Tag Archives: open

Whitaker’s WORDS for Macintosh Lion and Mountain Lion (OS X 10.7 and 10.8)

Hey All,

Here’s a quick link to Erik Mendoza’s Interpres, which works to bridge the gap between Whitaker’s WORDS and the latest editions of Macintosh OS X.

When I finally purchased a new laptop, I discovered that Whitaker’s WORDS was no longer compatible with Macintosh Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8). William Whitaker died recently so his version of the software remains static and incompatible with the latest versions of OS X. However, Erik Mendoza has been awesome enough to produce Interpres, which is a compatible (and I would argue more user-friendly) version of the WORDS program. Hopefully, Interpres will also jive well with Apple’s up-and-coming Mavericks (OS X 10.9), due out later this year.

If anyone wants to add a footnote about the latest version of WORDS for Windows 8, I’m sure it would be well received! For those of you suffering under the heel of Windows 8, I offer my sincere condolences.

Cheers,

Ryan

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The Latin Syllabe

Latin syllables are numbered according to the separate vowels and diphthongs within a word.

a-ci-ē (3), fī-li-us (3), etc.

A consonant is generally contained within the unit of a following vowel, except where there is a double consonant, since paired consonants are always separated, or where a consonant ends a word.

pa-ter (2), in-iū-ri-a (4), mit-tō (2)

(Not that iū is a semi-consonantal glide pairing, where the i is sounded as the English y.)

This rule becomes trickier with double consonants: what do we do with dixit? (dix-it or di-xit?)

  • A&G prefer dix-it, but acknowledge there is no hard and fast rule. Like the corresponding Greek ξ, this word would have been sounded as dic-sit, so it’s really a matter of preference where you put the double consonant.
  • Luckily, the double consonants, sd and ps, are much rarer in Latin

Note the distinction between a

  • Any syllable founding with a vowel or diphthong is open.
  • Any syllable ending with a consonant is closed.

In compounds, the rules are modified a little to mark the separation of compounded parts.

du-plex (2) instead of dup-lex (2) [it’s not clear to me whether this is a matter of A&G convention, or broader Latin phonological patterns of pronunciation.]

The Essential AG: 7, 7a-b