Q.
(Latin pronunciation of.)

Ramus was no sooner made Regius Professor in Paris, than he showed a desire of perfecting the sciences, and went about it with more eagerness, notwithstanding the hatred of his restless enemies, who were so malicious as to pretend, that the manner after which he and his colleagues pronounced the letter q was an innovation, for which he deserved to be prosecuted. Some ecclesiastics complied with that reformation, though the Sorbonnists were displeased with that innovation; and a beneficed man was used very ill by them upon that account, for they got him deprived of

his revenues. He made his application to the parliament; and the royal professors, being afraid that he would sink under the credit of the faculty of divinity, for being so bold as to pronounce the Latin tongue according to their reformation, thought themselves obliged to assist him: they went to the court, and represented in so lively a manner the shamefulness of such a trial, that the accused person was acquitted.

“What new disturbances Freigius, in Vita Rami, pag. 24. ³³ did an innovation in pronunciation produce? In the year 1550, the Royal Professors having begun to introduce a purer pronunciation of the Latin tongue, there were other professors, especially those of the Sorbonne, who took it highly amiss that the pronunciation anciently made use of by the French should be disapproved of, and could not bear to be obliged to unlearn, when they were old men, what they had learned when they were boys. The first dispute of this kind was about the sound of the letter q. The Royal Professors pronounced it as it ought to be, with the following vowel u; quisquis, quanquam; but the Sorbonne adhered to the custom then in use; kiskis kankam. The members of the Sorbonne had endeavoured to deprive a clergyman of very ample revenues, for making use of the genuine pronunciation: the contest was brought before the parliament of Paris, and there was great danger that the unfortunate man would be deprived of the benefits of his theological studies for a grammatical heresy, as they called it. But the Royal Professors, and amongst them Peter Ramus, assembling themselves together in a body, flew to the court, and having exposed the strangeness of their proceedings, that lawyers, whose business it was to dispute about the king’s laws, should debase themselves into critics on the laws of grammar, they so prevailed upon the judges, that they not only acquitted the divine, but by a tacit assent, established for ever an impunity to all

controversies about grammatical pronunciation. Kis, and kalis, and kantus, and miki, and such like Goth isms and barbarisms were used in the academy of Paris, in the presence of the Royal Professors; and if any of them refused to make use of these barbarisms, he was very ill-treated, as one who took upon him to infringe the customs of the college. Quis, qualis, quantus, and mihi, were then restored to the genuine Roman pronunciation in the Royal school, and people were ashamed to contradict openly the Royal Professors, who were in a manner considered as the voice of the king himself.” This is such a strange and incredible thing, that I did not think fit to omit any word of the author who relates it. He maintains another immediately after, which I am more amazed at, and I would fain see the monuments of it in the archives; otherwise I would not advise any body to give an entire credit to it, any more than to the trial about kankam and kiskis. The thing is this; the public authority was made use of to force many doctors of Paris to renounce this assertion, which they obstinately maintained: ego amat is as good a phrase as ego amo: I will quote Freigius for it. “Incredibile prope dictu est, sed tamen verum et editis libris proditum, in Parisiensi Academia Doctores exitisse, qui mordicus tuerentur ac defenderent, ego amat, tam commodam orationem esse quam ego amo; ad eamque pertinaciam comprimendam consilio publico opus fuisse.—It is almost incredible to tell, but nevertheless true, and also in print, that there were doctors in the academy of Paris, who asserted and maintained most obstinately, that ego amat was as proper speech and as good grammar as ego amo; and they were forced to have the assistance of public authority before they could overcome their obstinacy.” Notwithstanding my incredulity, I shall observe that there happened many things in the XVIth century in the faculty of theology, at Paris, at which they blush now when they think of them. They have been laughed at for it indeed to some purpose.—Art. Ramus.