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This is a rough sketch of the pronunciation of Vulgar Latin, which subsequently divided into distinct Romance pronunciation systems. Remarks about the significant sound changes that differentiate the modern languages from Latin are included.
| Vulgar Latin & Common Romance Pronunciation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Letter | IPA pronunciation | English equivalent | Vulgar Latin example |
| a | /a/ | aisle | *casa |
| e (ĕ / è) | /ɛ/ | let | *bene |
| e (ē / é) | /e/ | they | *potere |
| e (unstressed) | /ə/ | about | (some of Romance) |
| i | /i/ | thing | *si |
| i (before or after a vowel) | /j/ | yearn | *iuvene |
| o (ŏ / ò) | /ɔ/ | law (British) | *possu |
| o (ō / ó) | /o/ | sow | *sole |
| u | /u/ | rune | *tu |
| u (before or after a vowel) | /w/ | wear | *suave |
| b, d, f, l, m, n, s, v, x | (as in English) | ||
| p | /p/ | space | *patre |
| t | /t/ | stay | *tale |
| c + a/o/u | /k/ | escape | *casa |
| c + e/i | /kj/ (Sardinian /k/) | cute | *celu |
| g + a/o/u | /g/ | gate | *gustu |
| g + e/i | /gj/ (Sardinian /g/) | argue | *gente |
| h | (silent) | hour | *hòmine |
| li + vowel | /ʎ/ | million | *muliere |
| n + c/g | /ŋ/ | ring | *lingua |
| gn | /ŋn/ | sing now | *magnu |
| qu | /kw/ | squid | *quando |
| gu | /gw/ (/b/ in some languages) | language | *lingua |
| r | /ɾ/ | batter (American) | *arte |
Latin has five basic vowels, which explains the existence of five letters for vowels in the Roman alphabet.
| Basic Latin Vowels | ||
|---|---|---|
| vowel | IPA | similar English sound |
| a | /a/ | aisle |
| e | /e/ | they |
| i | /i/ | sing |
| o | /o/ | tow |
| u | /u/ | rue |
The letters i and u can also spell the consonants /j/ and /w/ before or after another vowel.
Classical Latin has a long vowel contrasting with each of the five short vowels above: ā ē ī ō ū: esse to be versus ēsse to eat. These have the same quality as their short counterparts but are held longer.
Sardinian reduces the ten long-short vowels to just the five cardinal vowels. Other Romance languages maintain a difference between ē versus e and ō versus o. Romance languages aside from Sardinian also treat short i like e.
| Late Latin & Romance Vowels | ||
|---|---|---|
| Latin vowel | Continental Romance IPA | Sardinian IPA |
| a | /a/ | /a/ |
| ā | /a/ | /a/ |
| e | /ɛ/ | /e/ |
| ē | /e/ | /e/ |
| i | /e/ | /i/ |
| ī | /i/ | /i/ |
| o | /ɔ/ | /o/ |
| ō | /o/ | /o/ |
| u | /u/ | /u/ |
| ū | /u/ | /u/ |
Latin speakers also pronounced diphthongs, including the very common au (pronounced /aw/) and ae (pronounced /ai/). As the centuries wore on, these diphthongs were shortened towards /e/ and /o/.
| Latin & Romance Diphthongs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latin dipthong | Late Latin example | Portuguese example | Italian example | Sardinian example |
| ae | *quaestione | questão | questione | chestione |
| au | *paucu | pouco | poco | pagu |
Romance languages treat stressed vowels differently than unstressed ones, often allowing a wider variety of vowels and dipthongs in stressed syllables. For example, Catalan has a ɛ e i ɔ o u in stressed syllables but only i ə u in unstressed syllables. French, Catalan, Occitan, Romansch and Romanian drop final unstressed vowels except final -a, which may weaken to ə. Diphthongs sometimes appear for /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ in stressed syllables.
| Latin Open Vowel > Romance Diphthongs | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latin vowel | Late Latin example | Portuguese example | Spanish example | Italian example | French example |
| ɛ | *vɛnis | vens | vienes | vieni | viens |
| ɔ | *mɔrit | morre | muere | muore | meurt |
French, Catalan, Portuguese and other languages have nasalized vowels before n or m and another consonant, or before n or m at the end of a word: Vulgar Latin *manu > *man becomes French main (pronounced /mɛ̃/), and *abante turns into French avant (pronounced /avɑ̃/). In some languages the nasal is dropped: Catalan mà (pronounced /ma/). Portuguese and Campidanese have a history of intervocalic nasalization and nasal-dropping: Vulgar Latin *luna becomes Old Portuguese lũa and then Modern Portuguese lua.
At the beginning of words and after another consonant, Latin consonants remain somewhat stable across Romance.
