Pronunciation

pronuntiatio

We transcribe the Roman (ecclesiastical, “Italianate”) pronunciation — the one the Gregorian scholas use when they sing from the 1962 books. Under Saint Pius X, Rome encouraged the whole Church toward the Roman pronunciation. National traditions, the Polish one among them, survive in parishes, and the table below shows both. The Polish tradition is not uniform either — it varies by region and generation, and the transcriptions give its most common form.

Syllable division is identical in both traditions — chant gives each syllable its own note, so “grá-ti-a” has three syllables everywhere. In ordinary speech Polish contracts “-tia” to one syllable (“gracja”), and our transcriptions keep the sung division.