the meaning of "genetic relationship"

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
>FWIW, I spoke to my German teacher once back in highschool
>about taking Latin. Apparently, the Germans still pronounce
>Latin as if it were German, or almost so. I remember having
>forgotten Caesar's famous quote while crossing the Rubicon,
>("Alea iacta est") and when trying to remember it, she went
>through the whole present paradigm to herself, saying [jatset]
>rather than [jaket], the classical way. Other Germans I've known
>seem to do the same thing.
 
OK, to set the record straight (although this means a tiny digression from
the subject of this thread).
In our grammar schools there's still some competition between the
[ts]-pronunciation and the classical [k]-one. Mostly the classical school
won the day, but there are occasional pockets where  that zetacism survives
(usually accompanied by some kind of "but how can we know?"-argument).
Well, we do know, and I don't think the old ways are still much followed
these days by the younger generation (as far as that generation enjoys some
exposure to Latin at all, regardless of the pronunciation).
But apart from that dwindling habit, there are other instances where a
considerable German accent is still heard in our (and I'm afraid, if I
don't pay attention, mostly also my) Latin: diphthongs /ae/, /oe/ are
mostly pronounced with the vowels heard in /Kaese/ or /Moehre/, /v/ is
usually pron. like <v> in "Wiese" (terrible !), the combination -gn- like
in "Luegner" (and not like -ngn-, like it should be; occasionally you can
even hear /sicknum/ instead of /singnum/), quantity is mostly disregarded
which proves fatal once the poets are read aso. And, probably worst of all,
in the Northern half at least of the German-speaking area, initial s-
mostly gets off with a *voiced* pronunciation (brrr!).
Needless to say that these quite barbarian habits are to be met with in the
pronunciation of learners and teachers (who should know better, but more
often than not don't).
 
(BTW, the German teacher you asked, certainly wasn't a Latin teacher at the
same time, for if so, she would doubtlessly have picked the correct verb to
conjugate, which would have sounded in her mouth like [jatsit], etc. (and
the verb form in the quote is of course /esto/, but there may be
conflicting sources ...).
 
Regards,
 
St. G.
 
Small addendum: most people here who use the classical pronunciation of <c>
as [k] maintain a rather strict distinction between speaking (or reading
aloud) Latin in context, where the classical school wins, but use the
zetacistic pronunciation when mentioning a well-known Roman name within
german discourse. There, even for me, it is still [Tsitsero] and [Tsaesar],
everything else would be regarded pedantic (or not be understood, as a more
likely alternative).
 
Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32