Points in the Pronunciation of Latin and Greek. 179 



not with Latin way. Some Latin words or parts of words oc- 

 cur in English, as obey, core^ mari7ie, genteel — which is an older 

 word than gentile, having preserved the Latin vowel which gen- 

 tile has lost. 



Most of our grammarians being grammatolaters or letter- 

 worshippers, who determine vowels by the eje and not by the 

 ear, they have given currency to several important errors. 

 They tell us that ' the vowel of not is long in note,' when in 

 fact naught is the lengthened form of 7iot, and it requires more 

 time to pronounce know with its single consonant than note or 

 not with two consonants, for note and obey have a short o, 

 which is long in owe, lo, and oiun. The long vowel of may 

 shortens in mate, which is neither met nor 7nat. Feet and fit 

 are equally short, with distinct vowels, and the rare vowel of 

 fat, which is unknown to normal German, French and Italian, 

 has no relation to that oi far, but is akin to that of met. 



Overlooking such facts, some who reject the English pro- 

 nunciation of Latin fall into the error of giving the vowels of 

 hat, hit, hot, hut, as Lafin and Greek sounds. An English 

 scholar once objected to a speaker for saying Xojo!;, because he 

 supposed the vowels to be pronounced long, but the speaker 

 made them very short — as short as in o-mit. When a Latin or 

 Greek vowel varies in length, it does not change in quality, 

 that is, it does not become a different vowel. Independently 

 of its final, lociista must be pronounced like lucils, except that 

 it must occupy twice the time in utterance, and the 6 of locus 

 must be placed in honor, homo (genitive hominis,) chorus? 

 Greek y^opbc:, which rhymes with morose (Latin morosiis.) 



The erroneous assertion has been made that in syllables 

 termed long by position, the quantity is short. Latin, like 

 Italian and Arabic, has doubled consonants, as in penna, stella^ 

 in which each consonant must be pronounced as in un-natural, 

 which gives length, whether the vowel is naturally short or 

 long. The principal vowel is naturally loog in hlx, luceo, 

 lUctfer, li'inu; ferox, ferocUds; fr'igeo, frlxl. The short 



