OUR LATIN PRONUNCIATION. 



BY HENRY L. BROOM ALL. 



The pronunciation of a dead language is important only 

 to the science of linguistics. But if the dead language is also 

 a classic, transmitting to us the results of past culture, that 

 transmission brings with it words and phrases of the tongue 

 in which the thought was moulded, and words and phrases 

 must have pronunciation to be effective. And further, such 

 a classic tongue, bearing such import, becomes itself an object 

 of study, first, for the purpose of discerning meaning, and 

 second, for its own sake as an instrument of refined expres- 

 sion. To us Latin is not only this but much more. The 

 alphabet, our terms and notions of grammar, philosophy and 

 literature, have come to us by way of Latin. 



In constant English use are such Latin phrases as bona 

 fide, vice versa, prima fade, pro tempore, and abbreviations 

 such as etc., viz., A. D. In the sciences Latin words and 

 forms afford a definite, compact and systematic classificatorj^ 

 nomenclature. In uranography the stars are designated by 

 the letters of the Greek alphabet, their names pronounced as 

 Latin and applied numericallj^ with the names of the constel- 

 lations to which the stars belong in the genitive case, as 

 a Orionis, indicating the first star in Orion. In botany- and 

 zoology names are composed of two parts, the first designat- 

 ing the genus, and the second, an adjective or noun genitive 

 or appositive, particularizing the species — the first part indi- 

 cating that in which there is agreement, and the latter that in 

 which there is distinction, from other specimens. And in 

 anatomy, medicine, chemistry and pharmacy, Latin and Lat- 

 inized Greek words, or compounds of them, used according 

 to Latin grammatical rules, are extensively, though not as 

 systematically, used as in botany and zoologv'. So, too, the 

 lawyer and the churchman use many Latin terms in the 

 technique of their professions. 



The advantages of Latin for these scientific purposes con- 



