[54]. b before a surd, as s or t, has the sound of p. The spelling b is here simply etymological: as, abs, pronounced aps (the b retained in spelling because of ab); urbs, pronounced urps (the b retained because of the oblique cases urbis, urbī, etc.); obterō, pronounced opterō (Quint. 1, 7, 7), where the spelling of the preposition ob was kept ([164]).
[55]. c has always the sound of English k.
[56]. d before the surd s is pronounced t; the spelling d is preserved for etymological reasons only: as, adsum, pronounced atsum.
[57]. g always has the sound of English g in go, never that of g in gentle. gu, when it makes one syllable with the following vowel, is pronounced like English gw: as, sanguine like sanguine.
[58]. h has a weak sound as h in British English (Southern), and by some was not counted as a consonant. Consequently the same uncertainty existed as to initial h. The omission of initial h is recognized in classical Latin for ānser (originally *hānser). Elsewhere the omission of initial h in spelling, as ostia for hostia, is rare until the third century A.D.
Very rarely h is written between two vowels to denote that each should be pronounced separately (like our diaeresis in coëxtensive): as, ahēneus, bronze, with aē separate ([116 a]); but aes, bronze, with diphthongal ae.
[59]. Unsyllabic ([22]) or consonant i has the sound of English y in year.
[60]. There were two varieties of l. One was like the English l, guttural in character, because in its pronunciation not only the blade (front part) of the tongue touched the gums, but in addition to this the rear part of the tongue was elevated toward the soft palate. The other l was purely dental, and formed without such back elevation. This second variety appeared in the combination ll, or whenever l was followed by the front vowels ([43]) e or i, or when it was final. Elsewhere l was guttural.
[61]. From the earliest times final m in unaccented syllables had a faint sound or was even inaudible (Quint. 9, 4, 39). Consequently it is often omitted in writing in the older inscriptions both before an initial vowel or consonant: as, POCOLO for pōcolom; OINO for oinom (ūnum), and the grammarian Verrius Flaccus proposed to write only half an M for final m before a vowel. In prosody, therefore, final m did not prevent elision ([2493]). The same is seen in prose in cases like animadvertō, I pay heed to, from animum advertō, I turn my mind toward ([395]); vēnīre, to be sold for vēnum īre, to go to sale ([1165]). But in monosyllables where m closes the accented syllable, it did not vanish ([2494], [2495]), and this difference in the treatment of final m is reflected in the Romance languages.
[62]. n stands for two sounds. It represents the dental nasal, as n in English now. But before the gutturals k, c, g, q, and the compound x (= cs), it represents the guttural nasal which is written ng in English sing, wrong. This second n is sometimes called n adulterīnum or ‘spurious n,’ thus: nc (in avunculus) as in uncle; ng (in angulus) as in angle; ngu (in sanguine) as in sanguine; nqu (in inquit) as inkw in inkwiper; nx (in pīnxit) as in lynx.