebbe "T'é vistu?" ossia in italiano "Hai visto?" la "V" in "vistu" (participio passato del verbo "vedere", ossia "to see") viene debolmente pronunciata e in pratica non si sente. In un'altra espressione, "Al va bén" (in italiano "Va bene"), la "V" si pronuncia. Dipende quindi dalle parole e dall'espressione nel complesso: se la parola precedente ad una parola che inizia con "V" termina con una consonante, la "V" di solito viene pronunciata, ma se la parola precedente termina in una vocale, la "V" della parola seguente non viene pronunciata, o viene pronunciata molto debolmente. Credo che un fenomeno analogo fosse presente anche nel Latino (o meglio, nelle possibili tante varianti parlate di Latino nel territorio italiano, se pensi che in Italia fino a poco tempo fa, era sufficiente spostarsi di pochi chilometri di distanza per trovare variazioni nella lingua parlata)

[@andryuu_2000]

Come la K in toscano

[@miguelangelsimonfernandez5498]

People in Castille used to pronounce V and B differently until recently. in Valladolid and Salamanca the V was more of a fricative and B explosive bilabial. However, as far back as in roman times, the spanish had a tendency to not differentiate v and b. This is reflected in the latin pun "beatii hispanii quibus vivere bibere est"

[@msinvincible2000]

Being an absolute fan of ecclesiastical Latin, I love when you say that everything sounds cool in ecclesiastical Latin!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

It's true! And it does in Classical too, I think. It's like wearing a jacket or a sweater: they're both good. They have a slightly different feel but probably get the job done just as well.

[@andryuu_2000]

The ecclesiastical is like Italian latin

[@Epsilonsama]

Loved for a video about Trajan and Hadrian Hispanic Latin they were famous for.

[@alaksiejstankievicx]

The Belarusian is the the only Slavic language that represent /w/ in spelling (AFAIK in Ukrainian in some variants /w/ is also possible, but it continues to write etymologically), and the story of unique Cyrillic letter ў has Latin connection (however not direct, but as meta-idea (as it is very often about writing system). The Old-Belarusian (a.k.a. Old-Ukrainian, West-Ruthenian and many other names) was widely used in Grand Duchy of Lithuania as official and bureaucratic language, however, as it was common in Middle-ages, written language was distinct enough from oral languages and we use spelling errors to reconstruct feature of oral language, fortunately we have unique sources Old-Belarusian oral language made in Arabic alphabet (there were invited settlement of Tatars, who are created many interesting sources in specially adapted Arabic script). So we can restore with high accuracy that /w/ was already a distinctive feature of theretime Belarusian language. However, in the end XVII century after some cruel political events leaded to weakening of powers, Old-Belarusian was replaced by Polish in official use, and nobility almost lost Old-Belarusian language, that was followed in the end of next century by division of The Commonwealth and increasing russification process. The Belarusian survived between rural population only. So when Belarusian (or we can say New-Belarusian) began to be revitalized the Old-Belarusian written Cyrillic tradition was almost entirely lost, and up to begin of XX century revitalization attempt was done mostly on Latin graphic (firstly with essential Polish influence on it but progressively diminishing). And exactly in the second half of XIX one of the revitalisers Francišak Bahuševič hit a problem, that almost all folk phonologies have distinct /w/, what was not presented in theretime Polish graphic (the transition of ł in Polish happens latter), and he didn't know how to represent this sound in spelling. Then he came to the classical Latin education for inspiration and borrowed ŭ (u-breve) for this function. (Decades latter Zamenhof who was born in Biełastok (modern Polish Białystok) used the same idea (or even directly inspired) in Esperanto). When Cyrillic influence in New-Belarusian began to increase, the ŭ letter was adopted in Cyrillic as ў, (it also has good already existed parallel in й /j/). This way was unique ў invented, between Slavic languages with Cyrillic graphic, Belarusian is the only language who uses it (there are some non-Slavic languages in former-USSR who use it, when in early Soviet era Cyrillic alphabets were (created)/(substituted Arabic) for them, but htis is different story). Other interesting story about Latin V related to GDL, Belarus and Lithuania is exactly word Lithuania in English. (Disclaimer: I don't want to provoke political/hot discussion, so I just state neutral enough position that both Belarus and Lithuania are true heirs of GDL, have this in mind before comment). So from my POV spelling Lithuania isn't correct, because in the time when this word was coined in Latin, there was not difference between V and U, so it definitely was LITHVANIA, where NIA frequent ending for lands in medieval Latin (I'm curious why they used TH here probably for aesthetic reason) so the root was LITHVA what is very consistent with all Сyrillic sources Літва (hope I'm correct about usage of 8th and 10th i). But I assume when XIX-XX centuries restored noun Lithuania from mediaeval sources the knowledge that here is exception for reading rules in Latin was not available.

