ginlindzey

There was a big twitter discussion about Latin pronunciation today, to use macrons or not to use macrons, whether to teach pronunciation to students or let them pick it up by listening to you and other input (trusting the quality you provide), etc. I felt the discussion beginning to spiral in its usual fashion of pros and cons. Back when the Latinteach list was active, this discussion came up numerous times. And often if I replied, I also posted a copy of my reply on this blog. I just read through them, and in some I was quite passionate--one, even a bit out of line. If you would like to read those older posts just click on the PRONUNCIATION tag in the right margin.

So in many ways, there's no need for me to repeat what I've said before, except for the fact that we have a couple more issues now that we didn't really have then. First, there are a LOT of people (well, a room full of 50 at ACL--that's 1/6 of the participents) who are interested in trying to use more techniques to make their class a Comprehensible Input classroom. That requires a LOT of oral work. It is the idea that you can get in more repetitions and in a more engaging and compelling way orally. Yes, reading still plays a strong role but there is a LOT of emphasis on the oral part.

Second, it is less likely that a new teacher will have had formal instruction in accentuation and syllabification if they learned Latin in high school using a reading based text like the Cambridge Latin Course (which I do love) because it does not include a pronunciation guide. From this point, as I've stated elsewhere, the discussion begins to go round and round on who to blame--that is, who should have taught pronunciation (high school teacher/first teacher) or who should have polished pronunciation (professors/person in charge of methods of teaching Latin course)? And that's all mute. Finger pointing never got anything done.

In 2005 I even had proposed initially via the CAMWS Newsletter something called "Fluent Latin 101". The title of the article was "Teacher Prep: New Ideas, New Approach" (page 9). This was way before the Comprehensible Input surge in Latin circles, but at a time when I was really frustrated by the lack of quality pronunciation among fellow teachers at Certamen events. I was also trying to address in the article issues that some teachers had brought up about not having studied AP authors during their undergraduate career and thus not being properly prepared to teach.  But that's another story. I published this article in the CAMWS Newsletter because I was hoping to reach the professors who could have some influence on addressing these problems which future teachers faced. Naturally it fell on deaf ears.

Last year I discovered on a blog post entitled Driving with Dido on the Indwelling Language blog. It is mainly a post--and a good one--on reading extensively in Latin, and how the author, Justin Sloacum Bailey, went on a quest to develop fluency in Latin, even though he began with a grammar first text book (Wheelock's). Anyway, at some point in the post, he gives a list of things to help with fluency, and one of them is to "record yourself reading Latin and listen to your recordings in the car, while doing chores, while shopping, etc."

This has stuck with me even though admittedly I have yet to do it. The idea was to record yourself reading a passage that you have interpreted/translated so you know what it's about, and then work on developing your own listening skills.  As I see it, the way to ensure this works well is to be extremely conscientious about your pronunciation as you read that Latin. This is not only about making sure you are pronouncing long and short vowels correctly, but that you are dividing and accenting words correctly. You are creating your source of INPUT. That is the key.

To develop your sense of quality pronunciation you need lots of INPUT, but if you aren't around speakers of Latin, you don't get the input you need. In addition, if your own teacher/instructor was apathetic with regards to the pronunciation of Latin, you need enough quality input to unteach incorrect pronunciation.

So... I guess the first thing you need to do is to decide that you need to improve your pronunciation if you know you need to. If you cannot write sentences/vocabulary from the textbook you use (assuming you are using a textbook) complete with macrons without double checking 98% of the time, then you probably need to work on pronunciation. Because, really, what we are talking about is not "pronunciation" but whether you have internalized the SOUND of the words, whether you truly OWN the words.

Why is this so important? If you are going to be telling stories orally, you have to OWN your own Latin. And if you want your students to pick up their pronunciation mainly through input, your OUTPUT must be excellent.

OK, so now maybe you realize you need to "learn" your macrons.  Really, you are working on "owning" your Latin vocab by SOUND because the macrons merely represent sounds. First make sure you know your basic rules of dividing and accenting words (see the front of a Latin dictionary or my pronunciation guide for CLC), and then practicing dividing and accenting words that are three syllables or more, followed by saying those words aloud several times. You may find words you thought you knew are really pronounced differently. You may discover you are sloppy with o's and i's. You may discover which words are mispronounced due to related words in English. (Off the top of my head, novem, 9, is a SHORT o, not a long o like in November; toga is a short o as well, not long as it is in English.)

Once you feel like you can divide and accent anything, find a passage you like (could be from your textbook series or AP or whatever), divide & accent all the words in it just to make sure you really are saying all of the words correctly, and then record yourself reading it. Now put away the text away and get a clean sheet of paper. Use your recording for dictation and see whether you can write exactly what you read previously--macrons and all. If your pronunciation is clear and accurate, you should have little problem doing this. TRUST the sound that you hear. If you hear long, write it that way. Likewise, think about where the accent is on the word; sometimes that can help you with a short a versus a long a. Practice this a bit.

