The letter "s" in Ecclesiastical Latin

Consilius

New Member

Hello everyone. I have an issue with this and I thought I might receive some help here.

For some time I keep stumbling upon different modes of pronunciation for the letter "s" in Ecclesiastical Latin. Some say that, between vowels, this letter is supposed to be voiced, like the "s" in "misery" (e.g. "misericordia"), while others say that it is never voiced.

I tried listening to some Latin on YouTube, especially to how it is pronounced in St. Peter's Basilica. I assumed those people would know best, since the Ecclesiastical pronunciation comes directly from them. They seem to pronounce the "s" between vowels as a normal "s", like in "save".

In any case, I'm trying to learn Latin and this is a problem I've been encountering for a long time now. I really like this language and, being a perfectionist, I want to get it absolutely right, down to the last detail. At the moment I'm obsessed with not knowing how to correctly pronounce the "s" between two vowels. So could anyone help me? I'd appreciate it. :)
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
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I stand open to correction, but here goes anyway...

The pronunciation of Liturgical Latin in the Roman Rite depends upon the will of Pope St. Pius X (I can get references for all this at a reasonable daylight hour, if required.) which he expressed in the early twentieth century. He desired that the Roman pronunciation be used for the sacred liturgy. This means that the 's' is unvoiced. In the Italianate liturgical pronunciation intervocalic 's' is voiced, just like in modern Italian. Rome and the Vatican have lots of clergy from various parts of Italy, who have been influenced by Latin teachers of both schools, but in an age where almost nobody cares, well...almost nobody cares.

The idea of a single ecclesiastical pronunciation doesn't match up with the reality anyway. There were lots of "national" pronunciation systems of Latin used by both laity and clergy until modern linguistics started work on the restored pronunciation of Classical Latin. Perhaps rothbard might make some comment in the light of Avitus' remarks about the same.
 

Consilius

New Member

Thank you very much for your reply!

From it, I understand that the correct way to pronounce the "s" between vowels is unvoiced. But there's still something I don't understand.

From the Liber Usualis guide, which explains the Roman style of pronunciation:

"'S' is hard as in the English word 'sea', but is slightly softened when coming between two vowels."

What exactly does that mean? I don't understand what "soft" means. Is it pronounced with a slight hint of "z" or does it mean something else?
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

Some writers use 'hard' and 'soft' to mean 'unvoiced' and 'voiced'. I'd have thought the latter set would be preferable, as unambiguous, but there you go.
 
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