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I am a beginner with Latin and am confused about the overlined vowels.

The textbook I have explains these via vowels of English words, but I think that is unsatisfactory, because when learning other languages, each language has its own "sound", and you can’t express this via another language's "sound". You can identify many languages entirely by their sound.

Each language has a different gamut. Different languages are spoken using different zones of the mouth and throat, for example, French is spoken near the lips, and German is spoken nearer the throat. You can only learn the sound of a language by hearing it spoken properly, and some things can only be understood by observing, not by explanation.

Question 1: Is overlining the same as "stress"? Where, say, with the word "traditional", if you almost delete all vowels except the stressed one, it still sounds right, namely tr'd-i-sh'n'l, so that first i is the stress, and English dictionaries often demarcate the stressed vowel with a ' symbol after the vowel, for example, tradi'tional, where they also write it using some phonetic script, for example, something like tredi'shenul, but with funny symbols.

Question 2: Is an overlined vowel a different sound from the non overlined version? Or is it entirely a matter of "stress", that is, time-length.

Question 3: is the overlining done in ancient Latin? For example, the Latin spoken by Caesar, or is it an artefact of later eras? The same way Hebrew scholars add in vowels, as ancient Hebrew didn’t have vowels, which I think leads to ambiguities. So the Hebrew vowels are artefacts of later eras and in some ambiguous cases could be wrong.

Question 4: are there any online audio sources to hear ancient Latin spoken? With maybe some guessing of the pronunciation. In particular, to hear how people think the vowels were said, as expressing them with English vowels is unsatisfactory. The textbook I have says long u is like oo in "food", and short u is like u in "put".

But the first problem with this, is there are many many dialects of English just in England so it is onlooker-relative and thus no use, and the second problem is with the version of English I use, food and put aren’t just different vowel "lengths" but also different sounds. It’s ambiguous whether the author means the sound, or the length, or both, and it could in any case just be how he was taught which with the generations could diverge from the truth. Even begin divergent. For example, at our school, with German we were taught to roll r for German, but in fact in Germany, the r is essentially an h sound.

Standard British English has at least 11 non diphthong vowels, for example, the vowels of the following are all different for me: hat, hut, hot, put, hoot, heat, hit, hem, her, harp, hawk. but with American English, hot and hut are the same.

I have a teach-yourself-Latin book also which has an audio cassette, but that is ecclesiastical Latin, and the book is themed around a monastery, and ecclesiastical Latin apparently is a different sound from classical Latin. To fix things really precisely, I am asking about say the Latin spoken by Caesar, as he kind of personifies classical Latin. Whereas ecclesiastical Latin is essentially outsider Latin. I opted for a different book set in the 1st century BC.

Languages evolve continually, so it’s a moving target, but I think you can distill out a self coherent language from a general era. It will never be as good as having grown up in the society.

When British people speak Latin, I think the pronunciation is probably completely incorrect as they speak it with a British accent, which cannot possibly be correct, but it is probably self consistent. Someone from ancient Rome would probably struggle to understand them.

