Pronunciation of church Latin

Groan, groan. It happened again this evening. Somebody with a smattering of the Latin learned 50 years ago in school felt qualified to lecture an ad-hoc group of church choristers about how to pronounce the Latin in Ave Verum - the Elgar, actually, not the Mozart - absurdly the choir will be singing the Elgar in Latin, and the Mozart in its usual weak English translation (at the same service, I might add, as O sacred head, sore wounded is being sung in an appallingly cack-handed translation).

Don't these self-appointed didacts realise the extent of their own ignorance? In the age of instant Googling choir people and didacts need no longer remain in ignorance. There are millions of sites that explain the pronunciation of church Latin, so there's no excuse.

Here's a quick resumé.

Church Latin is not classical Latin, the language that some of us were lucky enough to get a couple of years  of in grammar schools (remember them?) Church Latin is a language created by the Church in about the 4thC AD. Its structure and its basic vocabulary is taken from classical Latin, but there the resemblance ends. How classical Latin might have been pronounced is irrelevant: Pope Pius X decreed (at the turn of the 19th/20thC) that henceforth church Latin would be pronounced as it was pronounced in Rome.

So, to cut a long story short, church Latin should be pronounced as though it were the Italian spoken in Rome (and not the Italian spoken in the south of Italy.) Choristers who know what they're doing make slight changes in pronunciation if they are singing a Latin text by a German composer, or an early French composer, and, if they are very, very clever, a Russian or Finnish composer, but the Italian of Rome is the default pronunciation.

The problem is that people who vaguely remember their schooldays Latin probably don't know any Italian, which is why they still think Ave Verum is pronounced Ah Way Way Rum and Virgine Weir-ghin-ay.

So - quis custodiet ipsos custodes? You might well ask.

---------------------------------

To read Pius X's words, and the reasoning, go here:

http://choirstalls.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/parish-mag-february-2009.html