Now, try finding something that does NOT have macrons. If you were to trust your "ear", could you add macrons to most of the words? Try it to see. Do any of the missed macrons change the placement of the accent on the word? Or does where you KNOW the accent of the word goes help you with deciding whether you have a long or short vowel? I know, for instance, that I pronounce "they heard" as au-di-VE-runt, so that e has to be long.

The truth is that there is no magic fix. You have to work at it. You have to realize the importance not just to your own learning but to that of your students. You have to see the bigger picture of language acquisition. And you will find that the more you work at it, the more you realize you do know, and the easier it becomes. But it all starts with you having a crystal clear idea of pronunciation.

I often think about Spanish students who will complain that one of the Spanish teachers has lousy pronunciation. Students notice.  Students care.  Students will think less of you and your expertise if they see this deficiency. Your colleagues will think less of your expertise as well. (Yes, I have thought less of professors and teachers....)  And maybe that seems arrogant... But I'm also going to pick the Shakespeare instructor who tries to do restored pronunciation over the one that recites with a heavy Texan accent.

And finally, I do believe we need to teach our students the rules for dividing and accenting words. I've always made it extra credit on one of the types of quizzes I've used in the past. I reiterate the importance of knowing the rules so you can decide how a new word sounds without my being there, but I do not punish students for having difficulties with the concept. I do grade oral recitations which we practices because that is based on hearing/speaking and not artificial rules of dividing and accenting. Nevertheless, I want my students to be armed to read extensively, and to hear the Latin in their heads or to be able to say it aloud.

It's about the input. I can provide a lot of it, but some of it will need to be experienced on their own--and I just want it to be the best experience possible.

> Hi Paul, to me the márking of mácrons in Latin looks wrong - in the same way
> that márking strésses in Énglish makes a fúnny impréssion. Yes, of course we
> stress words in Énglish; it is an esséntial lánguage feáture - but it is NOT
> part of our wríting sýstem; so too in Látin - there are vowel length
> distínctions, but it is NOT part of the wríting sýstem. There are mány
> feátures in ány lánguage which are not part of the wríting sýstem.
>
> Now we'll see if the LatinTeach list software copes with those accent marks.

While I do respect Laura's opinion, I think to the contrary.

When learning new words, I really, really want to see the macrons, and the best way to learn new words is in context. I do NOT want to have to stop to look in a dictionary to find out what the proper macrons should be on the word. I want to fix the word in my head RIGHT THEN AND THERE. I want to see it and hear it and taste it on my tongue and enjoy the way it flows from my lips. (ok, sorry, not enough sleep last night... but I digress.)

To me, macrons are like having a Roman reading to me. The macrons let me know how a Roman would have pronounced a word, where the accent goes, etc. I still feel like a child learning Latin, but unlike a child learning English, I cannot say, "Mom, how do you pronounce this word?" When a child is in elementary school, he/she is supposed to read WITH A PARENT--why? to make sure he/she is learning to associate what's on the page with the way words sound. And even as kids get older, in middle school or high school, they will still ask you have to pronounce an unknown word because they are still *learning* and meet new words all the time in their literature classes.

I don't need macrons for the grammar. I've internalized those. To me it's not about the grammar--I can tell from phrasing and usage the difference between a 1st declension nominative or a 1st declension ablative. It's about the root word. I see the macrons and it's like I have my very own personal Roman tutor hovering over my shoulder whispering the correct vowel quantity and accent, encouraging me to continue my declamation. And as for whether we use accents in English, I dare say if you open a volume of Shakespeare that you can find a number of cases where accents are used because our ears are not attuned to Elizabethan pronunciation and no Elizabethans are around whispering over our shoulders. (Think of all the -ed words where there is an accent on the -ed.)

I don't know numbers (or whether data even exist for this), but surely Latin students learn significantly less vocabulary (active vocabulary as well as passive) than their modern language counterparts? And too often only a very small part of our education is conducted orally/aurally. Thus knowing the proper pronunciation for a word may not be something picked up during the course of education or use, especially is use is typically silent reading. However, it doesn't mean we have to be stuck with an insufficient knowledge of spoken Latin; we can have macrons.

Although I know not everyone reads the way I do, many of us "hear" when we read, even silently. (I know some people don't.) I have an array of voices for Falco and Helena Justina and the cast of characters in Lindsey Davis's novels; likewise I "hear" voices for Caecilius and Clemens and Grumio. So to me, macrons count because I want to hear everything I read, and, well, I want to read all the Latin in front of me out loud. (It's been a day of fun, dramatic readings in my room!)

So, here's my two denarii on the subject.