Peter Mortensen
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    You may want to read this first https://latin.stackexchange.com/a/2689/39 and then https://latin.stackexchange.com/a/1498/39 – Alex B. Jan 12 '22 at 16:18
  • @ Alex B, those URLs suggest (I havent completely scrutinised) that the overlines were used in classical text, and that it is entirely about length. The remaining question then is what the sound is of each vowel, and diphthong eg ae and ie, eg magnae and hodie. Dunno how to pronounce those! – Commenter Jan 12 '22 at 19:03
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    I'm not sure what the purpose of the first paragraph is, but on my desktop screen in normal reading font size the height of the question (even without that first paragraph) is 30 cm. The screen has only 30 cm in total, and some of that is lost by the browser title bar, URL bar and SE's black top bar. (On my vertical screen it's 40 cm high, because the line lengths are shorter.) – Paŭlo Ebermann Jan 12 '22 at 23:49
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    Distinct from “length,” Stack Exchange works best (and usually enforces, though I’m not entirely sure of the norms on this particular site) one-question-per-Question. That allows answerers to cover each one fully, allows the best answer to each question to be voted on independently, and ultimately, gets you better answers sooner. You should consider splitting up the question on those grounds alone. – KRyan Jan 13 '22 at 15:13
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    I consider posts long if they don't all fit on my quite reasonably sized monitor (this one doesn't) – Azor Ahai -him- Jan 13 '22 at 15:27
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    There are some incorrect (and also irrelevant) assertions in the question, eg 1) Stress and time-length are different (though sometimes related) phenomena. 2) Ancient Hebrew had vowels, they just weren't written down (much like in modern Arabic). 3) 'hot' and 'hut' are not the same vowel in standard American English. Note the different transliterations in the Merriam-Webster (American) English dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hot vs https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hut. I think your question will be improved by removing these asides & being more focused. – Tiercelet Jan 13 '22 at 16:34
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    I may pronounce Harry/hairy and merry/marry/Mary the same, but I certainly don't pronounce hot/hut the same. – WaterMolecule Jan 13 '22 at 18:22
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    @WaterMolecule - "I may pronounce Harry/hairy and merry/marry/Mary the same" - do people really do this? – Michael Harvey Jan 13 '22 at 21:19
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    @MichaelHarvey I can confirm that. There is a slight difference between merry and marry/Mary for me, but that can be blurred in actual speech. Hot/hut are completely different, though. – cmw Jan 14 '22 at 01:08
  • Which Caesar are you referring to? Given the reference to the 1st century BC, I assume either Julius or Augustus... – DLosc Jan 14 '22 at 17:30
  • @DLosc When the name Caesar is alone, it almost always refers to Julius Caesar; Augustus only adopted the name Caesar later (and went against convention in doing so), so he is chiefly called Octavian or Augustus or Caesar Augustus (but Augustus Caesar is incorrect). – cmw Jan 16 '22 at 06:22
  • @Tiercelet its much of a muchness the Merriam audios of hot and hut, which anyway are non human and thus fictional. According to this video the difference is just of time duration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgI3sa8NhFE But I say "not" lasts longer because it is emphasized as an introducer of further words eg not "this kind of idea", similarly always, never etc. If you listed "not" eg a list of words beginning with n: new, not, never, nice, the time duration is brief. So I think the distinction is bogus, and relates to superimposed time duration of words. – Commenter Jan 21 '22 at 16:12
  • @DLosc I didnt know there was more than one Caeser! I meant the one in the Asterix and Obelix books. Is that the same Caeser as in the gospels? if those are 2 different Caesers, then a fictional average of the 2. – Commenter Jan 21 '22 at 16:14
  • long ago I toyed around with the software used to create Stephen Hawkings voice, and wanted to make it speak with a british accent. And this was IMPOSSIBLE, I couldnt get anywhere near a british accent. That was where I realised american pronunciation is much sparser than british. The software used a system called ARPABET. If I remember rightly I couldnt do a british o. The scheme's nearest letter is OH of border, and that is so off track that it is laughable. The other alternatives: bottle, ball, book. all no use. Try those on meriam's audio. – Commenter Jan 21 '22 at 16:19
  • their full list of vowels were with operative vowels capitalised where ambiguous: beet, bet, bOttle, ball, bird, About, bit, bat, but, book, bOrder, solId, and diphthongs: aid, boy, boat, bIde, bound, brew. I have identified 11 different direct vowel sounds of british english, where you can disregard duration ie different if you say em continually: hat, hut, hot, put, hoot, heat, hit, hem, her, harp, hawk. – Commenter Jan 21 '22 at 16:26
  • basically when speaking, you structure a sentence with varied time duration and prolonging a syllable whilst we think what to say next etc. eg WHY do you NEver Ever do what I say? – Commenter Jan 21 '22 at 16:34
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    @Commenter Looks like the Caesar in Asterix is Julius Caesar, while two Caesars are mentioned in the gospels: Augustus and Tiberius. See also cmw's comment to me above--they know more about the nomenclature than I do. – DLosc Jan 21 '22 at 16:40
  • @DLosc all these years I was imagining the wrong Caeser! Is Julius the one who said "veni vidi vici" and "et tu Brutus"? In one asterix story, Brutus isnt applauding, and Caeser looks at him sternly and says "et tu Brutus"! – Commenter Jan 21 '22 at 16:48
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    @Commenter Let us continue this conversation in chat. – DLosc Jan 21 '22 at 16:56
  • Also see: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/4845/resources-for-pronouncing-latin – cmw Jan 31 '22 at 15:13

2 Answers2

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Q1: my first question is whether overlining is the same as "stress"?

