_i_, _o_, _[ae]_, _[oe]_), and the
combinations _t[)i]_, _c[)i]_ before vowels, were pronounced _ts_. 3.
The _g_ before front vowels had a sound closely resembling that of the
Latin consonantal _i_. 4. The _s_ between vowels was pronounced like
our _s_. 5. The combinations _[ae]_, _[oe]_ were no longer pronounced
as diphthongs, but like the simple _e_. 6. The ancient vowel-quantities
were preserved only in the penultima of polysyllables (where they
determined the stress); in all other positions the original system of
quantities had given place to a new system based mainly on rhythm. Of
this system in detail we have little certain knowledge; but one of
its features was that the vowel which ended the first syllable of
a disyllabic was always long: _p[=a]ter_, _p[=a]trem_, _D[=e]us_,
_p[=i]us_, _[=i]ter_, _[=o]vis_, _h[=u]mus_.

Even so early as the beginning of the fifth century, St. Augustine
tells us that the vowel-quantities, which it was necessary to learn
in order to write verse correctly, were not observed in speech. The
Latin-speaking schoolboy had to learn them in much the same fashion as
did the English schoolboy of the nineteenth century.

It is interesting to observe that, while the English scholars of
the tenth century pronounced their Latin in the manner which their
ancestors had learned from the continental missionaries, the tradition
of the ancient vowel-quantities still survived (to some extent at
least) among their British neighbours, whose knowledge of Latin was an
inheritance from the days of Roman rule. On this point the following
passage from the preface to [AE]lfric's Latin Grammar (written for
English schoolboys about A.D. 1000) is instructive:--

Miror ualde quare multi corripiunt sillabas in prosa quae in
metro breues sunt, cum prosa absoluta sit a lege metri; sicut
pronuntiant _pater_ brittonice et _malus_ et similia, quae in
metro habentur breues. Mihi tamen uidetur melius inuocare Deum
Patrem honorifice producta sillaba quam brittonice corripere,
quia nec Deus arti grammaticae subiciendus est.

The British contagion of which [AE]lfric here complains had no
permanent effect. For after the Norman Conquest English boys learned
their Latin from teachers whose ordinary language was French. For a
time, they were not usually taught to write or read English, but only
French and Latin; so that the Englishmen who attempted to write their
native language did so in a phonetic or