Maybe, but many English writing classes recommend that a writer prefer the Anglo-Saxon to the Latin. I'm not saying that there are not many Latin liturgies and classical poems that are exquisitely beautiful. And "Veni, Vidi, Vici" has a ring to it that "I came, I saw, I conquered" will never approach, but if you are about to write your next novel for an English-speaking audience, I'd stick with well done Anglo.

I had a Cambridge-trained Jesuit Latin teacher who insisted that Church Latin with its "c" pronunciation sounding like the English "ch", along with its many other deviations of pronunciation, was "Wop Latin". Classical Latin preferred the soft "k" as a pronunciation for the consonant "c".

Perhaps beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

Maybe, but many English writing classes recommend that a writer prefer the Anglo-Saxon to the Latin. I'm not saying that there are not many Latin liturgies and classical poems that are exquisitely beautiful. And "Veni, Vidi, Vici" has a ring to it that "I came, I saw, I conquered" will never approach, but if you are about to write your next novel for an English-speaking audience, I'd stick with well done Anglo.

I would venture out and say, at risk of sounding offensive, that Latin is objectively superior to Modern English.
In fact, the consecutio temporum in english is wobbly if not actually unrefined.
The writer in english has to stick to relatively very short, and very concise, sentences in order to avoid confusion given there's not even a rudimentary form of declination past "s" for the plural. Adjectives do not even change based on the word they refer to.

Unfortunately, many in the Anglo-Saxon world, seem to equate the prominence, as a lingua franca, of their languages in recent times, due to wholly secular reasons, to somehow english having some sort of actual superiority to other languages.

I had a Cambridge-trained Jesuit Latin teacher who insisted that Church Latin with its "c" pronunciation sounding like the English "ch", along with its many other deviations of pronunciation, was "Wop Latin". Classical Latin preferred the soft "k" as a pronunciation for the consonant "c".

"Ecclesiastical" Latin follows/coincides with other romance languages in the differentiation between C+I/E and C+O/E (soft vs hard vowels).
It also pronounces diphtongs such as AE and OE as "E".
Another prominent shift from alleged classical latin pronunciation is TIA/TIO being read as ZIA like in Italian. Ex: Laetitia, Constitutio.

Your jesuit teacher, unsurprisingly, sounds like a humanist and also vile, if not racist. "Wop"? Really.

I believe the underlying tantamount belief is that modern, atheistic/humanist scholarship (the sciences) being supreme in determining the truth.

Much as the modern men relies on so called "biblical scholarship" in determining the truth about the historicity and validity of the Gospel, before Tradition and Church authority.

In this case possibly coupled with Classicophilia, and so called novice's enthusiasm.

What makes Ciceronian estimated alleged pronounciation superior for instance to 2nd century b.C.'s relatively archaistic one?

Should we use U in stead of I, as still practiced in the early Ist century b.C. such in the textbook case of Silla's name rendered as "Sulla"?

Is 4th century b.C.'s latin WOP already?
Latin, not being a dead language already after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, developed, both phonetically and orthographically.

What about regional inflections and variations as to pronunciation depending on the area of the Empire?
What sense does it make to attempt to crystallise it at a specific point in time?
It would make as much sense as insisting English not only has a uniquely valid way of pronunciation, but also let's say, Middle English one was the pure one and everything else after that an aberration.

De gustibus non est disputandum.

So then why does opera sound good in German and Italian?

Has there ever been a Latin language opera??

Yes, in fact, it originated from religiously themed/morality plays in the Middle Ages.

But why opera in particular? If you meant, or willing to extend your requirement to lyrical music, two very well known, even to the general public, musical works in latin are Verdi's Requiem and Sibelius' Carmina Burana.

In fact, there's plenty of lyrical music in latin. Most of the most renown Classical authors also produced Musica Sacra, including Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi,

Classical (reconstructed) Latin and Ecclesiatical Latin are completely seperate and should remain that way. Classical Latin prefers the macron diacritical mark, while Ecclesiatical Latin prefers the acute accent (apex) diacritic. E.g QVOTIDIANVS (macrons excluded by Cath Info) contra Quotídiánus.

It is a matter of preference. The Ecclesiatical Latin was put in sync with modern languages for various reasons.

(edit: Apparently, Cath Info doesn't support text with macrons.)

Puerile writers, like me in high school, will load their prose with Latinate words, hoping to sound "high end."

 :scratchchin:

Quote from: Graham

Puerile writers, like me in high school, will load their prose with Latinate words, hoping to sound "high end."

 :scratchchin:

The consensus among experienced writers is that Germanic words tend to be more vivid than Latinate ones. With English, whatever its grammatical weaknesses, we're at least spoiled for synonyms. Good writers will seek fitting words, and inevitably will wind up with a mixture of Germanic and Latinate. Puerile writers, like me in high school, will load their prose with Latinate words, hoping to sound "high end."

Did I miss any?