section_path: Phonology/Consonants
section_name: Consonants
paragraph_text: Consonants
  
  The consonant phonemes of Classical Latin are as follows:
  
  /z/ was not native to Classical Latin. It appeared in Greek loanwords starting around the first century BC, when it was probably pronounced (at least by educated speakers) initially and doubled between vowels, in accordance with its pronunciation in Koine Greek. In Classical Latin poetry, the letter ⟨ z ⟩ between vowels always counts as two consonants for metrical purposes. The consonant ⟨b⟩ usually sounds as; however, when ⟨t⟩ or ⟨s⟩ follows ⟨b⟩ then it is pronounced as in or. In Latin, ⟨q⟩ is always followed by the vowel ⟨u⟩. Together they make a sound.
  
  In Old and Classical Latin, the Latin alphabet had no distinction between uppercase and lowercase, and the letters ⟨ J U W ⟩ did not exist. In place of ⟨ J U ⟩, ⟨ I V ⟩ were used, respectively; ⟨ I V ⟩ represented both vowels and consonants. Most of the letter forms were similar to modern uppercase, as can be seen in the inscription from the Colosseum shown at the top of the article.
  
  The spelling systems used in Latin dictionaries and modern editions of Latin texts, however, normally use ⟨ j u ⟩ in place of Classical-era ⟨ i v ⟩. Some systems use ⟨ j v ⟩ for the consonant sounds /j w/ except in the combinations ⟨ gu su qu ⟩ for which ⟨ v ⟩ is never used.
  
  Some notes concerning the mapping of Latin phonemes to English graphemes are given below:
  
  In Classical Latin, as in modern Italian, double consonant letters were pronounced as long consonant sounds distinct from short versions of the same consonants. Thus the nn in Classical Latin annus "year" (and in Italian anno) is pronounced as a doubled /nn/ as in English unnamed. (In English, distinctive consonant length or doubling occurs only at the boundary between two words or morphemes, as in that example.)