Quote:
Originally Posted by Freeshadow
thx harry
you reassured me that the way (german) teachers (of latin or law and a lot of others) pronounce latin IS consequently wronwrong. I wonder why - maybe because they don't want to end up with Caesar spoken as Käsar and fight their giggling inclasses down
(Käse = cheese)
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These days, in the UK at least, there is very much an attempt to use what it believed to be a "realistic" pronunciation of classical Latin, using the best available information. Eg, Caesar's famous triumphal placard "Veni, Vidi, Vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered") would be pronounced "weny, weedy, weeky".
Unfortunately there are some Roman names that have entered everyday English and had their pronounciations completely mangled, chief among which is "Caesar". In English we pronounce this word "see-zer", whereas the correct Latin pronunction is "Kie-sar". You pronounce it much more correctly in German in your word "Kaiser" which is, of course, a direct German adoption from "Caesar".
When speaking Latin, I'd always say, "Kai-sar", but when speaking English, I'd say "see-zer", or nobody would understand what I was saying.