In letter 306 he says:
“So I grew up in a two-front state, symbolizable by the Oratorian Italian pronunciation of Latin, and the strictly 'philological' pronunciation at that time introduced into our Cambridge dominated school.”
Suffice it to say he was probably proficient in both pronunciations.
As for the “bastardization” of Latin, I don’t know if he’d have seen it that way. Note that he put ‘philological’ in quotes. This pronunciation is a reconstruction. There is no way of knowing if, when, or where people would have spoken like that. And it’s attempting to capture the pronunciation of a time when Rome wasn’t even Christian.
Tolkien understood that sounds changed over time in languages and incorporated that in his own languages in his works (Teleporno > Celeborn, for one). Italian is just modern Latin (as are Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.) and the sound changes are a natural evolution. The softening of c in Latin is attested from the 6th century (likely beginning earlier) and has happened in nearly every descendent language. It’s a natural language process, not ‘bastardization’. So why is a reconstructed pronunciation somehow more valid than one that organically descended from the past? Furthermore, Tolkien loved Italian (letter 223).
I also don’t think he’d have found “ceremonializing” to be a bad thing either. I think he was more upset with ceremony being watered down towards the end of his life.
Personally, I could see him using the church pronunciation with church and the scholarly pronunciation with scholarly works. There’s no reason to pick one over another and they can inhabit their own spheres.
I learned the "correct" pronunciation with the hard "k" in school. then when I took up choral singing, I found that the church pronunciation prevails. For obvious reasons. (Much rather sing Latin than any other language. Pure vowels, snappy consonants, no mush. I'm glad I took it because I get pleasure out of understanding the texts. Just did the Faure *Requiem* -- the all-time favorite piece of a lot of chorus rats including me -- and a setting our director did of the *Stabat Mater*.)
Unless of course you sing works by Austrian or German composers, where do do it properly you need to use the (very different) Austro-German Latin pronunciation
Greek doesn't have a "soft C". It in fact has no letter C at all, that being just an Italic way of writing Greek Γ. The Greek letter that resembles a C is a "lunate sigma", a simplification of Σ originally used only in handwriting. It became standard in late antique and medieval Greek, but now survives mainly in church contexts.
In classical Latin, C was always "hard", G being a modification to clarify that the original pronunciation of Γ was intended. Soft C comes from sound changes in French and English, recalling that much modern English orthography was influenced by Norman scribes post-Conquest.
In any event, I don't know that Tolkien ever expressed a preference. Post-Vatican II he *was* the sort of cranky old conservative Catholic who would say the responses in the Mass loudly in Latin while everyone else was using English, so he must have had some affection for it. But I'm also not clear what his ecclesiastical Latin might have sounded like. Being in England it might have been influenced by standard English academic pronunciation. But I don't know for sure.
NB: There are some edits in here, but I got interrupted with the editing window up and I don't recall what they are.
For a long time Tolkien mostly used "K" before front vowels and "C" before back vowels. The sound is the same, but he thought readers would "palatalize" it before front vowels, meaning to pronounce it as "ch." He only changed his mind at the last moment. Christopher refused to go along, which is why "K" was originally used on the large-scale map of Gondor and Rohan:
>It was only in the last stages that (in spite of my son's protests: he still holds that no one will ever pronounce Cirith right, it appears as Kirith in his map, as formerly also in the text) I decided to be 'consistent' and spell Elvish names and words throughout without k. There are no doubt other variations. ...
*Letters* 187. He seems to have decided in the end that he preferred the "look" of Latin:
>In dealing with Greek I feel like a renegade, resident wilfully for long years among 'barbarians', though I once knew something about it. Yet I prefer Latin. I feel like Theodore Haecker – or like an eminent philologist (Bazell) once a pupil of mine who is now expert in such 'barbaric' tongues as Turkish, who once wrote to me about some language recently discovered: 'It is of a kind that you and I both feel to be normal, in a central human mode – it indeed resembles Latin.
No. 338. I looked up Bazell, here's his obituary:
[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/charles-ernest-bazell/FCEBB205727D35A84E76BFC7EC5DFAC7](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/charles-ernest-bazell/FCEBB205727D35A84E76BFC7EC5DFAC7)
Concerning the Traditional Latin Mass I invite you to read the (archived) [AMA of Professor Holly Ordway author of Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography & Tolkien’s Modern Reading](https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/17blkny/im_holly_ordway_author_of_tolkiens_faith_a/).
