Roman Pronunciation of Latin | Page 5

written either way; as obses, or opses; obsonium, or opsonium; obtingo, or optingo; and Quintilian says it is a question whether the change should be indicated in writing or not:
[Quint. I. vii. 7.] Quaeri solet, in scribendo praepositiones, sonum quem junctae efficiunt an quem separatae, observare conveniat: ut cum dico obtinuit, secundam enim B litteram ratio poscit, aures magis audiunt P.
This change, however, is both so slight and so natural that attention need scarcely be called to it. Indeed if quantity is properly observed, one can hardly go wrong. If, for instance, you attempt, in saying obtinuit, to give its normal sound to B, you can scarcely avoid making a false quantity (the first syllable too long), while if you observe the quantity (first syllable short) your B will change itself to P.
C appears to have but one sound, the hard, as in sceptic:
[Mar. vict. Keil, v. VI. p. 32.] C etiam et ... G sono proximae, oris molimine nisuque dissentiunt. Nam C reducta introrsum lingua hinc atque hinc molares urgens haerentem intra os sonum vocis excludit: G vim prioris pari linguae habitu palato suggerens lenius reddit.
Not only do we find no hint in the grammarians of any sound akin to the soft C in English, as in sceptre, but they all speak of C and K and Q as identical, or substantially so, in sound; and Quintilian expressly states that the sound of C is always the same. Speaking of K as superfluous, he says:
[Quint, I. vii. io.] Nam K quidem in nullis verbis utendum puto, nisi quae significat, etiam ut sola ponatur. Hoc eo non omisi, quod quidam earn quotiens A sequatur necessariam credunt, cum sit C littera, quae ad omnes vocales vim suam perferat.
And Priscian declares:
[Keil. v. II. p. 13.] Quamvis in varia figura et vario nomine sint k et q et c, tamen quia unam vim habent tarn in metre quam in sono, pro una littera accipi debent.
Without the best of evidence we should hardly believe that words written indifferently with ae or e after C would be so differently pronounced by those using the diphthong and those using, the simple vowel, that, to take the instance already given, in the time of Lucilius, the rustic said Sesilius for Kaekilius. Nor does it seem probable that in different cases the same word would vary so greatly, or that in the numerous compounds where after c the a weakens to i the sound of the c was also changed from k to s, as "kapio," "insipio"; "kado" "insido."
Quintilian, noting the changes of fashion in the sounding of the h, enumerates, among other instances of excessive use of the aspirate, the words choronae (for coronae), chenturiones (for centuriones_), praechones (for praecones), as if the three words were alike in their initial sound.
Alluding to inscriptions (first volume), where we have _pulcher and pulcer, Gracchis and Grams, Mr. Munro says: "I do not well see how the aspirate could have been attached to the c, if c had not a k sound, or how in this case C before e or i could have differed from c before a, o, u."
Professor Munro also cites an inscription (844 of the "Corpus Inscr.," vol. I.) bearing on the case in another way. In this inscription we have the word dekembres. "This," says Mr. Munro, "is one of nearly two hundred short, plebeian, often half-barbarous, very old inscriptions on a collection of ollae. The k before e, or any letter except a, is solecistic, just as in no. 831 is the c, instead of k, for calendas. From this I would infer that, as in the latter the writer saw no difference between C and K, so to the writer of the former K was the same as C before E."
Again he says:
"And finally, what is to me most convincing of all, I do not well understand how in a people of grammarians, when for seven hundred years, from Ennius to Priscian, the most distinguished writers were also the most minute philologers, not one, so far as we know, should have hinted at any difference, if such existed."
As to the peculiar effect of C final in certain particles to "lengthen" the vowel before it, this C is doubtless the remnant of the intensive enclitic CE, and the so-called 'length' is not in the vowel, but in the more forcible utterance of the C. It is true that Priscian says:
[Keil. v. II. p. 34.] Notandum, quod ante hanc solam mutam finalem inveniuntur longae vocales, ut h?c, hac, s?c, h?c adverbium.
And Probus speaks of C as often prolonging the vowel before it. But Victorinus, more philosophically, attributes the length to the "double" sound of the consonant:
[Mar. Vict. I. v. 46.] Consideranda ergo est in his duntaxat pronominibus natura C litterae, quae crassum quodammodo et quasi