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In Finland ae and oe are both typically pronounced as /e:/ when they belong to the same syllable. In (and near) Turku the pronunciations are /ai/ and /oi/. (This excludes, for example, aer and poema; this difference only concerns the diphthong.) Otherwise these pronunciations seem to coincide.

When and how did this difference appear between Turku and the rest of Finland? My understanding is that Finnish pronunciation is fairly close to classical, with Turku using a slightly older version. I am not very well familiar with the details of how Latin came to Finland, but I hope understanding this difference will shed a little more light on it.

(The question in the title also makes sense for the Finnish language, but my interest here is in Latin.)

Joonas Ilmavirta
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    Could it be a Swedish thing? Lots of Swedish speakers in and around Turku, if I'm not mistaken. How do Swedes pronounce those Latin diphthongs? – TKR Mar 20 '16 at 17:24
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    Pronouncing ae and oe as /e:/ is characteristic of Ecclesiastical pronunciation (at least the kind I am familiar with). Do you think this question could be rephrased to have more general interest? I doubt that there is anything unique about the situation of Turku in adopting this usage over the classical. – brianpck Mar 20 '16 at 18:08
  • @TKR, it could be a Swedish thing, but the majority speaks Finnish in Turku. Swedish is as common in Helsinki as in Turku and the University of Helsinki (originally Royal Academy of Turku) was moved from Turku to Helsinki after a fire in 1827. Despite these connections the pronunciation of Turku is not used in Helsinki. I don't know how the Swedes pronounce diphthongs. – Joonas Ilmavirta Mar 21 '16 at 13:07
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    @brianpck, I want to keep this question specific. Understanding this narrow phenomenon is likely to lead to a broader understanding on the side, but I don't want to generalize the question at the risk of missing my initial problem. I have nothing against a more general question, but it should be asked separately from this one. – Joonas Ilmavirta Mar 21 '16 at 13:15
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    Out of curiosity--what exactly do you mean when you say this is localized in Turku? As far as I am aware, there is not a large Latin-speaking community in Finland. Might it just be as simple as asking what professor(s) are teaching in the local university? – brianpck Mar 21 '16 at 14:09
  • @brianpck, this pronunciation is used in the universities in Turku but not in other Finnish universities, and I am under the impression that this is so for highschools as well. I am not aware of differences in topics studied that would explain this. I don't really know what kind of a reason is behind all this. There is no significant community using Latin as everyday language. – Joonas Ilmavirta Mar 21 '16 at 19:35
  • Perhaps Antti Ijäs might know. He is/was legatus epistularius of the Nuntii Latini, a Finnish radio programme in Latin. I once figured in a Dutch radio programme in which I asked a certain woman from Nuntii Latini a question that she answered asynchronously...but I don't remember her name. She worked at a Finnish university, like Ijäs. – Cerberus Mar 23 '16 at 04:35
  • @Cerberus, he might indeed know. Several Finns who work with Latin at universities should be able to answer, and I hope we can attract some of them to help us out. I don't use Facebook so I can't contact him directly with that link, but I was thinking of sending messages to some Finnish Latin-oriented mailing lists. – Joonas Ilmavirta Mar 23 '16 at 08:24
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    Since this has gone unanswered for so long, I think it's time to consider sending it to linguistics.SE, which may give an answer based on phonology and dialect. – cmw Dec 01 '16 at 23:34

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