[@clearty8449]

I think it's also worth pointing out that 'o' and 'u' are sometimes pronounced as 'w' in Romanian. For example: "oală" (pot) and "ouă" (eggs).

[@esti-od1mz]

Another interesting thing is that in the sicilian dialect of Palermo, people pronounce "o" and "e" as semivowels in some context, like in romanian ("eggs" is pronounced "oava")

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Great point!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

@@esti-od1mz Figo!

[@gregcoogan8270]

That's common in a lot of languages. For example the "ua" here in the English word "language" is pronounced with a "w" sound.

[@esti-od1mz]

@@polyMATHY_Luke sono contento che tu mi abbia risposto, sei un grande divulgatore. Continua cosi!

[@iwaru_iopfox]

w => ∅ is also happened in Japanese too

[@slayerslayer7623]

Almost, it stayed before /a/

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Right! Like わたし>あたし

[@andriipa]

@@polyMATHY_Luke it's rather about ゐ(wi), ゑ(we) and を turning into い, え and お (thought object marker still uses the old spelling).

[@MichaelPeterFustumum]

Except in loanwords.

[@jacobparry177]

Welsh used to use W V U and something that resembled a 6 for /w/ and /u/😳 And fun fact, words borrowed from Latin to Welsh (Via Latin) that start with vi are rendered, Gw+vowel, like Gwin (Wine). But then we have words like Ficer and finegr, which were borrowed from Latin via English, which don't look as cool😗

[@MrNicopa]

I noticed that ambulance is spelled ambwlans in modern welsh. Written backwards on the front of the vehicle!

[@andryuu_2000]

So "Gwyn" doesn't mean "white/lucent" in Welsh? But WINE? My Dark Souls myths are falling.

[@jacobparry177]

@@andryuu_2000 Gwyn means white (pure, blessed) and gwin means wine. Y and I represent different sounds.

[@coffee5981]

This is such a fascinating channel! I absolutely love it. You've just got yourself a new subscriber!

[@linkgrinmbn]

You have a very calm and informative voice. I find myself learning a lot from you in every topic you cover! Keep on making great videos!

[@benavraham4397]

"Wine" in Hebrew is "yain." Normally an initial Y in Hebrew exchanges with W (Vav). So, it seems there must have been a very ancient Canaanite word *wain. Could the Greek word have come from Canaanite?

[@TeutonicEmperor1198]

Canaanite is the language of ancient Palestinians right?Is Palestine suitable for wine production? I believe that the plant came from the Caucasus

[@benavraham4397]

@@TeutonicEmperor1198 Perhaps Canaanite merchants introduced some upgraded version of the product, and their jargon became the accepted name for it among Greeks. The Bible says that Noah made wine first thing after the Flood. So wine is among the oldest produce.

[@yogatonga7529]

You are correct. Wiktionary:wéyh₁ō Etymology[edit] Disputed;[1][2] possibly from *weh₁y- (“to twist; to wrap”) +‎ *-ō,[3][4][5] compare Ancient Greek ὑιήν (huiḗn, “grapevine”), from *wihy-ḗn[5], and Latin vītis (“vine”), from *wéh₁itis, or perhaps borrowed from either Proto-West Semitic *wayn- or Proto-Kartvelian *ɣwino-, if those terms are not instead borrowings of this one.[2][6][7][8] Possibly all ultimately borrowed from an unattested Mediterranean substrate language.[9][10]

[@biblebot3947]

@@benavraham4397 wine was actually around during the time of Mesopotamia so wine actually predates the writing of the flood story.

[@michaelm-bs2er]

@@TeutonicEmperor1198 grapes come from the Mediterranean. They need heat to grow naturally. They couldn't come from the Caucasus. The ancients of what is now Israel, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon were the Canaanites.

[@Cyclonus2377]

Another good video. I can't wait to see which one in the series is next! 😀😀

[@PodcastItaliano]

Thanks for the mention, Luchino!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Ma figurati!

[@davsalda]

Weni Widi Wiki 'sounds perfectly strong...and SESERIAN' 🤣 Est ¡KÁESARIAN! 😂💪 Please talk about the other ancient neighboring languages to Latin like Samnite!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Haha, that's the correct pronunciation of "Caesarian" in English. 😃 I intend to.

[@carleslazaro6117]

I just discovered your channel and I can't stop devouring your videos. Top quality, congratulations and thank you very much.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind! Thanks

[@victor382]

I just realized that my name will be pronounced Wictor in Classical Latin. I don’t like it. Haha 😆. Great video Luke. I have learned lots from you.

