Do you care about the pronunciation of extinct languages?

I want to read a book in an old language (in my case Old French) and I know that the pronunciation was quite different to the pronunciation of its daughter language (modern French). But it wasn't as easy as 1 phoneme = 1 character because they used Latin script although a dozen of new sounds emerged since Latin.

I don't really care about pronouncing perfectly as there is no one to speak correctly with and I don't really want to learn to speak it nor to put to much effort into it, but there are a few reasons for which I want to at least have some coherent pronunciation.

If I merely pronounced the extinct language as were it its contemporary counterpart, I may fail in hearing a difference in some words (many consonants are silent in modern French). Also it would be difficult to have a decent sentence flow...

So what do you think is a good approach?

  • To pronounce it the modern way despite of all?
  • To translate in my head directly (if I can)?
  • To pronounce it as it is written although it wasn't pronounced this way at any stage of history?
  • Or to learn quickly how to pronounce it, although only the basics and make a lot of mistakes because it was actually more complex than the basics?

I assume the last one is quite good, but how would you proceed?

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