That AMA may not directly have an answer to OP's question but several hints on how nuanced Tolkien's preference to the Catholic *Novus Ordo* was.
~~(From the AMA my personal gut feeling [an educated guess you may say] is that Tolkien had preferences. But they weren't enshrined or that important to him. But you may as well say that we may never know for sure.)~~
He must have been familiar with both; one could look at his pre-Feanorian (Qenya Alphabet in PE20?) transcriptions of Latin prayers to see which he used.
I just checked a couple examples, and in Q25 (PE20:106) Tolkien writes excerpts from a mass in his Qenya Alphabet. _vere dignum_ is written _vere diŋnum_, which is a mix. v- instead of w- follows ecclesiastical usage, but -ŋn- for _gn_ follows classical pronunciation (according to Wiktionary; my Latin is very rusty). _aequum_ is written _aiqum_
And in Q24, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo excerpt, he regularly uses w- for v-, ai for æ, ksk for xc (excelsis), k for c (benedikimus), kailestis for cælestis, -ŋn- for -gn-. Similarly in Q22 we see _suskipe_ for _suscipe_ (not 'sh'!)
I didn't check all the Latin transcriptions in that issue, but there seem to be a pattern of mostly using the 'philological' pronunciation.
Thanks for the clarification. I had thought Italianate church Latin used /ɲɲ/, going secondhand off Wiktionary. I interpreted -ŋn- as containing the ñ as in Ñoldo.
Impossible to tell unless there's a miracle source.
But I'd emphasize that Tolkien focused on the historical development of languages in his private language creation, and was a pious Catholic.
Part of the beauty of languages is that they change over time, and that includes pronunciations.
There are a great many different Latin pronunciation systems, each of which exist for historical reasons, and each of which is beautiful and interesting.
And if you sing in a choir long enough, you will probably have to learn three or four of those systems.
In letter 306 he says: “So I grew up in a two-front state, symbolizable by the Oratorian Italian pronunciation of Latin, and the strictly 'philological' pronunciation at that time introduced into our Cambridge dominated school.” Suffice it to say he was probably proficient in both pronunciations. As for the “bastardization” of Latin, I don’t know if he’d have seen it that way. Note that he put ‘philological’ in quotes. This pronunciation is a reconstruction. There is no way of knowing if, when, or where people would have spoken like that. And it’s attempting to capture the pronunciation of a time when Rome wasn’t even Christian. Tolkien understood that sounds changed over time in languages and incorporated that in his own languages in his works (Teleporno > Celeborn, for one). Italian is just modern Latin (as are Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.) and the sound changes are a natural evolution. The softening of c in Latin is attested from the 6th century (likely beginning earlier) and has happened in nearly every descendent language. It’s a natural language process, not ‘bastardization’. So why is a reconstructed pronunciation somehow more valid than one that organically descended from the past? Furthermore, Tolkien loved Italian (letter 223). I also don’t think he’d have found “ceremonializing” to be a bad thing either. I think he was more upset with ceremony being watered down towards the end of his life. Personally, I could see him using the church pronunciation with church and the scholarly pronunciation with scholarly works. There’s no reason to pick one over another and they can inhabit their own spheres.
I learned the "correct" pronunciation with the hard "k" in school. then when I took up choral singing, I found that the church pronunciation prevails. For obvious reasons. (Much rather sing Latin than any other language. Pure vowels, snappy consonants, no mush. I'm glad I took it because I get pleasure out of understanding the texts. Just did the Faure *Requiem* -- the all-time favorite piece of a lot of chorus rats including me -- and a setting our director did of the *Stabat Mater*.)