[@rollout1984]

And my last name would be Alwarez...

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That's true! Add a bit of compression to it like Stefano Vittori and it'll sound nice.

[@jesussuarez2985]

Holy mary! I'll never regret having added Latin up to pick it up, such a beauteous, classical laguage! You didn't mistake when you chose to pick it up! You're a pride!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind of you!

[@Eisenpfosten]

I love your videos. Please carry on! Kind regards from Austria

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for being a Member! Very kind and generous of you.

[@EduardoOliveira-zw7kg]

I'd hear his soft and deep voice all day 🍃

[@percivalpc]

Wonderful job! Thank you.

[@ashtonshelton8584]

I just ordered Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, and I'm so excited to get that in the mail next week!😁

[@RafaelFernandes-mt3td]

That thing about the uvular trill spreading from French into Portuguese is very interesting. It makes a lot of sense, and it also explains why, in Portugal, the closer you are to Lisbon, the more likely you are to pronounce your hard r's as uvular trills. It was the French court influencing the Portuguese one.

[@N_Pakhomios]

I am a bohairic Coptic speaker which is the northern dialect of old Egyptian in its last stage. And surprisingly the bilabial fricative started to exist Coptic after a while. Like for example the word ⲧⲟⲩⲃⲟ (which means “to holy”) is pronounced as “Touvo”. And eventually, after the Arab conquest to Egypt, the language was subjected to some degrees of Arabization that actually made some Coptic speakers pronounce it as “Touwo”. Imo it had this phonological change because of Arabic replacing Coptic over the centuries so sounds from Coptic were hard to pronounce for Arabic-speaking Egyptians. For instance the ⲡ sound became a b, because P being harder to pronounce for Arabic speakers. As for the w sound itself, it was written as ⲟⲩ. Like for example the word ⲟⲩⲱⲛϣ. It means wolf and it sounds like “wōnsh” or the word ⲟⲩⲁϩⲙⲓ which means apartment and it sounds like “wahmi”. There are like 3 pronunciations to bohairic coptic nowadays. There is the ecclesiastical pronunciation which was made back in the 19th century during the time of the Egyptian pope Kyrillos the fourth. Which has some issues since they used the phonology of modern greek as a datum of making this pronunciation. So it produced sounds we Egyptians are not familiar with such as the th sound or the modern delta sound. And there is the late Coptic pronunciation, which is the coptic pronunciation used in churches in Egypt before pope Kyrillos pronunciation reforms. And those reforms took place because late coptic was heavily influenced by Arabic, so it killed of sounds that were originally in coptic and added sounds that didn’t exist. And the third pronunciation is the reconstructed classical pronunciation, which is also called the 2nd century pronunciation which is the most accurate since researchers use the phonology of an older stage of Greek that existed back in the 2nd century. I am sorry for the long comment, but your passion for languages and how you talk about them made me do the same and talk about them as much as you do 😂 ⲛⲟϥⲣⲓ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϧⲉⲛ ⲭⲏⲙⲓ (Greetings from Egypt) ❤️

[@danielapazvillalobos4446]

I have no more words for this, always so interesting and very well explained.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thank you, Daniela! That's nice of you to say.

[@germancastrocatano8130]

Como siempre, fabuloso tu vídeo. Saludos desde Cali, Colombia.

[@cleitondecarvalho431]

I just feel free to be happy now thanks to you, Luke. It's been perfectly okay and pleasant to me listening to the restored pronunciation since long ago but at the same time I just enjoy my labiodental v's. Success 🙌 !

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Good! Yeah, it's just a convention.

[@crescente845]

Fantastic explanation!

[@juan2910]

Super interesting video!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@guillermorivas7819]

I would like to see a video of Old Latin, how it evolved into Classical Latin. And how some modern-day romance languages (especially Spanish) have elements of both of the aforementioned.

[@rationaltrekker2509]

