09-26-2016, 03:34 AM
I think the book "Vox Latina" is still the standard guide to how classical Latin might have sounded.
One guide to the pronunciation of the the consonantal "u" in Latin is how it was transliterated it in Greek. For the most part, Greek use their own diphthong "ou" to translate the consonantal "u". Thus "Vespasian" in Greek is Οὐεσπασιανός, suggesting a pronunciation closer to English "w" than "v". There is in fact a shift in Greek epigraphy of writing Latin "u" with a Beta, in the Late Roman empire, suggesting that the Latin "u" was by then sounding more like the English "v" (or perhaps more accurately, the Spanish "v de vaca").
One guide to the pronunciation of the the consonantal "u" in Latin is how it was transliterated it in Greek. For the most part, Greek use their own diphthong "ou" to translate the consonantal "u". Thus "Vespasian" in Greek is Οὐεσπασιανός, suggesting a pronunciation closer to English "w" than "v". There is in fact a shift in Greek epigraphy of writing Latin "u" with a Beta, in the Late Roman empire, suggesting that the Latin "u" was by then sounding more like the English "v" (or perhaps more accurately, the Spanish "v de vaca").
