Bella???

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

N.B. I started this and then couldn't finish it. In the meantime, David has  
said some of what I was saying and some more which I would have. Please 
forgive  repetition, which simply indicates that David and I (who, IIRC, were in the 
same  school year, or at least sat public examinations in the same years) had 
a fairly  consistent experience of school Latin. 
Jen:
> English school Latin is, of course, different from American school  Latin
> (in either the Classical or ecclesiastical pronunciation systems),  but
> I'm very surprised to read that you would stress the first  syllable,
> Eloise.  Do you all use different rules of stress than we  do?  
Now you're asking! What I really meant was that we tend to place stresses  on 
different syllables in some English words. As a name, Bellatrix, can be  
treated as an English word, or classical origin. I don't think that at the level  
to which I studied, *stress* in Larin pronunciation was much emphasised, but  
there were certainly no long 'eh'  (ay) sounds.
<snip>

> I ask because I have long been curious about English  school
> pronunciation of Latin, since I do think it's different from  the
> accepted American Classical method?  It's that whole "may-ter"  thing of
> British period films, you see. *g*  (It's "mah-ter" using  accepted
> American pronunciation.)  Was that an affectation, or  were/are those
> mythical sixth-form boys taught to pronounce mater with a  long eh in the
> first syllable?  What are you all taught?  Is  it different once/when
> you're at university or become a Latinist?
Yes, I think pronunciation *has* changed. I'm not sure what the state of  
play is now, for instance whether it's v's or w's that are in vogue (I  should 
ask my daughter who's recently started).

As David said, the 'may-ter', 'pay-ter' school of pronunciation is very  
old-fashioned. I've never been really sure if people *were* taught to pronounce  
like that, or not. There is also the complication that once a Latin or other  
foreign word or phrase gets taken into English usage, it can acquire another,  
legitimate pronunciation as a loan word. Thus mater and pater got taken  into 
English usage amongst certain classes, with the 'ay' sound.
As for the slight stress I said I might put on the first syllable of  
Bellatrix....
Well, I spent a long time thinking about how I pronounced it. At first I  
thought that I wasn't stressing it at all and then I realised that there was the  
tiniest nuance of a stress on the first syllable, which I am sure comes from 
my  instinctive association of the name with the name Bella and the fact that 
I am  treating it as an *English* name, albeit of Latin origin. I don't know. 
It's  just one of those three syllable names that *sounds* like the stress 
should be  at the beginning, like my daughters' names (Eleanor, Imogen - now 
stops to  wonder why other three syllable names like Amanda or Diana are stressed  
differently).
Bottom line. *To me* the way I pronounce it sounds like the way the name  
would be pronounced if taken into (British) English *as a name*.
~Eloise


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