Not really. The overline indicates vowel length—how long you sustain the vowel sound—which is a component of stress in English. But Latin vowel length is a property of each individual vowel, while English stress is a property of the whole word. For example, pila, pilā, pīla, and pīlā are all different Latin words with different meanings; English has "project" and "project", but can't have *"project" (all stressed) or *"project" (nothing stressed).

Q2: is an overlined vowel a different sound from the non overlined version? or is it entirely a matter of "stress" ie time-length.

Sometimes yes. The sound of ē seems to have been closer to the sound of i than the sound of e, for example.

Q3: is the overlining done in ancient Latin? eg the latin spoken by Caeser, or is it an artefact of later eras. The same way hebrew scholars add in vowels, as ancient hebrew didnt have vowels, which I think leads to ambiguities. So the hebrew vowels are artefacts of later eras and in some ambiguous cases could be wrong.

It's important to make a distinction here between the writing and the language. Ancient Hebrew generally didn't indicate all the vowels in writing, but they were definitely still part of the spoken language! In this case, we know Caesar pronounced the difference between long and short vowels, but didn't always write it. (It was sometimes written, but not always.)

Q4: are there any online audio sources to hear ancient Latin spoken?

I'm fond of Johan Winge's recordings, personally. The pronunciation he uses is a reconstruction of how formal, upper-class Latin would have been spoken around the first century BCE, so reasonably close to Caesar.

Draconis
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In addition to Draconis' excellent answer, you may also be interested to know that:

  • The overline is called a macron.
  • Macrons were not used by the ancient Romans, and today they are almost only used in dictionaries and teaching materials. The Romans knew which vowels were long and which were short, and us non-Romans have to learn it by heart.
  • Vowel length influences syllable length. Syllables with a long vowel are always long, those with short vowels only under certain conditions (if the vowel is followed by certain consonant clusters). Dipthongs are also long.
  • Syllable length is the basis of all classical Latin poetry. Stress was completely disregarded. There is also Latin poetry based on stress, but it is from later eras.
  • Syllable length influences stress. Words with three or more syllables are stressed on the third to last syllable, unless the second to last one is long; in that case, they are stressed on the second to last syllable. (For example, tenēre is stressed teNEre, regere is stressed REgere.)
Sebastian Koppehel
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  • if no vowel is marked long, the default one is long? eg the 3rd last. why is genitive plural of domus domuum? is uu different from u-macron? can a latin word be entirely short vowels, ie no stress at all? – Commenter Jan 13 '22 at 22:11
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    @Commenter If no vowel is marked long, then no vowel is long. Double uu is indeed not the same as ū, domuum has three syllables. Lots of Latin words have only short vowels, but your conclusion "ie no stress at all" is wrong, because (a) stress does not depend on vowel length but on syllable length and (b) if all syllables are short, the third to last syllable is stressed. – Sebastian Koppehel Jan 13 '22 at 22:49
  • as it might be different from english, what do you define as stress for latin? is it where the tone of the vowel is higher? with english, the stressed vowel seems to be at a raised tone, ie its more time and a higher note. with domuum, are the 2 u's pronounced identically without boundary? in what way is uu different from u-macron? eg length or tones. in english the word continuum (eg the continuum hypothesis) is pronounced kontinyoo-um, where the 2 u's are pronounced differently and I think the i is stressed, but the presumably latin word could be pronounced completely differently in latin. – Commenter Jan 14 '22 at 10:18
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    The ancient Romans did not use macrons, but they did sometimes use apices, which served the same function. Observe them on this monument; the apices are the thin accents over the long vowels (also note that capital "i" was made taller instead of using an apex): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inscription_displaying_apices_(from_the_shrine_of_the_Augustales_at_Herculaneum).jpg – Kef Schecter Jan 14 '22 at 13:43
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    I'd also add that "stress was completely disregarded" is not quite true of Latin poetry. The poets did care which syllables were stressed; it's just that the stress did not define the meter and was a secondary concern. In particular, the stresses tend to coincide with long syllables at the end of a line of dactylic hexameter, giving a sense of resolution. – Kef Schecter Jan 14 '22 at 13:50
  • but how is domuum different in pronunciation from domu'm where ' denotes a macron? is it that domuum has the o at a higher note, whereas domu'm has the u at a higher note? (where domu'm is a fictional word) or to avoid fictional words, how is the uu of domuum different from say the u' of domu's? – Commenter Jan 14 '22 at 14:39
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    @Commenter: You misunderstood Sebastian's reply. domuum does not have a "uu" sound. It has three syllables: do-mu-um. – Ben Voigt Jan 14 '22 at 17:18
  • @Commenter How stress in classical Latin sounded is not exactly known; see this and this question for more. The exact pronunciation of domuum is an interesting question which I cannot answer; you may want to ask thst as a separate question. – Sebastian Koppehel Jan 14 '22 at 21:13
  • @SebastianKoppehel it seems a quagmire! the one link says it could be loudness also. From a pragmatic point of view I think one needs enough attributes (eg length, tone, loudness, etc) to prevent ambiguities, attributes beyond disambiguation could be regarded as personality or aesthetics. And any tonal aspect needs to withstand music, ie linguistical tonal variation to not conflict with musical tonal variation. when one speaks with emotion, I think this alters the tones eg "WHY do you want this?" where WHY is altered, vs "why do YOU want this?" etc. – Commenter Jan 15 '22 at 22:58
  • @SebastianKoppehel I am at lesson 13 of a book course of Latin, and was disregarding the macrons as I thought this was just the author's opinion. I only realised it was necessary when I noticed the ambiguity of venit and venimus after buying the 555 verbs book, where the macrons disambiguate present versus perfect tense. I later realised say nominative + ablative of say magna also now disambiguated. I now have to revisit the 13 lessons and my vocab notes enforcing the macrons and eclipsing my former pronunciations! This is the problem with home study from books, you can stray from the path – Commenter Jan 16 '22 at 00:37
  • @SebastianKoppehel one other thing, I think perception is "adaptive", eg if you buy a huge TV, at first it seems huge, but eventually it doesnt. If you keep listening to someone speaking with a quirk, your brain eventually filters out the quirk and even starts to expect the quirk. One question is whether a speculated way of speaking latin would be understood by say Caeser. eg someone completely book taught in english can be unintelligible. could native latin speakers of different eras understand each other? eg we can understand the King James bible, even though its an archaic form of english. – Commenter Jan 16 '22 at 00:53
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    @Commenter Lots of people say things that are incorrect. Just because a "teach yourself" course mentions something doesn't mean they're accurate. People can be wrong. – cmw Jan 16 '22 at 06:24
  • Also, of course those speaking Latin could understand other eras - anyone who has studied an inkling of those eras sees that the commonalities are great. What commentators had to resort to were glosses: explanations of individual words or phrases that were obscure. This is no different than Urban Dictionary today. – cmw Jan 16 '22 at 06:25
  • @cmw each language also has multiple forms,eg one form for poetry, one for theatre, one for officialdom, one for informal talk etc. eg british pop singers often sing in a fake american accent. poetry has exaggerated intonation, and consecutive rhyming sentences are often said with "opposing" intonation and there is a superimposed rythm. english stage actors have a "luvvie" accent,like Gielgud eg butler in the Arthur film or David Walliams (after ever after). some commentators could be describing public forms of speech eg oration which is quite different from unscripted real talk. – Commenter Jan 18 '22 at 16:47
  • @cmw with the textbook I have, its pronunciation key suggests the macron versions are not just longer, but are different sounds. eg a=a of cat, but a-macron=a of father, and i=i of dip, i-macron=ee of deep, which isnt just longer but is a different sound. is this incorrect? it also gives u=u of put, u-macron=oo of food, etc. – Commenter Jan 18 '22 at 18:27
  • @cmw further to earlier, trying just now to relearn some of the forms of the verb "to come", eg perfect and present, I find it easier for the macronned vowel to be identical sound but just lasting longer. using a different vowel is total mayhem! in Germany, a school teaching latin is called a "gymnasium", I can see why! a lot of linguisitic gymnastics. In England such schools are called "grammar schools". – Commenter Jan 18 '22 at 19:40
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    "I find it easier".... "is just mayhem". That appears to be a consequence of having acquired a bad habit. The longer you wait to break that habit and retrain your ear, the more difficult it will be to overcome. – Ben Voigt Jan 18 '22 at 23:40