From: Christian Thalmann
Date: Tue Jan 07 2003 - 10:02:22 EST
--- In romanceconlang@yahoogroups.com, "Etherman23 <etherman23@y...>"
<etherman23@y...> wrote:
> I've just started working on a Romance conlang called Orientis, and
> not having any educational background in any Romance language, I find
> myself very confused over vowels. Latin vowels distinguish between
> quality and quantity.
You must unlearn what you have learned. ;-)
Make sure you completely forget the nonsensical custom of the
English language to call its estranged diphthongised vowel
phonemes "long". The vowel in "been" is not a long version
of the vowel in "ben"; in fact, it's a long (and tenser)
version of the vowel in "bin". Nevertheless, English
tradition calls it a long "e".
In Latin, what we mean by a long vowel *is* a long vowel --
spoken for a markedly longer duration than a short one, but
with the same quality.
Under no circumstances should you allow anglicised
pronunciations of Latin words tempt you to the Dark Side...
The zodiac sign Gemini is pronounced "jemmy-nigh" in English,
but the Latin |geminî| (long i at the end) is pronounced
"ghemmy-nee"!
> Unfortunately the terms long and short are used
> for both traits. I've looked through several grammar books for help
> but I've ended up more confused. Here's my problem: My Latin
> dictionary says that it marks quantity with diacritics.
That's all you need.
> However, it doesn't do it consistently.
I doubt that... see below.
> It also gives several rules for
> determining quantity, but these don't cover all possible cases and
> quite frequently disagree with the diacritics.
You're confusing stress with length. Those several rules
determine on which syllable the stress falls. Both long and
short vowels can carry the stress, and both can be unstressed.
Again, this doesn't influence the vowel quality.
> Other books I've
> looked at indicate long quality with a macron (unmarked vowels are
> considered short). They give the same rules about vowel quantity,
> which means that they're incomplete.
Same thing. Macrons show vowel length, the rules determine
where the stress falls. All complete.
-- Christian Thalmann
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