Church Latin is one of those things which varies by region and director, but you mostly won’t go wrong if you listen to The Director, and attempt to reed/and/speek/ex-act-lee/hwa-tt/yoo/see. The following notes give some general hints for a practice based on an Italian foundation that has been widely used in the United States. Don’t panic if you’ve never heard some of these; the directors you’ve sung with may have shifted some things from the IPA and as always, The Director has the final say. Just in general, the ‘reh’ in requiem sounds like the ‘wre’ in ship
wreck. R’s are rolled, and vowels are round and clear – so if you have a nasal-forward voices or a Midwest ‘urrr’ to your -er ended words, make a note of softening it now; otherwise The Director will sigh and make Pointed Comments.
Below are the general pronunciation rules for a Romance language, as per the IPA. (The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script.) Specific pronunciation for a Catholic mass and each of the Rutter pieces can be found in the following pages by title.
According to the IPA, these are the Vowel pronunciations for Church Latin:
- a is pronounced as in father: sanctam (sahngk-tahm).
- e is pronounced as in egg: ante (ahn-teh).
- i is pronounced as in machine: filii (fee-lee-ee).
- y is pronounced the same as i: Kyrie (kee-ree-eh).
- o is pronounced as in tone: omnia (ohm-nee-ah).
- u is pronounced as in ruler: unum (oo-noom).
NB: When two vowels appear together, each is pronounced: mei (meh-ee). (This rule doesn’t cover certain diphthongs—see below.)
Diphthongs
ae and oe are pronounced like e: saeculum (seh-koo-loom).
au and eu are treated as single syllables, but each vowel is pronounced distinctly.
In singing, the first vowel is sustained, as in other combinations of two vowels:
lauda (lah-oo-dah).
And as for the many, many consonants…
C is hard like the K in kick except before E, AE, OE, I or Y when it is “ch” as in church.
CC is pronounced “tch” before the above vowels, and like K before any other letter.
SC is pronounced “sh” before those same vowels.
CH is always pronounced like K.
G is hard like the “g” in God except before E, AE, OE or I when it is soft like in gem.
GN is like the n with a tilde in Spanish (se̱or) Рmost like ny.
H is silent except in mihi where it is pronounced as k.
J is pronounced like the y in you. (Jesu in this case begins with a Y)
PH is pronounced like F.
R should be flipped with the tongue
S should be a sibilant Z (Jesu = Yeh-zhoo)
SCH is like sk (as in school)
T is hard like the t in tea.
TI before a vowel and following any letter except S, X or T is pronounced tsee.
TH is always hard as in tea.
X is pronounced as ks as in tacks.
XC is pronounced ksk before O, A or U, but becomes ksh before E, AE, OE, I and Y
Z is pronounced like dz as in suds.
I gathered these pronunciation hints for FPCL’s resource pages from the Tyndale Choral Society, the IPA, Douglas Seaton’s Ideas and Styles in the Western Musical Tradition, 4th Edition Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, in the Student Resources section of the introduction titled, Ecclesiastical Latin Pronunciation Guide. All good information is theirs; all mistakes are wholly mea culpa. 🎵