Latin letters and phonemes

Consonants

This is a table of the consonant sounds of Classical Latin. Sounds in parentheses are allophones, sounds with an asterisk exist mainly in loanwords and sounds with a dagger (†) are phonemes only in some analyses.

		Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
					plain	labialized
Plosive	voiced	b	d		ɡ	ɡʷ†
	voiceless	p	t		k	kʷ†
	aspirated	pʰ*	tʰ*		kʰ*
	breathy	bʱ*	dʱ*		ɡʱ*
Fricative	voiced		z*				ɦ
	voiceless	f	s				h
Nasal		m	n		(ŋ)
Rhotic			r
Approximant			l	j		w

Vowels

Monophthongs

Latin has ten native vowels, spelled a, e, i, o, u. In Classical Latin, each vowel had short and long versions: /a ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/ and /aː eː iː oː uː/. The long versions of the close and mid vowels e, i, o, u had a different vowel quality from the short versions, so that long /eː, oː/ were similar to short /ɪ, ʊ/. Some loanwords from Greek had the vowel y, which was pronounced as /y yː/ by educated speakers but approximated with the native vowels u and i by less educated speakers.

	Front		Central		Back
	long	short	long	short	long	short
Close	iː	ɪ			uː	ʊ
Mid	eː	ɛ			oː	ɔ
Open			aː	a

Diphthongs

Diphthongs classified by beginning sound

	Front	Back
Close		ui    ui̯
Mid	ei    ei̯ eu    eu̯	oe    oi̯ ~ oe̯
Open	ae    ai̯ ~ ae̯ au    au̯

Table of orthography

The letters b, d, f, h, m, n are always pronounced as in English [b], [d], [f], [h], [m], [n] respectively, and they do not usually cause any difficulties. The exceptions are mentioned below:

Notes

Latin grapheme	Latin phone	English approximation
⟨c⟩, ⟨k⟩	[k]	Always hard as k in sky, never soft as in cellar, cello, or social. ⟨k⟩ is a letter coming from Greek, but seldom used and generally replaced by c.
⟨ch⟩	[kʰ]	As ch in chemistry, and aspirated; never as in challenge or change (mostly used in Greek loanwords). Transliteration of Greek ⟨χ⟩.
⟨g⟩	[ɡ]	Always hard as g in good, never soft as g in gem.
⟨gh⟩	[ɡʱ]	As gh in big headed, and breathy; never as in hedgehog.
⟨gn⟩	[gn ~ ŋn]	As ngn in wingnut.
⟨i⟩	[j]	Sometimes at the beginning of a syllable, as y in yard, never as j in just.
	[jː]	Doubled between vowels, as y y in toy yacht.
⟨l⟩	[l]	When doubled ⟨ll⟩ and before ⟨i⟩, as clear l in link (l exilis).
	[ɫ]	In all other positions, as dark l in bowl (l pinguis).
⟨n⟩	[n]	As n in man.
⟨p⟩	[p]	As p in spy, never aspirated.
⟨ph⟩	[pʰ]	As p in party, always aspirated; never as in photo when being pronounced in English (mostly used in Greek loanwords). Transliteration of Greek ⟨φ⟩.
⟨qu⟩	[kʷ]	Similar to qu in quick, never as qu in antique.
⟨quu⟩	[kʷɔ ~ kʷu ~ ku]	There were two trends: The educated and popular pronunciation. within educated circles it was pronounced [kʷɔ], evoking the Old Latin pronunciation (equos, sequontur); meanwhile, within popular circles it was pronounced [ku] (ecus, secuntur).
⟨r⟩	[r]	As r in Italian and several Romance languages.
⟨rh⟩	[r̥]	As r in Italian and several Romance languages (mostly used in Greek loanwords); e.g. diarrhoea ⟨διάῤῥοια⟩; but it is voiceless (see Voiceless alveolar trill).
⟨s⟩	[s]	As s in say, never as s in rise or measure.
⟨t⟩	[t]	As t in stay, never as t in nation.
⟨th⟩	[tʰ]	As th in thyme, and aspirated; never as in thing, or that (mostly used in Greek loanwords). Transliteration of Greek ⟨θ⟩.
⟨v⟩	[w]	Sometimes at the beginning of a syllable, or after ⟨g⟩ and ⟨s⟩, as w in wine, never as v in vine.
⟨vu⟩	[wɔ ~ wu]	as in some English accents one is pronounced, but without the nasal sound: parvus /ˈpɐr.wɔs/, vivunt /ˈwiː.wɔnt/. The spelling vu is post-classical (in order to become regular in spelling).
⟨x⟩	[k͡s]	A letter representing ⟨c⟩ + ⟨s⟩, as well as ⟨g⟩ + ⟨s⟩: as x in English axe, never as x in example.
⟨z⟩	[d͡z ~ zː]	As in zoom, never as in pizza (mostly used in Greek loanwords). Transliteration of Greek ⟨ζ⟩.

Pronunciation of Latin vowels

Latin grapheme	Latin phone	English approximation	Audio
⟨a⟩	[a]	Similar to u in cut when short. Transliteration of Greek short ⟨α⟩.
	[aː]	Similar to a in father when long. Transliteration of Greek long ⟨α⟩.
⟨e⟩	[ɛ]	As e in pet when short. Transliteration of Greek ⟨ε⟩.
	[eː]	Similar to ey in they when long. Transliteration of Greek ⟨η⟩, and ⟨ει⟩ in some cases.
⟨i⟩	[ɪ]	As i in sit when short. Transliteration of short Greek ⟨ι⟩.
	[iː]	Similar to i in machine when long. Transliteration of Greek long ⟨ι⟩, and ⟨ει⟩ in some cases.
⟨o⟩	[ɔ]	As o in sort when short. Transliteration of Greek ⟨ο⟩.
	[oː]	Similar to o in holy when long. Transliteration of Greek ⟨ω⟩, and ⟨ου⟩ in some cases.
⟨u⟩	[ʊ]	Similar to u in put when short.
	[uː]	Similar to u in true when long. Transliteration of Greek ⟨ου⟩.
⟨y⟩	[ʏ]	As in German Stück when short (or as short u or i) (mostly used in Greek loanwords). Transliteration of Greek long ⟨υ⟩.
	[yː]	As in German früh when long (or as long u or i) (mostly used in Greek loanwords). Transliteration of Greek short ⟨υ⟩.

Pronunciation of Latin diphthongs

Latin grapheme	Latin phone	English approximation
⟨ae⟩	[ai̯ ~ ae̯]	As in aisle. Transliteration of Greek ⟨αι⟩.
⟨au⟩	[au̯]	As in out. Transliteration of Greek ⟨αυ⟩.
⟨ei⟩	[ei̯]	As to ey in they. Transliteration of Greek ⟨ει⟩ in some cases.
⟨eu⟩	[eu̯]	As in Portuguese eu, approximately to the British pronunciation of low. Transliteration of Greek ⟨ευ⟩.
⟨oe⟩	[oi̯ ~ oe̯]	As in boy. Transliteration of Greek ⟨οι⟩.
⟨ui⟩	[ui̯]	As in Spanish muy, approximately to hooey.
⟨yi⟩	[ʏɪ̯]	Transliteration of the Greek diphthong ⟨υι⟩.

External links

• Latin spelling and pronunciation