Salve, Luca! You make an excellent case here. I am a linguist at heart, but sadly not by any extensive training or education. I was a German major/Spanish minor in college 40 years ago. I have since studied Koine Greek in seminary (Eastern Orthodox) and taught myself a bit of Church Slavonic and Latin (ecclesiastical pronunciation since I was studying liturgical texts). When I first encountered the idea that "v" was pronounced "w" in Classical Latin, I was a bit surprised. Again, you've made your case well, and I don't disbelieve you, but I had really thought I was on to something: If you take the name Παβλος in Greek and go two disparate directions, you'll find the "v" pronunciation of the β. In Church Slavonic and in modern Slavic languages, you have "Pavl" Inflected in the accusative/genitive it becomes "Pavla" and in dative "Pavlu," etc. On the other hand, if you go to Spanish, you get Pablo. In other Romance languages, it seemed to me that the "v" sound had mostly dropped out, in Italian: "Paolo", and completely in Portuguese: "Palo." It really seemed to me that Spanish was retaining what might be called a weak "v" (bilabial approximate) that could easily just fall away. So then I thought about two words in Latin. First the 1st person plural present indicative of laudo: laudamus. If that were pronounced "lavdamus" it would make perfect sense as coming from the αυ diphthong in Greek, reflected in the name of the letter "tav" (which would be similar in pronunciation to the Hebrew equivalent, I believe), and in αυτο which became "авто in Russian. Similarly, it seemed to me that a word like "vniversvs" would likely have the letter "v" pronounced like a "u" between consonants or at the beginning of a word before a consonant, but as "v" between vowels. So, as I said, you make a very compelling case. My curiosity and inability to totally let go of my pet hypothesis YET begs me to ask: Is it at all possible that there is anything to it? Could what I describe have happened at some point in history with some regional dialect. Of course, the pronunciation of Greek to which I refer is the more modern and that is no doubt significant. Likewise, it is probably significant that the "b/v" in Spanish when not at the beginning is generally a bilabial approximate. In fact, I learned to never use the fricative like English "v." That is, as I said, a sort of "weak" sound. Ultimately the question in my mind is: is there anything to connect "Pavl" in Slavic to "Pablo" in Spanish through the au diphthong? Or is it, as I fear now, only the illusion of a connection? Very respectfully yours, Mark Harrison P.S. I purchased and downloaded your materials for learning Latin. They follow the same method that I used in 8th grade to get Spanish down. I walked around the house with 501 Spanish Verbs, conjugating verbs and using them in sentences. That created a foundation for advancing quickly because I could apply the different tenses and persons to express ideas we hadn't learned in class yet. It was at the same time that I picked up my grandmother's Latin missal and started getting the idea down of noun declension. Dominus, Domini, Domino, Dominum, Domine - I saw each form in a different context and figured out subject, possessive object, indirect object, direct object, and calling upon. Sadly, I don't have the leisure time now to practice Latin as much, but I'm working on it.

[@aldalab]

In Portuguese it's Paulo not Palo

[@sajarnitsa]

Hi Luke, very interesting and enlightening explanation about the letter v. The v is Spanish is a topic of endless and passionate discussions. Linguriosa has a very interesting video on the difference(s) between v and b in Spanish.

[@piercesmith1465]

I love your discussion of collocation effects (and other things I don't have the terms of art at hand to properly describe). Your discussion of the B sound changing to (what I view as) the very unique Spanish bilabial fricative sound when between vowels was especially illuminating.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m glad you liked it!

[@Brian-----]

I have enjoyed several of your videos and you are a total expert 😊

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind

[@heradarkblue]

No se nada de latin, pero estos videos me hacen sonreír. 🤩🥰

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

¡Gracias!

[@andryuu_2000]

Hablas español, ya conoces un poquito de latín!!!

[@tzerpa9446]

Another reason to think that letter "v" represented a /u/ sound is the fact that they used the same grapheme for both the vowel [u] and the (semi)consonant [w]: VNVS ['u:.nus] vs VENIT ['we:.nit]

[@ruiseartalcorn]

This is very interesting indeed! Many thanks :) I study Scottish Gaelic and similar things happen with "B" mutating into "V" and "W" sounds.

[@AraboNormand]

Dear Luke, thank you again for your video! (Looking forward for the complete ±50 video-long playlist for each letter, ha ha ! :O ) I especially appreciate your comments in 22:54 and 23:10 (different _veni vidi vici_ pronunciations). Having spent some time learning a language many people think ‘harsh’ (Arabic), I find that kind of stereotypes often depend on the association of the language in question with a limited type of voice and tone. All the Latinists you point to and your own voice acting are excellent demonstrations of the expressive power of Latin. We're lucky to have you.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks so much! Yeah, like German has become thought of us "harsh" due to associations with WWII soldiers; but in the 19th century Mark Twain made fun of German as sounding too soft and sweet.

[@patton6421]

Dang, 'Veni vidi vici!' Sounds way cooler than, 'weni widi wici!' I have this same problem with old english, I think it sounds better with v as the w. Also prefer k over ch sounds.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That's up to you! Enjoy what you like, I say.

[@patton6421]

@@polyMATHY_Luke bene! Huc veni ut tibi gratias agerem. Etsi non verum est, immo tamen callide factum est!

