Learning Liturgical Latin, Lesson 1

Preliminary thoughts on pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar

Pronunciation

A good place to start when learning any language is pronunciation. What I call “liturgical Latin” just means “ecclesiastical Latin as found in the texts of the sacred liturgy,” and therefore to pronounce liturgical Latin correctly we must learn the rules that govern the pronunciation of ecclesiastical Latin. I don’t intend to cover this in detail, since the information is readily available elsewhere, and also because Latin pronunciation is fairly simple compared to, say, English or French pronunciation. (In these lessons, if I use the word “Latin” without being more specific, I’m referring to ecclesiastical Latin.)

The most authoritative guidance I’ve ever found for pronouncing liturgical Latin is available, for free, online:

Father De Angelis, in addition to being a native of Italy, held a doctorate in theology and eventually became a distinguished professor of Latin and liturgy in the United States. I agree with him when he says,

Beginning on page 8, Father De Angelis goes through each letter in the Latin alphabet and gives you everything you need to know for excellent pronunciation. It’s a lot of information, though. If you want something condensed and straightforward, try “Pronouncing Church Latin: A Quick Reference.” This guide is very good while also exemplifying two habits that De Angelis considers suboptimal. According to the quick reference:

e is pronounced as in egg

o is pronounced as in tone

According to De Angelis:

e (eh) is pronounced as in let, met, rent…. Never give “e” the long sound “a” as in “way,” “bay,” etc.

o (aw) is pronounced like “o” in “order,” or like “a” in “awe.” It is never given the “o” sound as in “oh” or as in “go.”

Vocabulary

There’s no way around it: to learn Latin or any other new language, you have to study and memorize the meanings of words. Most people don’t like drilling vocabulary, but when the goal is to comprehend liturgical Latin, word study is really quite manageable: you don’t need a colossal lexicon, and furthermore, many of the words are similar or related to English words that you already know. For example, all the following words appear in the chanted propers (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, Communion) for the Mass of this coming Sunday (the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, in the traditional rite). I’m giving the word as it occurs in the liturgical text, so it may look different from the dictionary form of the word (e.g., vox is what you would find in a dictionary, and vocem is the accusative singular form of vox).

• exaudi (= “graciously hear,” compare to “audible”)

• vocem (= “voice,” compare to “vocal”)

• despicias (= “despise”)

• salutaris (= “salvation,” compare to “salutary”)

• illuminatio (= “light, illumination”)

• protector

• servos (= “servants”)

• vehementer (= “vigorously, exceedingly,” compare to “vehement”)

• tribuit (= “he granted, bestowed,” compare to “tribute”)

• intellectum (= “understanding,” compare to “intellect”)

• inhabitem (= “dwell in, inhabit”)

• domo (= “house,” compare to “domestic”)

• vitae (= “life,” compare to “vital”)

Thus, understanding liturgical Latin is as much about “re-imagining” your English vocabulary as it is about acquiring Latin vocabulary.

Don’t get me wrong, though: similar and related words (called cognates) aren’t enough. Somehow, you have to learn a fairly large amount of vocabulary, but “large amount” doesn’t necessarily correspond to “long time.” If you just try to learn twenty carefully chosen words every week, in half a year you might have five hundred words. You can do a lot with five hundred words.

I’ll include modestly sized vocab lists, with emphasis on the most useful and common words, in future posts, so that you can gradually build your vocabulary as the series continues. If you want to progress more quickly, a great resource for vocabulary study is A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin, by John Collins, or maybe you already have another Latin textbook somewhere in your house. Don’t hesitate to use a textbook’s vocabulary section while ignoring the grammatical material, which may not be what you want or need at this stage. You could also use the Latin Core Vocabulary list published by Dickinson College or the Core Medieval Latin Vocabulary from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies. Flashcards are simple and highly effective; sitting down for a while to make physical flashcards can be a pleasant, calming experience. If you like the digital approach, someone has already created an ecclesiastical Latin vocab collection for a free flashcard app called Anki.

If you’re the type who would paint the ceiling or go get a cavity filled rather than memorize vocab via lists and flashcards, don’t give up. The posts in the Learning Liturgical Latin series will give you an opportunity to absorb new words just by reading and pondering real-life texts.