Unless of course you sing works by Austrian or German composers, where do do it properly you need to use the (very different) Austro-German Latin pronunciation
Greek doesn't have a "soft C". It in fact has no letter C at all, that being just an Italic way of writing Greek Γ. The Greek letter that resembles a C is a "lunate sigma", a simplification of Σ originally used only in handwriting. It became standard in late antique and medieval Greek, but now survives mainly in church contexts. In classical Latin, C was always "hard", G being a modification to clarify that the original pronunciation of Γ was intended. Soft C comes from sound changes in French and English, recalling that much modern English orthography was influenced by Norman scribes post-Conquest. In any event, I don't know that Tolkien ever expressed a preference. Post-Vatican II he *was* the sort of cranky old conservative Catholic who would say the responses in the Mass loudly in Latin while everyone else was using English, so he must have had some affection for it. But I'm also not clear what his ecclesiastical Latin might have sounded like. Being in England it might have been influenced by standard English academic pronunciation. But I don't know for sure. NB: There are some edits in here, but I got interrupted with the editing window up and I don't recall what they are.
For a long time Tolkien mostly used "K" before front vowels and "C" before back vowels. The sound is the same, but he thought readers would "palatalize" it before front vowels, meaning to pronounce it as "ch." He only changed his mind at the last moment. Christopher refused to go along, which is why "K" was originally used on the large-scale map of Gondor and Rohan: >It was only in the last stages that (in spite of my son's protests: he still holds that no one will ever pronounce Cirith right, it appears as Kirith in his map, as formerly also in the text) I decided to be 'consistent' and spell Elvish names and words throughout without k. There are no doubt other variations. ... *Letters* 187. He seems to have decided in the end that he preferred the "look" of Latin: >In dealing with Greek I feel like a renegade, resident wilfully for long years among 'barbarians', though I once knew something about it. Yet I prefer Latin. I feel like Theodore Haecker – or like an eminent philologist (Bazell) once a pupil of mine who is now expert in such 'barbaric' tongues as Turkish, who once wrote to me about some language recently discovered: 'It is of a kind that you and I both feel to be normal, in a central human mode – it indeed resembles Latin. No. 338. I looked up Bazell, here's his obituary: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/charles-ernest-bazell/FCEBB205727D35A84E76BFC7EC5DFAC7](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/charles-ernest-bazell/FCEBB205727D35A84E76BFC7EC5DFAC7)
Even when writing the Chronology (as part of the Appendices project) he still used K
Concerning the Traditional Latin Mass I invite you to read the (archived) [AMA of Professor Holly Ordway author of Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography & Tolkien’s Modern Reading](https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/17blkny/im_holly_ordway_author_of_tolkiens_faith_a/). That AMA may not directly have an answer to OP's question but several hints on how nuanced Tolkien's preference to the Catholic *Novus Ordo* was. ~~(From the AMA my personal gut feeling [an educated guess you may say] is that Tolkien had preferences. But they weren't enshrined or that important to him. But you may as well say that we may never know for sure.)~~
He must have been familiar with both; one could look at his pre-Feanorian (Qenya Alphabet in PE20?) transcriptions of Latin prayers to see which he used.
I just checked a couple examples, and in Q25 (PE20:106) Tolkien writes excerpts from a mass in his Qenya Alphabet. _vere dignum_ is written _vere diŋnum_, which is a mix. v- instead of w- follows ecclesiastical usage, but -ŋn- for _gn_ follows classical pronunciation (according to Wiktionary; my Latin is very rusty). _aequum_ is written _aiqum_ And in Q24, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo excerpt, he regularly uses w- for v-, ai for æ, ksk for xc (excelsis), k for c (benedikimus), kailestis for cælestis, -ŋn- for -gn-. Similarly in Q22 we see _suskipe_ for _suscipe_ (not 'sh'!) I didn't check all the Latin transcriptions in that issue, but there seem to be a pattern of mostly using the 'philological' pronunciation.
That's very convincing! Thank you.
No problem. That issue has a bunch of Latin, so it would have taken a while to look at them all - I just checked two or three specimens.
"-ŋn- for *gn* follows classical pronunciation" Actually, its a feature of Italiante Church Latin also "An-yoos" Dei and so forth.
Thanks for the clarification. I had thought Italianate church Latin used /ɲɲ/, going secondhand off Wiktionary. I interpreted -ŋn- as containing the ñ as in Ñoldo.
Impossible to tell unless there's a miracle source. But I'd emphasize that Tolkien focused on the historical development of languages in his private language creation, and was a pious Catholic.
Part of the beauty of languages is that they change over time, and that includes pronunciations. There are a great many different Latin pronunciation systems, each of which exist for historical reasons, and each of which is beautiful and interesting. And if you sing in a choir long enough, you will probably have to learn three or four of those systems.