Music teaching and outcomes in schools

[ardcarp]

Thanks Mary. I suspected it was Scots patois. We called our Latin teacher 'magister', as in "salvete pueri...salve magister".

[french frank]

We called our Latin teacher 'magister'

As a matter of interest, did you stress it on the first or second syllable?

[ardcarp]

Casting my mind back over the decades, I think the 'MAG' had a slightly weaker stress than the 'TER'...which we pronounced as 'tair'. We had to use a hard 'g' which went against the grain for those of us who sang Latin in the choir!

[french frank]

Casting my mind back over the decades, I think the 'MAG' had a slightly weaker stress than the 'TER'...which we pronouncesd as 'tair'. We had to use a hard 'g' which went against the grain for those of us who sang Latin in the choir!

You stressed it on the final syllable!?

It is in some areas stressed on the second syllable (-gis-), otherwise on the first. I've never known it stressed on the third ...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You stressed it on the final syllable!?

It is in some areas stressed on the second syllable (-gis-), otherwise on the first. I've never known it stressed on the third ...

I recall my Latin teacher stressing the final syllable too. Whether or not this is correct, I do not know. What I did appreciate was the way she brought a seemingly dead language to life.

[ardcarp]

Yes it was MAG (short and stressed) IS (short and unstressed) TAIR (long and slightly more stressed). I think!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That's exactly the way I remember it.

[Mary Chambers]

We called our Latin teacher 'magister', as in "salvete pueri...salve magister".

In our case 'Salvete puellae'......'Salve magistra' (stressed on first syllable). Takes me back.....

[french frank]

Yes it was MAG (short and stressed) IS (short and unstressed) TAIR (long and slightly more stressed). I think!

A bit odd. A three-syllable word would have a primary stress and a secondary (weaker) stress, with an unstressed syllable between. But the primary stress in 'magister' would be on the first (where's jean?), unless there were occasions when the teacher wanted to emphasise the way endings changed.

For example, I remember the class chanting: a-MO, a-MAS, a-MAT, a-MA-mus, a-MA-tis, a-MANT; whereas phonological changes demand that the verb was stressed on the first syllable, except in the 1st and 2nd persons plural.

Another boring digression, but I find such things fascinating. But apologise

On 'magister', I've found suggestions that German pronunciation stresses the middle syllable and I think I've heard it in religious/monastic circles here too.

[jean]

But the primary stress in 'magister' would be on the first (where's jean?)

I am here, and yes, it would be.

The primary stress on carmina (as in Carmina Burana) would also be on the first syllable, but try telling anyone that.

[ardcarp]

A speciality of our Latin master was to give is a 10 word vocab to learn each night. The test the next day would often consist of a single sentence stringing all the words to gether, so we had to get tenses, plurals (and no doubt other things I've forgotten) correct:

e.g Marcus, clad in the general's tent, slept under the shadow of the knees.

[ardcarp]

PS A little while ago, on these boards I think, there was a discussion about the pronunciation of Latin. It had started off commenting on the current fashionable deviations from traditional sung (i.e. Italianate) Latin. But some scholarly person (I forget who) widened the discussion to Classical or 'school' Latin. Apperently the latter has not always been consistent and has not always used the soft 'v'. We definitely said, for veni, vidi, vici, waynee, weedy, weeky; but I gather it was not always thus.

[DracoM]

Agree with jean. But then again I was brought up in the Latin of the Roman Church such that the 'italianate' was de rigeur. No soft 'v's at all.

[decantor]

PS A little while ago, on these boards I think, there was a discussion about the pronunciation of Latin. It had started off commenting on the current fashionable deviations from traditional sung (i.e. Italianate) Latin. But some scholarly person (I forget who) widened the discussion to Classical or 'school' Latin. Apperently the latter has not always been consistent and has not always used the soft 'v'. We definitely said, for veni, vidi, vici, waynee, weedy, weeky; but I gather it was not always thus.

I learned my Latin in the 1950s, and was taught "waynee, weedy" etc. But I and my mates hated it - it was so girly! Arriving at Cambridge in the early 1960s, I was hugely relieved to be allowed at last to say "vaynee, veedy". There were still around a few oldies who used the 'St Paul's' (school, not cathedral) pronunciation, where Latin words were given the full English treatment - "vee-nye, vie-die, vie-sigh" IIRC. Of course everyone accepted that the Romans pronounced v as w, but it was treated as an academic point, not a practical requirement..... except that 'v as w' was too simplistic. Roman scribes often wrote a 'b' where a 'v' was more usual (suabis = suavis, bolt = vult), so presumably the 'w' was plosive (the Spanish still do this trick with 'b'). Of course, the Italianate 'church' Latin was all around us - it was both loved by and irrelevant to classicists.

Throughout my teaching career, I taught kids using 'vaynee' not 'waynee' (to hell with the Inspectorate!). But I also devoted some lessons to examining how the Romans pronounced their own language, and the evidence for it. Kids love a red herring, and learn better for it. Hence my scorn for a closely defined National Curriculum and detailed lesson-plans: it so easily starves kids and teachers of the joy of shared discovery. A teacher needs to sniff the air and go with the flow.

[decantor]

"Salve, magister". I'd suggest that the reason for the stress on the ultimate syllable of 'magister' is the sing-song effect of a class speaking in chorus - and perhaps not without a little tired irony. There is no real doubt that the word is properly accented 'primary-unstressed-secondary'.