Re: Boris Johnson & Iliad

Michael Smith wrote:

> The Brits have always done that. Speak every language as if it were
> English. Some amusing survivals of Brit Latin are to be found in the
> thieves' argot of lawyers. 'A fortiori', for example, sounds like "Ah,
> fer sure-ee."

To be fair, the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish have long pronounced
Latin in their own ways, and no doubt other European nations too. It's only
in the last 100 years that much attempt has been made at conforming to a
hypothetical 'correct' style. The ecclesiastical pronunciation of Latin
remains far out, and still varied; the French and Germans do not conform to
the Italianate pronunciation we are used to, as can be found by listening
to recordings of liturgical music.

The normal old-fashioned British pronunciation of _a fortiori_ is 'eh forty
your eye', a survival of the days when the English pronounced Latin in
their peculiar way. The classical Greek I was taught at school in the 1950s
and early 60s was pronounced far more barbarously than Boris Johnson does
-- something I've already discussed on this list.

RH