Latin Pronunciation
As it was spoken

The pronunciation of Latin in the first century has been determined with a fair degree of certainty from the evidence of ancient authorities and inscriptions and inferences from the romance languages. The following guide is somewhat simplified but can be accepted as a reasonably accurate description of the sounds of Latin as spoken by educated Romans. The accent falls as in English, on the second to last syllable of the word if that syllable is long, or on the third to last syllable if the second to last is short. The stress was weaker than in English and may have had an element of pitch in it. In the following list, long vowels are marked with a line.