[@MarceloRodrigues1]

It was definitely hard to accept when I learned in Latin class that the original pronunciation had a /w/ sound; specially being a speaker of Portuguese. It sounded foreign and .... well, wrong. Thanks to hearing the way you speak Latin though, without putting emphasis on the sound at all, as if it were there before and having never made the change to /v/ in many romance languages, it just started sounding normal. Also, it was specially interesting hearing the Montellese dialect where, though clearly pronounced as a /w/ sound it really sounds like almost a short /w/, at least to my ears. I could really picture that being the standard pronunciation by the time of Kikero. :-) Thanks a lot Luke, always super fun watching your videos.

[@mariagabbott]

Great video again! Random question / discrete request, would you be interested in creating a video about how much Norman French influenced the English-speaking language since the Norman invasion? I see so many videos discussing "to what percent is English a Germanic language?" etc. Of course we know English is Germanic but the French/Latin influence is so fascinating to me. This may be an over-discussed topic but I'd love to hear your perspective of it 😊

[@andreasm5770]

Could you please do the Greek letters/diphthongs ζ, η, υ, αι, οι next?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Absolutely!

[@pier.gio_o]

Ottimo video. Sei stato meticoloso ed esaustivo. È sempre un piacere imparare le nozioni che porti. Grazie a questo video, inoltre, si spiega anche perché in italiano, in alcuni casi, la lettera U si comporta da semiconsonante e si pronuncia [w]. Il suono [w] compare nei dittonghi, quando la "u" è vicina ad altre vocali. Esempi: "uomo" ['wɔ.mo], "quando" ['kwando], "ruota" ['rwɔta].

[@laurentpoulin-moisan837]

The same video but on the letter C would be nice too!!! Same thing for the letter J/I. Maybe a video on the consonant changes in the radicals of certain verbs (like the french verb avoir (to have) witch has av-, eu-, aur- and ay- as radicals and doesn't look like avere in italian) would be interesting too. Amazing video! Bravo!!!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Great suggestions!

[@MountainMitch]

Wery informative wideo!

[@martinetus]

Very good.

[@admiral-on-bridge7190]

Hello from Germany, in some Schools in Germany you have to chose betwen Latin and French in 6th grade. I chose Latin and I do not repent it, but they only teach us to translate not speak and pronounce. I am so glad I discovered your channel.

[@pfg72]

At long last I get a proper explanation on this issue! I really enjoyed your video. Cheers from Patagonia! (By the way, I bet you would have a field day analyzing the Argentinian variation of Spanish. You probably already have, though)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m glad you liked it! Yes, I like Argentinian a lot

[@clashinglanggeo1864]

Even in Piedmontese there's the w sound for v when it's at the end of a word, in before a consonant and in ov (ov is pronounced all u)

[@georgios_5342]

13:55 very good point! In fact, even today, many Greek speakers learning English (or even people that have been taught English but don't practice it much) can't pronounce the letter w, and approximate it either with β or γ

[@JoaoPedroPT696]

Don't know if this topic was already covered, but if it's possible it would be nice to get a video about the difference between Ch and K when some words got translated from greek to latin, Ch and X or Kh or H, C and K, and C and G. Great video as always. Thanks

[@HeroLanding]

Podrías hacer una capítulo sobre "tú" y "vos"? Creo que sería muy interesante. Saludos desde Uruguay #teamvos

[@LordRoku-]

gratias tibi magister i love these videos

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Et grātiās tibi agō!

[@Jahangeer82]

Thanks for the video! You make me want to revive my high school Latin. What are you thought's on Duolingo's pronunciation for Latin? If you did not make a video for it I think that'd be interesting.

[@atbing2425]

16:32 this sprachbund idea of yours is interesting. Aramaic and Hebrew went through the same change as well around the same time (begadkefat) (maybe because koine Greek was widespread through the middle east?)

[@servantofaeie1569]

I guess because I'm an English speaker, /w/ sounds more proper. It really feels like a consonant version of /u/, plus, its probably the original Indo-European sound. "Vir" and its Old English cognate "wer" sound nearly identical and mean the exact same thing, a male.

[@andryuu_2000]

So war was called like that because of men going to war?

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@andryuu_2000 no, those words are completely unrelated

[@christophercheck1590]

When teaching my students the pronunciation of "v" I start by reminding them that v=u, and then have them pronounce the initial "v" in vinum as a "u." It adds a syllable, of course. so I have them say it slowly, then I have them speed up the pronunciation until the natural result is the "w." You can do this with the initial o in the Greek equivalent. Turns out, certain vowels just morph that way, given the shapes our mouths make as we speak quickly. The trick is sticking to the pronunciations that lead to those mouth shapes in the first place.

