RE: Transcriptions of "Unicode"

From: jgo (john@nisus.com)
Date: Tue Jan 16 2001 - 15:48:14 EST


> Christopher John Fynn wrote:
>> Mark Davis wrote:
>> There was a period well after the Norman invasion where a large
>> number of words came into English directly from Latin, which was
>> still in widespread use among scholars.

> Yes, and it was right into the early 20th Century. Even when I
> was in school a large percentage of English schoolboys _had_ to
> learn Latin (- and in many "public" [private] schools they still
> do). This included "spoken" Latin - though I'm sure the
> pronunciation taught was quite different than what it was in
> 55 BCE. Not all that long ago you couldn't get into many
> English universities without having studied some Latin.

> In English we still get plenty of scientific names and terms
> from Latin and Greek and many of these words eventually come
> into more common usage.

There are at least 3 pronunciation sets for Latin which I think
of as follows:
* what I was taught as "classical" pronunciation (by a Peace
  Corps veteran of Kenya, Ms. "Hazard" of Kentucky, and mostly
  Mrs. Balsley who ruled with an iron fist and caused football
  line-men to quake for fear of being called to account for an
  erroneous declension)
* medieval/scholastic/church Latin
* legal/legislative Latin (if you can bring yourself to call
  that Latin)

In the 1830s eastern USA, children were expected to learn to
read & write English and begin on Latin or Greek in a "Dames'
school" before being admitted to grammar school to polish
what they had learned. Songs of the 1920s note the college
student who is "up on his Latin & Greek, but in his cheekin'
he's weak" (a jolly tune that was brought again to light by
the operatic performer Cyndi Lauper). If you break open
the Ace of Base "The Sign" lyrics you will find
"laudate omnes gentes laudate
 magnificat in secula
 et anima mea laudate
 magnificat in secula."
immediately before "Voulez-vous danser". And the warning
"Nemo me impune lacessit." still stands as a warning to
those of a coercive bent.

John G. Otto Nisus Software, Engineering
www.infoclick.com www.mathhelp.com www.nisus.com software4usa.com
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