Vox Latina : A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin

Rating:
Summary: Excellent though often technical discussion
Review: Ever wonder how they know how Latin was pronounced in Roman times? This book is for you. Though technical at times, it appears to be self-contained. The author respectfully discusses views that differ from his own. The classical pronunciation taught in classrooms differs in small but perhaps significant ways from the pronunciation reconstructed in this book. At least it will no longer be a mystery why Vergil and other poets "elide" the final syllables of words ending in "m" when the following word begins with a vowel.

Rating:
Summary: Legit and Underused
Review: Most Latin courses don't involve one word of spoken Latin. I suspect this is because the real field of linguistics is so new that we new next to nothing about how to pronounce it when our professors went to school. Now we know pretty well, and for those of you who have no idea how this is possible, it is possible. Vox Latina is a great description of every letter and sound in the Latin language, although it is incredibly dry, and should be marketed exclusively as a reference book. Still, if you're in any way a professional in Latin, or feel you have a legitimate reason to pronounce things correctly (law/medicine/academia), this book is well worth it. I'll say that in my opinion, most of my fellow Latin teachers and/or my professors in school weren't very familiar with Latin pronunciation.

Rating:
Summary: i like
Review: PROPER pronunciation of latin is important since ecleseastical latin is mispronounced from its predisesor