The Latin consonant /h/ is lost in Romance. Voiceless /s/ turns to voiced /z/ between vowels, but not in Spanish or Romanian. Double consonants are retained in Italy (where they are still held long) but realized as a single consonant elsewhere: Late Latin *flamma becomes Italian /fjamma/ but French /flam/, Spanish /jama/.
The sounds /k/ and /g/ turn palatal before /e/ and /i/ in almost all of Romance: Late Latin */fakemus/ becomes Portuguese /fazemus/, Old Spanish /fatsemos/, Spanish /asemos/ and Romanian /fatʃem/. This parallels the double-pronunciation of c and g in English. The clear exception is Sardinia, where /k/ and /g/ remain velar: Sardinian /fakemus/ or /fagemus/.
To the north and west of Central Italy, stop consonants are weakened between vowels - they become voiced stops in Portuguese, voiced fricatives in Spanish and are lost altogether in French. The next table demonstrates lenition of consonants between vowels in Western Romance.
| Romance Lenition between Vowels | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| consonant | Late Latin | Portuguese | Spanish | French | Italian |
| p | *super/*supra | /sobri/ | /soβre/ | /syr/ | /sopra/ |
| t | *kontatu | /kõtadu/ | /kontaðo/ | /kõte/ | /kontato/ |
| k | *akwa | /agwa/ | /aɣwa/ | /o/ | /akːwa/ |
| features: | voiceless stop | voiced stop | voiced fricative | deleted | (retained) |
Basic Late Latin syllables begin with a consonant or vowel and end in a vowel or a consonant—(C)V(C). Consonant clusters are allowed, but open syllables are preferred. The vowel nucleus may be filled by diphthongs or nasal vowels in languages that have them.
The second-to-last (penultimate) syllable or the third-to-last (antepenultimate) syllable of words carries a stress accent in Late Latin: *amare /aˈma.re/ to love versus *populu /ˈpo.pu.lu/ people. Syllable length originally determined stress placement in Latin: long penults were stressed. Single-syllable words are either stressed or, if they are clitics, unstressed: Vulgar Latin *per hoc /per ˈo/ however (stressed pronoun *ho(c) and unstressed preposition *per).
Stress regularly falls on the penult when a word ends in a vowel or one of the Western plural endings (/n/ and /s/): Italian amare [aˈmaː.re] to love, Spanish decides [deˈsi.ðes] you decide, Catalan decideixen [də.siˈðɛ.ʃən] they decide, Romansh chasas [ˈtɕa.zas] houses. Many languages also retain words stressed on the third-to-last syllable: Spanish próspero [ˈpɾos.pe.ɾo], Italian repubblica [reˈpub.bli.ka]. However, the Romance languages of France force antepenultimate stress onto the penultimate syllable: Vulgar Latin *prospera /ˈprospera/ versus Occitan prospèra [pruˈspɛrɔ].
Romance languages preserve stressed syllables, while unstressed syllables are subject to elision. Languages see the loss of final unstressed vowels or even whole syllables at the end of a word: Late Latin *veritate /veriˈtate/ truth becomes Sardinian veritade but Spanish verdad, Italian verità, French verité. Final vowel elision is especially prevalent in France, Catalonia, Switzerland and Romania: Vulgar Latin *arte /ˈar.te/ art becomes French art [aʁ], Romansh art [art] but Italian arte [ˈar.te], Brazilian Portuguese arte [ˈaχ.tʃi].
In words that have lost their endings, a former penultimate stress now falls on the final syllable: Vulgar Latin *etate /eˈtate/ age versus Spanish edad [eˈðað], Latin cantāvit /kanˈtaːwit/ he/she sang versus Romanian cântă [kɨnˈtə]. This final stress is the norm in French, which has lost the final syllables of Vulgar Latin: Late Latin *prosperu /ˈprosperu/ prosperous versus French prospère [pʁɔˈspɛʁ], *republica /reˈpublika/ republic versus république [ʁepyˈblik].
Languages may also lose unstressed syllables in the middle of a word: Latin populum /ˈpopulũ/ people > *poplu > Medieval Galician-Portuguese poblo, Spanish pueblo. Combined with the loss of final syllables, this change pushes Romance towards consistent penultimate or ultimate stress: Late Latin *populu people > *poplu > French peuple [pøpl], Late Latin *monumentu /monuˈmentu/ memorial > Romanian mormînt [morˈmɨnt] grave, Late Latin *anima /ˈanima/ soul > *anma > Spanish alma. Italian, Corsican and Sardinian keep unstressed syllables: Late Latin *populu > Italian popolo and *anima > anima but *domina /ˈdomina/ lady > *domna > Italian donna.
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