The history of Pronunciation - Part 1

Caesar's Lost Voice: What Latin Really Sounded Like

When Julius Caesar stood on the banks of the Rubicon in 49 BCE and declared "Alea iacta est" (the die is cast), how did those famous words actually sound? If you learned Latin in school, you probably didn't hear it the way Caesar spoke it. The Latin pronunciation taught in most classrooms today would have been as foreign to ancient Romans as Shakespearean English sounds to us.

But here's the fascinating part: we don't have to guess entirely. Thanks to a catastrophic volcanic eruption that preserved an entire city, combined with careful linguistic detective work, we have substantial evidence about how Romans actually spoke. The graffiti of Pompeii—casual scribbles on walls, love notes, insults, and everyday messages—gives us glimpses into the pronunciation patterns of real people going about their daily lives.

The Great Latin Pronunciation Divide

Before we dive into the streets of Pompeii, let's address the fundamental issue. There are actually two completely different ways to pronounce Latin, and most people don't realize the distinction.

Classical Latin represents scholarly attempts to reconstruct how Romans spoke during the height of the Republic and early Empire (roughly 100 BCE to 100 CE). This is based on linguistic evidence from ancient sources.

Ecclesiastical Latin is the pronunciation system developed by the Catholic Church, heavily influenced by later Romance language developments. This is what most people learned if they studied Latin in school.

According to scholarly sources, the difference is dramatic. Take Caesar's famous phrase "Veni, vidi, vici":

• Ecclesiastical pronunciation: "VAY-nee, VEE-dee, VEE-chee"

• Classical pronunciation: "WAY-nee, WEE-dee, WEE-kee"

As linguistic research confirms, the V sounded like W, and the C was always hard like K.

Pompeii: The Accidental Time Capsule

On August 24, 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius erupted with devastating force, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum under volcanic ash. While this was a human tragedy, it created something unprecedented for linguists: a perfectly preserved snapshot of how ordinary Romans lived and communicated.

According to Wikipedia's entry on Roman graffiti, over 11,000 graffiti samples have been uncovered in Pompeii's excavations. These aren't the carefully crafted words of poets and politicians—they're spontaneous writings of bakers, gladiators, tavern keepers, and ordinary citizens.

As noted by scholars studying these inscriptions, when people write casually, they often spell words the way they sound, not the way they're "supposed" to be spelled. These "spelling mistakes" are actually pronunciation evidence.

The Evidence in the Walls

Let me walk you through specific examples that reveal how Latin really sounded in the first century CE, based on documented Pompeii graffiti.

The Case of the Missing H

One consistent pattern in Pompeii graffiti is the dropping or misplacement of the letter H. According to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, we find inscriptions like:

• "ic" instead of "hic" (here)

• "abeo" instead of "habeo" (I have)

• "homnibus" instead of "omnibus" (for everyone)

This tells us that by the first century CE, many Romans weren't pronouncing the H sound consistently. It was becoming silent, just like in modern Italian, Spanish, and French.

But sometimes H appears where it shouldn't be—"homnibus" with an extra H, suggesting some Romans were overcorrecting because they knew H belonged somewhere but weren't sure exactly where.

Vowel System Changes

Classical Latin supposedly had clear distinctions between long and short vowels, crucial for meaning. But Pompeii graffiti shows constant confusion between these vowels, suggesting the careful vowel length distinctions of classical Latin were breaking down in everyday speech by 79 CE.

The V/B Confusion

We find numerous examples where V and B are confused in graffiti:

• "vibo" instead of "vivo" (I live)

• "bivere" instead of "vivere" (to live)

This indicates the Latin V sound was changing from the classical "w" sound toward the modern "v" sound, sometimes pronounced so close to B that scribes got confused.

How We Know: The Linguistic Detective Work

How do scholars reconstruct ancient pronunciation? According to W.S. Allen's research, linguists use six main sources:

1. Ancient grammarians' statements about pronunciation

2. Puns and wordplay that only work with certain pronunciations

3. Borrowed words in other languages preserving older pronunciations

4. Romance language evidence showing systematic sound changes

5. Spelling variations in inscriptions and manuscripts

6. Metrical patterns in poetry revealing vowel lengths

For example, we know Caesar's name was pronounced "KAI-sar" because when the Gospels were written in Greek, they spelled it "Kaîsar" with the Greek letter kappa, representing the /k/ sound.

What Caesar Really Sounded Like

Based on scholarly reconstruction, Caesar's Latin would have featured:

• V sounded like W: "veni" = "WAY-nee"

• C was always hard: "Caesar" = "KAI-sar"

• AE was a diphthong: "alea" = "AH-leh-ah"

• Vowel length mattered: Long vowels were noticeably longer than short ones

So "Alea iacta est" would have been pronounced roughly: "AH-leh-ah YAH-ktah est"

Important Disclaimers

We must be cautious about our claims. As linguistic research emphasizes, the relevant sources are mostly from the Roman male elite writing according to linguistic standards. This evidence doesn't give us the full window into Roman Latin that we'd like.

Multiple pronunciations likely existed side by side, used according to various social factors like age, location, social class, and context. The pronunciation changes we see in Pompeii graffiti were probably not universal, even in 79 CE.

Modern Connections: Why This Matters Today

Understanding how Latin really sounded reveals universal patterns about human speech:

Spelling vs. Pronunciation

The gap between how Romans spelled and spoke mirrors modern English. We write "knight" but say "night"—the Pompeii graffiti shows this mismatch is nothing new.

Language Change in Real Time

The pronunciation changes captured in Pompeii graffiti mirror changes happening in English today. Young people drive pronunciation changes, just like those Roman citizens 2,000 years ago.

Social Factors in Pronunciation

The class-based pronunciation differences we see in Pompeii exist in every language. Formal, educated speech is always more conservative than casual, everyday speech.

Practical Applications

If you're learning Latin today, understanding these patterns can help:

• Expect variation: Don't be surprised when sources show different pronunciations

• Understand sound change: Many difficulties come from ongoing pronunciation shifts

• Pay attention to casual evidence: The most important patterns often show up in informal contexts first

The Bigger Picture

The story of Latin pronunciation reveals something profound: language is always changing, always reflecting the real lives of speakers. When we hear Caesar's words as he likely spoke them, we're connecting with the fundamental human experience of communication across time.

The people who wrote on Pompeii's walls were part of the same ongoing story of language change that continues today. Their "mistakes" weren't errors—they were systematic patterns revealing how human speech naturally evolves.

References

1. Wikipedia. "Roman graffiti." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_graffiti

2. Timeless Myths. "Pronunciation of Caesar: How is Caesar Really Pronounced?" https://timelessmyths.com/stories/caesar-pronunciation

3. Danny Bate. "As Julius Caesar said, 'Wehnee, weedee, weekee!'" https://dannybate.com/2021/08/31/as-julius-caesar-said-wehnee-weedee-weekee/

4. Latin Language Stack Exchange. "Sources for Roman graffiti of Pompeii and Herculaneum." https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/17817/sources-for-roman-graffiti-of-pompeii-and-herculaneum

5. Antigone Journal. "The Writing's on the Wall: Reading Roman Graffiti." https://antigonejournal.com/2022/03/roman-graffiti/

6. CrossWorks. "Latin Pronunciation: How do we know?" https://crossworks.holycross.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1168&context=necj