[@erwincorioflores1017]

"Iobe" and "dibi" are enlightening. I've also always loved the Pompeiian graffito from the domus of M. Fabius Rufus, "VASIA quae rapui quaeris formosa puella (...)" which incidentally reminds us of the Neapolitan word for "bacio"

[@thinking-ape6483]

Having investigated the phenomenon of the spread of the uvular or guttural R throughout Northern Europe it seems overwhelmingly likely that it spread from France outwards when the traditional alveolar trill shifted to a uvular trill in the 18th century (in certain areas, most notably the Ile de France and more broadly the North); we also know that French was the lingua franca of the educated and noble classes at that time and German for example, as an alternative original source, did not enjoy the same prestige whatsoever. Also given that in Southern German speaking areas, the alveolar trill is still preferred, I think this suggests that uvular R did not originate in Germany. Generally speaking the sociological motivation for a shift in pronunciation can be attributed to things like prestige accents and as French was la langue par excellence at the time imitating certain features of it would have been something sought after.

[@stevenv6463]

Ancient Hebrew had a w sound which became v in modern pronunciation too. It is a common sound change. Although I think in their case, it might have been the Germanic language speakers pronouncing it that changed it.

[@ryuko4478]

Actually there are a few Mishnaic traditions that did have vav instead of waw

[@stevenv6463]

@@ryuko4478 I don't understand. Traditions of what? Pronunciation? I wonder how they would document that. Did they write out descriptions of how they pronounced things like the Romans did?

[@ryuko4478]

@@stevenv6463 Jews have many many traditions of how to pronounce Hebrew, famously stuff like Babylonian Hebrew, Tiberian Hebrew, Palestinian Hebrew, etc. and yes they wrote about how they pronounced things as well as write down the hebrew in different scripts giving us extra hints, many traditions survive to this day, Modern Hebrew vowels are based on the Modern Sephardic tradition for example. For an example of a text talking about how to pronounce Hebrew check out Hidayat al-Qari (Horayat ha-Qore in Hebrew) for example.

[@stevenv6463]

@@ryuko4478 I have heard of these pronunciation types in passing. Although I have never heard of any of these having Vav. Do you know which one did?

[@ryuko4478]

@@stevenv6463 to be specific Tiberian Hebrew, when written in Arabic they used to confused /w/ and write it with the letter for /b/, there are even texts discussing how Iraqi Jews pronounce it differently (as [w]) and that fricated /b/ sounds exactly like /w/, [w] still exists in Tiberian Hebrew but it's only specific situations like after a long pretonic /u/ or in the conjugation [wu] "and". Wikipedia would tell you differently but Wikipedia is badly sourced when it comes to this, I can send you the name of the text book that I use for this if you're interested.

[@eusebiujiurjiu1716]

From the point of view of pronunciation , great part of vocabulary, grammar Romanian is the purest latin language apart from Italian from what i've personally studied. The way the people behave , especially in Transilvania, Banat and Oltenia(regions of Romania) , how they look like, the manners and so on ( maybe the way they speak )demonstrate a strong and , strangely visible link between us and the ancient romans. We have to take in consideration that during all our history we had no direct border to any latin country. My people ( Romanian people) is absolutely incredible.

[@athanaricus5215]

In Gascon, too, the /w/ sound is present often intervocalically instead of [β] (in other dialects). Example; in some parts you'll hear "aver" [a'βe], in other parts you'll hear "auer" [a'we] meaning "to have", etc. I think the same is also true of Catalan.

[@adastra3147]

Madonna santa parli Italiano Spagnolo etc molto meglio di me. Sei fantastico

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

No dai, non è vero! Grazie per il commento

[@borjamaristany1321]

Very interesting video! As a fun fact, the Basque language borrowed some words from Spanish and Latin and changed the writing to fit it to their pronunciation. So for example you have the Basque word "Taula" from Spanish Tabla or Latin Tabuula (long u). So maybe when they borrowed this word into Euskera they didn't hear the "traditional" /b/ sound.

[@iberius9937]

I find myself often pronouncing my V in Spanish as a bilabial β fricative, as you've mentioned.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Fun!

