How Latin Does Syllables

There's more to Latin pronunciation than just knowing how consonants, vowels, and diphthongs sound. This video shows you how to identify and say syllables correctly, and this topic will soon be extended in a second video on accent. This also has an impact in poetry and how to determine the longs and short of a poetic line.

[rubenlarochelle]

Latin: "Syllables are like sandwiches. Vowels are the meat, or peanut butter: you need those. But consonants are like bread: you can have only one slice or you can have it on both sides, but you can also eat the salame by itself."
Georgian: "I really like bread. Let me rephrase that: I fucking love bread. Can I have a sandwich with an empty sandwich in it?"

[bobthabuilda]

Can I somehow subscribe to this channel harder than I already have? This is gold!

[Megan-ygtr]

Thank you so much! This video was helpful. I appreciate the practice at the end, so I can check to see how much I really understand.

[saralynnlaponzina]

Thank u! I’m teaching myself at home through a book I bought and I have no idea what I’m reading. This breaks it down for me perfectly

[laylaann]

I wrote it all down in my notebook it took 4 pages to write down so worth it

[la-civetta]

"Will he split the X, will he split the X?"
(splits the X)
"YES!!! He split the X! He actually split the X!!" :D

[nicokent]

Dude you’re great. Thank you so much for helping me on my journey. I’m sure you could release a (hard or soft) textbook which matches content in the vids. If you have done please make it known aha

[bonbonpony]

Have you ever heard of the sonority hierarchy? Latin is no exception in the rules of sonority, because it concerns all languages equally well. So it would be much easier to figure out without any arbitrary rules if the sonority hierarchy were employed. For example, vowels are usually the most sonorous, so they make the nuclei of the syllables (the syllabic centres), but there are languages (e.g. Czech) in which consonants can work as syllabic centres as well, provided they are the peak in sonority (that is, they are more sonorous than their surrounding sounds). So you can have words like "kr·tek" (two syllables), for example. A neat example in English would be the onomatopoeic word "pssst", in which the "s" sound makes the syllable centre, because it's more sonorous than the surrounding "p" and "t" stops.
The syllable boundaries are the "valleys" in sonority – places where sonority stops decreasing and starts increasing again. Consonants that follow the most sonorous sound and gradually fall in sonority make the syllable's coda, while the consonants that start to increase in sonority again make the syllable's onset. So all you have to do is to order the sounds according to their sonority and "graph" the "sonority curve" under a word to see where the syllabic centres are and where the boundaries between the syllables should go. No other arbitrary (and often flawed) rules are needed.

[novelskk]

I love this section about pronunciation, it really helps me a lot because I am learning it on my own
But my English is not very fluent, it would be so appreciate if it can be telling a bit bit slowly.
Thank you!

[tunistick]

Interesting how in Arabic, syllabification is so important too in poetry as it defines the nature of some poetry (i dunno what's the english right translation but we call them seas as they actually mean "fields"
((بحر الطويل على سبيل المثال - العَرُوض)

[shamayeetapaul]

Thanks for actually helping me
I'm learning Latin now
Thanks

[kaioocarvalho]

Actually, Latin syllables are completely obvious and intuitive, English is the tough language to split them apart. Or maybe I think so because I`m Brazilian and speak Portuguese as a mother tongue.

[kwestwick]

how is the Latin word “sui” properly pronounced?

from what i have gathered from your rudimentary videos on Consonants, Vowels, & on Syllables, it seems “Sui” would sound either like if one were to say “Swiss”, but without the two S letters, or like the French “oui” with an S before it.

The internet has repeatedly revealed a pronunciation like if “chop suey” didn’t have the chop in it. I’ll appreciate your take, as i do the wealth of information in the Latin Tutorial videos that i’ve so truly and thoroughly enjoyed learning with .

if anybody else has a suggestion on this topic of how to pronounce Sui, id love to know what some thoughts are… 🌻

[mae]

5:28 im dying with the american pronunciation, love it baahabha

[Schlog]

Is the "i" in "villa" long? I'm hearing wheel-la. Shouldn't it be will-la?

[emmaguarguaglini]

Thank you so much! But in the word iacio, isn't /a/ the only vowel of the first syllabe? ia-ci-o, because the I sounds like a consonant, like ja-ci-o.

[sebastijanbarlek]

I really can't understand rules but when I am spliting words by my voice I got almost everything right is that good ?

[rachelphilbrick]

Why is the "i" in vir long? (Or am I hearing/saying it wrong?)

[palestrinachoirschool]

Do you have documentation for this? This is great! I completely agree with you and but I would like to be able to Source the material rather than a YouTube video.

[backtoschool]

Do you have a video on speaking macrons, and how to know where they are in unmarked text??

Most texts I read from is catholic chants so macrons are nit there, but only the á é í ó ú.