textbook recommendation

[Wayles Browne]

>Can someone tell me why in English the two "c's" in Cincinnati are
>pronounced as "s's," but in Russian and Ukrainian, as far as I have seen,
>the two "c's" are translated as "ts's"?
>
>Was the name of the Roman general after whom Cincinnati is named pronounced
>Tsintsinnatus in Latin?
>
>Just curious.
>
>David Brokaw
>Office Manager
>Cincinnati(or Tsintsinnati)-Kharkiv Sister City Project

In the Latin of the ancient Romans it was pronounced Kinkinnatus, but
in medieval Latin as used by educated people in Europe ki was pronounced
tsi in some regions, chi in others (same way for c+e: ancient pronunciation
ke, medieval tse or che). And the modern languages pronounce Latin
according to the medieval custom. Only in France did ki and ke come to
be pronounced si and se, and the English-speaking people picked that up
from the French.

Best wishes

Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.

tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu

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