Latin vowels are pronounced differently from vowels in English. To get a sense of what these differences are, consider the examples below:
A: A in Latin is pronounced as in “father” in English; e.g. “frāter” and “canis.”
E: E in Latin is pronounced as in “get” in English; e.g. “terra” and “vidēre.”
I: I in Latin is pronounced as in “machine” in English; e.g. “mīles” and “silva.”
O: O in Latin is pronounced as in “note” in English; e.g. “sōl” and “glōria.”
U: U in Latin is pronounced as in “rude” in English; e.g. “flūmen” and “sum.”
Some of the Latin words given above as examples have special marks over them called macrons. A macron is a straight line over a vowel (ā, ē, ī, etc.) which shows that the vowel in question is long, as opposed to short. Short vowels are indicated instead by a half circle mark called a breve (ă, ĕ, ĭ, etc.). Long vowels and short vowels do not make completely different sounds from each other. Instead, a vowel’s quantity only indicates how long it takes to pronounce that vowel out loud: a long vowel takes about twice as long to say as a short vowel, and thus the ī in “mīles” takes double the time to say as the ĭ in “sĭlva.”
Long and short vowels are not usually indicated in most editions of Latin texts. However, if you are unsure of how to pronounce a particular Latin word, a dictionary entry will usually indicate whether that word’s vowels are long or short. In this course, macrons are given over long vowels; if a vowel has no mark, it is short.
Although Latin does not have silent letters in the same way as English, vowel sounds can sometimes come together to create diphthongs, which are combinations of vowels into single long vowel sounds. Consider the examples below:
AE: The diphthong ae is pronounced as in “by” in English; e.g. “puellae.”
AU: The diphthong au is pronounced as in “loud” in English; e.g. “laudās.”
EI: The diphthong ei is pronounced as in “they” in English; e.g. “deinde.”
OE: The diphthong oe is pronounced as in “oil” in English; e.g. “coepit.”
UI: The diphthong ui is pronounced as in “wick” in English; e.g. “huic.”
When pronouncing a word aloud in Latin, it is also important to place the accent (that is, the emphasis) of a word on the correct syllable. In a word with more than one syllable, if the second-to-last syllable (penult) is long, then it takes the accent. If the second-to-last syllable is short, then the third-to-last syllable (antepenult) takes the accent.
However, how is it possible to reliably know whether a syllable is long or short? Syllables in Latin be categorized as long in one of two ways: they can either be long by nature, meaning that they contain a long vowel, or long by position, meaning that they contain a short vowel followed by two consonants. This means that, for a word like mālum (“apple”), the syllable mā is long by nature because it contains a long vowel. In a word like arbor (“tree”), however, the syllable arb is long by position. Even though that a is short, it is followed by two consonants. This is a reliable and predictable rule in Latin.