Title:  Society for Pure English Tract 4 The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin

Author:  John Sargeaunt

Annotator:  H. Bradley

Release Date:  March 15, 2005 [EBook #15364]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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  Transcriber’s Note:  Phonetic characters are represented by the
      following symbols: 
  [`x] = any letter “x” with grave accent
  [’x] = any letter “x” with acute accent
  [:x] = any letter “x” with superior double-dot (dieresis)
  [^x] = any letter “x” with superior circumflex
  [=x] = any letter “x” with superior macron
  [)x] = any letter “x” with superior breve
  [e] = inverted “e” or schwa
  [ae], [oe] = ae, oe ligature characters
  [=xy] = any pair of letters “xy” with joining macron, except
  [=oe], [=ae] = oe, ae ligature characters with macron and
  [’oe], [’ae] = oe, ae ligature characters with acute accent and
  [)xy] = any pair of letters “xy” with joining breve, except
  [)ae], [)ae], [)oe], [)oe] = ae, ae, oe, oe ligature characters
          with breve
  [^1] = raised “1”, etc.

S.P.E.  TRACT NO.  IV

THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM THE LATIN

BY JOHN SARGEAUNT

WITH PREFACE AND NOTES BY H. BRADLEY

Correspondence & miscellaneous notes by H.B., R.B., W.H.F., And editorial

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS MDCCCCXX

ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM LATIN

[This paper may perhaps need a few words of introduction concerning the history of the pronunciation of Latin in England.

The Latin taught by Pope Gregory’s missionaries to their English converts at the beginning of the seventh century was a living language.  Its pronunciation, in the mouths of educated people when they spoke carefully, was still practically what it had been in the first century, with the following important exceptions. 1.  The consonantal u was sounded like the v of modern English, 2.  The c before front vowels (e, i, o, [ae], [oe]), and the combinations t[)i], c[)i] before vowels, were pronounced ts. 3.  The g before front vowels had a sound closely resembling that of the Latin consonantal i. 4.  The s between vowels was pronounced