[@LorenzoF06]

Another proof of the /w/ to /v/ change is that in my dialect (the Alatrese dialect, sort of related to Neapolitan, Alatri is a town in Italy of course) this mostly didn't happen at all: my mother speaking with this parlance would pronounce words like "ulumê" meaning "volume", as /u'lumə/, other examples with words that aren't the same as in Italian may be the word for "bicchiere"/"glass" being "uicchierê" /wi'kkjerə/ and the word for "cucchiaio"/"spoon" being "uicchiarô" /wi'kkjarə/, no idea of how Latin /k/ became /w/ here, but /b/ becoming /w/ is surely easier to explain. About the words in the video, "nòu" /'nɔu/, "uinti" /'winti/, "uerdê" /'werdə/, "gióunê" /'dʒounə/, "uiu" /'wiu/, "óu" /'ou/ (plural "òa" /'ɔa/), "uinô" /winə/, "béstia" /'bestja/, "bònô" /bɔnə/. The words I'm not sure about are "uacca" /'wakka/ (maybe "vacca" /'vakka/) and "ócca" /'okka/ (maybe "vócca" /'vokka/, maybe even simpy "bócca" /'bokka/) *Note* As a spelling system, I'm using a system invented by a philosopher and priest called Igino Da Alatri, referred to as "Padre Igino Da Alatri". Basically, the thing is that you have to put a circumflex on vowels that became /ə/ and use "w" for /w/. I used "u" as it feels more natural in a romance spelling. Anything else is based on the Italian system, soft non-geminated "c" will always be /ʃ/ instead of /tʃ/, "z" will always be /dz/ if it's the first letter of a word and closed and opened "e" and "o" is noted with a diacritic as "perché", "è", "però" in Italian. Also, I'm not totally sure about whether it is /w/ or /u/, so some of the IPA transcriptions may be wrong. In case you're interested in this dialect, here there are some words, but instead of a circumflex they used italic text to mark the /ə/ letters: www.ariadicasanostra.it/alatri-e-il-suo-vernacolo-pt-2

[@ceruchi2084]

"Write a comment in the description." Okay, Luke, what's your password lol. But really, this was a very fun and informative video. I had seen some of the inscriptions with "IOBE" and the like, but I never thought it was because they were hearing "B between vowels" as closer to /w/! That shocked me!

[@benw9949]

Note: That use for B instead of V in transitional late Latin is the same sort of historical spelling mash-up that happened in Spanish and is reflected in Spanish spelling errors but also in common usage today. Some Spanish words switched from V to B, at least before standardized spelling, and some were changed back to V to fit etymology. But even now, Spanish speakers will say be-longo or be de burro, or ve de use or ve-corto, and a few similar things, to distinguish if they mean B or V in spelling. In medieval blackletter forms, even outside of Spain, b and v were sometimes only differentiated by b having a tall ascender, while both had a squared, looped, or 3-like shape for the right side stroke. Also, W to /bh/ to V and B to /bh/ to V occurred in both Greek and Spanish, and that /bh/ bilabial fricative occurs as an allophone in other Indo-European languages, such as Hindi. It's how Continental Germanic languages went from W to V. In Greek, it seems like the voiced fricatives may have arisen as a blurring that mirrored the change from aspirated stops to fricatives for PH, TH, KH, so we got BH, DH, GH to match.

[@leonwindorfer2789]

Very insightful content! I would be curious about understanding how the letter "C" developed into different pronunciations (eg the difference between the sound of "ci" in French, Italian and Spanish. Greetings from Munich

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Danke! Great suggestion!

[@ericbarlow6772]

You can also see a transition of qu from kw to a k in English spelling (British more specifically). Quick is spelled this way because qu is kw in old Norman French where the later borrowing of check (cheque in British English) came from a more modern dialect of French.

[@MiltiadisSachinidis]

Great video! You HAVE TO make a video about the sound of C.

[@daviddantonio5702]

Great video, side note on the W sound in romance in my father’s dialect and others in Campania the G in “Guarda” becomes a W sound and does in most cases where G precedes U.

[@andryuu_2000]

Non a caso il verbo latino è 'Videre', volgarmente sarà divenuto qualcosa cone 'Vardare' Anche in Ciociaria, qualche decina di chilometri sopra Caserta e altrettante sotto Roma, diciamo "Uidi?" e "Uarda!"

[@michaelm-bs2er]

Ma "vardare" viene da "guardare" che ha un'origine tedesca/germanica. È un parente della parola inglese "guard" (difendere/proteggere). Il suono "Gu+vocale" è tipico delle parole germaniche entrate nel latino tardo che iniziavano con un suono che non esisteva in latino.

[@cesarsoto9566]

✨Can't forget Romanian ✨ I loved it I love the way he talks about Latin and other languages. It's just relaxing.

[@EleSurvival]

Very very interesting video. I’m Italian and the Montellese “V” for me sounds like a normal Italian V. My brain doesn’t pick up the difference and doesn’t hear a W. It sound more like a weak V. Interesting!

[@dori25t]

Thanks Lukas

[@neilbain8736]

People have been regressed and ended up speaking other languages including Latin as part of their previous lives in the study of reincarnation. However, keeping away from arguments on reincarnation itself, it seems like an interesting exercise to study any recordings of speaking during sessions.

