Classical Latin Alphabet and Pronunciation

The alphabet that English and Romance languages use today is known as the Latin alphabet. The Romans used (most of) the same letters we use today, and their pronunciation is somewhat similar to ours. The biggest difference between Classical Latin pronunciation and English pronunciation is in the diphthongs and consonant clusters.

VOWELS

• a - uh, like about
• ā - ah, like father
• e - eh, like pet
• ē - ey, like they
• i - ih, like sit
• ī - ee, like see
• o - o from the back of the mouth, like orb
• ō - oh, like home
• u - uh, like put
• ū - oo, like rule
• y - combined oo-ih sound, like German über (rare, only used in Greek loan words)
• ȳ - combined oo-ih sound for a longer time, like German über (rare, only used in Greek loan words)

Nota Bene: The long marks over certain vowels are macrons, and denote long vowels. They are covered in this post.

CONSONANTS

• b - b, like by
• c - k, like care (never like the s sound in cell or the ch sound in cello)
• d - d, like dad
• f - f, like fun
• g - g, like go (never like the j sound in giant)
• h - h, like hair
• i (consonantal) - y, like yes
• k - k, like kid (rare, only used in Greek loan words)
• l - l, like love
• m - m, like make
• n - n, like no
• p - p, like pun
• q - only present when followed by a u, qu makes a kw sound, like quiet
• r - rolled r sound
• s - s, like say (never like the z sound in raise)
• t - t, like tell (never like the ch sound in mention or the sh sound in nation)
• v - w, like wet
• x - ks, like box (never like the gs sound in exert)
• z - z, like zebra

DIPHTHONGS

• ae (sometimes æ) - ai, like aisle
• au - ow, like house
• ei - ey, like reign
• eu - quick eh-oo sound, not in English
• oe - oy, like oil
• ui - quick oo-ih sound, not in English

CONSONANT CLUSTERS (which differ from the English pronunciation)

• bs - ps, like sips
• bt - pt, like apt
• ch - k, like chrome
• ph - p, like pun
• rr - like two r's, as in cur ran
• th - t, like tell
• tt - like two t's, as in admit ten

Note that there are no j's or w's. In the instance of j (which was pronounced like a consonantal y when it finally joined Latin), the Romans used i. The Romans distinguished between a consonantal i and a vocalic (vowel) i. In place of w, Romans used v. Romans used the character v to both represent the consonantal w sound and the vocalic u sound. They did not use the letter u. Nowadays we distinguish between consonantal v and vocalic u. A really good explanation of why we do this can be found in this Tumblr post.