Would it be not officially encouraged then because it is related or oriented to the church? And it is easier to have a religious-neutral language curriculum than one which is primarily used by Catholicism? Does that make sense? Or is the Classical curriculum more proper?
Classical Latin is somewhat different in style from medieval Latin. When people in the 20th century try to revive Latin education, they want to get rid of all possible medieval influence, keeping only the pure Latin. Hence the restored pronunciation is proposed.
I think it is a matter of personal taste when it comes to pronunciation; perhaps since Plautus's time, Latin-speaking people are already divided into differing accents. So there is not really a standard way to speak Latin.
Is there one form that people usually subscribe to learning then? If you're right Cinefactus then I seem to prefer the ecclesiastical pronunciation over the restored classical pronunciation. Also, could anyone then refer me to a good outline of the ecclesiastical pronunciations for the language similar to the one I posted?
It is an oversimplification, but ecclesiastical pronunciation is just Italian pronunciation. Some suggests that
-ti-, when following a vowel, as in
patientia, should be pronounced like the Italian
-z-. (This is etymologically justifiable since
patientia in Latin is just
pazienza in Italian.) At least for the choirs, this prescription is ignored since -
ti- is a standalone syllable. But everything else is just like Italian.
I'm confused by short "a" supposed to sound like the "u" in "cup". I know those indications are always approximative, but the sound in "cup" doesn't sound like an "a" at all to me. Or at best, there's a very slight resemblance... Something between "e" and "a" maybe, but on the whole a rather vague and hybrid sound.
The sound in "cap" actually sounds much closer to a true "a" to me.
Since your mother tongue is French, I'll be guessing that you don't pronounce Latin short and long "a" with your tongue retracted. And that will mean the "a" is closer to the English short "a" as in "cat", for you.
Nor to me, but then I don't speak the so-called Received Pronunciation, which the authors of this Latin book clearly do.
Few people speak RP, except scholastic foreign learners who can control their tongues like their hands, and some BBC reporters. RP is more like a linguistic abstraction than an existing accent.
And actually, does any of you known IPA?