[@Bepples]

At the University of Sydney they have a museum with some Latin grave stones and one of the inscriptions says "BIXIT" instead of "VIXIT".

[@tudormardare66]

For Romanian, the evolution of B/V is pretty interesting: - initial and post-consonantal B remains [b]: "bine, bun, barbă, bărbat, bea, bâlbâit, vorbă, alb, blând" - intervocalic B becomes [w] if the stress precedes: HABENT > "au" and [v] if the stress is after: HABEBANT > "aveau" - B becomes [w] before L and R non-initially: FABRUM -> faur (interestingly, it corresponds to Italian "bbr") - if the B is followed by a semivocalic Romance [j], the I and B switch places: RUBEUS > *rubius -> "roib"; OBVIUS > "uib"; HABEAT > *abiat > "aibă" - initial V becomes [v]: "veni, vânt, vâna", but there is one particular case where it seems to become [b]: VETERANUS > "bătrân" - intervocalic V remains [w]: OVUM > "ou", NOVEM > "nouă", BOVEM >> *bovus > "bou", NOVUS > "nou" - in diphtongs, V mostly remains [u], unlike in Western Romance, unless it was an early Latin shift: AURICULA > *oricla in all Continental Romance > "ureche"

[@troelspeterroland6998]

Thank you for the overview. With an old interest in Romanian, I have sometimes been wondering about the intricacies of this rule. Now I can't help wondering: Why is it that "habēre" becomes "avea" with /v/, but "hīberna" becomes "iarnă" without /v/? Maybe it has to do with the preceding vowel? I realise that it can be difficult to formulate a rule with so few examples, of course. I was wondering if you know more? By the way, Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române seems to list "boace" as a (more native?) variant of "voce", so maybe this is a parallel of "bătrân".

[@tudormardare66]

@@troelspeterroland6998 Probably because the noun would have come from the deverbalized form, and in the infinitive verb the accent was a little bit further away: HIBERNÁRE > "iernáre" > "iarnă". There are a lot of cases where sound laws don't explain everything, you need to look into derivation and analogy. Here, we see a case of derivation within Romanian itself.

[@tudormardare66]

@@troelspeterroland6998 Voce is a borrowing from Italian. For "bocet" and "a boci", the etymology is probably not VOX, but might be a verbalized form of BUCCA: the -esco/ire (former -escere in Classical Latin) form relating to a change of mood "bocesc/a boci (bocire)": to begin shouting, crying, whereas the -o/are form is a transitive action "a îmbuca; bucată": to grab with the mouth; piece. You can't truly trust Romanian dictionaries, as the etymologies there seem to have been done to prove a political agenda (that Romanian comes from Latin) rather than to descriptively describe the language. There have been some efforts recently, though. Still, in this time period, Romania is pretty bad at Linguistics, as it is not taught too much in universities, and when Linguistics is rarely available, it is rather Generative Linguistics pioneered by Chomsky, instead of Historical Linguistics. For studying Historical Linguistics, I had to go study abroad.

[@troelspeterroland6998]

@@tudormardare66 Thanks a lot! Yes, I know that morphophonology matters but I would not have thought of this explanation myself. I suppose that a verb derived from the noun and a noun in turn backformed from the verb would also account for the change in gender "hībernum" > "iarnă".

[@troelspeterroland6998]

@@tudormardare66 I have indeed noticed that the different resources compiled in dexonline.ro do not always agree among themselves about etymolgies although they generally seem more sober than decades ago. I guess that "bucca" as an origin for "boace", "boci" etc. would mean assuming a rare case of u being lowered to o. I suppose this is more parsimonious than assuming b from v, since there are other examples of this. Is it possible to give a rule for u > o?

[@michele3900]

I was thinking that Italian does have hints in certain words. Paura, from Latin pavor. For some reason the pronunciation of this word did not change to a v sound, even if related words like pavido did.

[@andryuu_2000]

Pavido effettivamente è una parola latina

[@kojak8403]

Hello from Poland. We have the letter "Ł" ("ł") for that exact sound. For example the phonetically written "welcome" would be "łelkom".

[@Niclaas1999]

Is there any chance we could get a video discussing potential dialects/regionalisms of Latin during, say, the early Empire?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Sounds fun

[@wordart_guian]

Idk if i’ve already said it, but in western gascon, -v- between vowels is /w/, and word initally it’s /b/. Of course -v- includes words that used to have b, such as the imperfect cantava. Besides you’ve got tons of alternations like blau/blava (blue, they can both have w), and roi/roja (red, they can both have /j/)