The Roman Alphabet Did Not Have Letters for J U

Writing and Pronouncing Latin

Ancient Romans wrote only in capital letters (upper-case) called MAJUSCULE MINISCULE (lower-case letters) did not develop until the 8th century, when monks were copying ancient manuscripts

The Latin Alphabet: A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Z

The Latin alphabet did not have letters for J, U, or W

1) The letter “J” developed in the 14th century to distinguish between instances in Latin when the letter “I” was used as a vowel and when it was used as a consonant.

In Latin, “I” is a consonant when used a) between two vowels, or b) when it is the first letter of a word and it is followed by a vowel.

Consonantal “I” has the sound of “y” as in the English word “year” examples: iuvenis Iuppiter Iucundus

Some books and Latin dictionaries write consonantal “I” as “J” and this practice is often followed when Latin words (especially proper names) are written in English. consider: juvenile Jupiter jocund

2) The two separate letters “U” and “W” were introduced to distinguish between the Roman use of the letter “V” as either a vowel or a consonant.

In Latin consonantal “V” has the sound of “W” as in the English word “will” examples: victoria valor volunt contrast the English words: victory valor volunteer

For Romans, the letter “U” was not rounded at the bottom, but written as “V”; It’s hard to chisel curves in stone! Two letters “U” written side-by-side would have looked like this: “VV” From them our modern letter “W” and its English name, “double-U”, developed (perhaps as early as the 5th century and certainly by the 10th).

The Roman general Julius Caesar’s name incorporates the peculiarities of both I and U: In Latin the name Julius would have looked like this: IVLIVS

3) The letter “K” was almost never used in Latin: its sound was indicated by using the letter “C” Kalendae ( from which we get the English word “calendar”) and Karthago, the great Phoenician city-state in North Africa, which we know as Carthage, are the two exceptions.

In Latin, “C” is always pronounced “hard” as in “come” and not as the “c” in “city”

Similarly, the consonant “G” is always pronounced “hard” as in “gum” and not as the “g” in “gem”

The Latin vowels are A E I O U and sometimes Y Each can be pronounced as long or short.

LONG SHORT LONG and SHORT as in: A *a as in father a as the first a in aha Martha E *e as in they or a in late e as in let lateness I ~i as in police or as ea in seat i as in sit seasick O *o as in note o as in for phonograph U *u as in rule or oo as in fool u as in full full pool

When Latin uses Y as a vowel, it is pronounced like the y in by

Latin indicates a long vowel by using a macron above the letter: *a *e ~i *o *u

Two vowels written together are called a DIPHTHONG. They are pronounced as one sound:

AE as the ai in aisle EU as if “eh-oo” said quickly

AU as the ou in out OE as the oi in oil

EI as the ei in eight UI as if “oo-ee” said quickly

Each word in Latin has as many syllables to pronounce as there are vowels or diphthongs:

pater = pa - ter filius = fil – i- us injuria = in – jur –i - a

mitto = mit– to coquus = co - qu –us NB: “qu” forms a single consonant as in English “queen”

Apply the rules of Latin pronunciation to these Latin phrases still used in modern English:

adeste fideles semper fidelis gloria deo tempus fugit

caveat emptor e pluribus unum habeas corpus sic semper tyrannis

pro bono et cetera in vino veritas recipe in excelsis