I think you can say both :) be consistent, whichever way you decide

???? what's the difference in pronouncing "vice" and the German "weiß"????

I've only ever heard it said as in "Miami Vice". Versa to rhyme with cursor.

I side with Archfarchnad. However if you don't feel sure you can still pronounce it "the other way around" :-)

so in english would be korrekt "weiss wörsa", but since this is latin, it should be pronounced "wike wersa" (as I have learned... years ago).

So here my question: are all latin edxpressions in englisch pronounced as if it were english words ( so that I would be a total geek pronouncing it correect in latin)?

I know, also in gemany, some people say "Witze Wersa"... so, all is possible and nothing at all.

@bienchen:

"what's the difference in pronouncing "vice" and the German "weiß"????"

Nicht "weiß", sondern "weiße" war gefragt. ;-)

Jetz versteh ich gar nichts mehr. Warum sollte denn das "e" gesprochen werden. Also wenn überhaupt, dann wie ein "i", so wie in "Nike".

I have always pronounced the "vice" of "vice versa" with two syllables. I don't know why I pronounce the final "e", especially as I don't say "Nikeee" like some do.

Hab grad mal im Pons nachgeschaut und die Lautschrift dort sagt, es ist "vaisi" also doch so wie "naiki" ;-). Also auf keinen Fall wie ein "e", wenn dann wie ein "i". Muss zugeben, ich hab bis jetz aber immer nur "vais" gehört (einsilbig).

Ach so!
Danke, Jalapeno. Ich dachte da wäre jemand unsicher in der richtigen Aussprache des "v". Da wird ja manchmal die Aussprache des englischen "w" verwendet.

weiße wörse ist richtig!!

Ich kann es nicht beweisen, möchte aber doch behaupten, dass "vice" in AE vorwiegend einsilbig gesprochen wird. Es reimt sich also auf "mice" (Mäuse) oder eben "vice" (das Laster).

Archfarchnad's Vorschlag, dass sich "versa" auf "cursor" reimen könnte, käme mir nicht in den Sinn, jedenfalls nicht, so lange man noch ein finales /r/ herausbekommt, also überall außer in Neuengland und im Kreise der "Royals". ;-)

Der zweite Vokal von "versa" ist eben das, was AE-Sprecher aus einem finalen Schwa machen, nämlich einen neuralen Vokal mit etwas weiterer Kieferöffnung. Es reimt sich sich mit der Aussprache des Wortes "Börse" durch einen AE-Sprecher.

All my comments refer to BE only, of course - I wouldn't dare venture into the jungle of AE :-)

I wonder if these phonetic symbols work at all:
'kə:sə
'və:sə

My Oxford Dictionary of English shows the pronunciation of "vice versa" with "vice" with one syllable only and "versa" to rhyme with cursor, i.e. no R at the end.

Merriam-Webster shows that in AE you can pronounce "vice versa" either as vice or as vicey: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vice versa
Pronunciation: "vI-si-'v&r-s&, 'vIs-'v&r-

So I guess Pons uses AE (see above).

The Oxford Dictionary of English also has the word "vice" as in "as a substitute for" pronounced as in Ponce - "vicey", with the example "the letter was drafted by David Hunt, vice Bevin who was ill".

I agree with archfarchnad. "Vice" (as in Miami) and "versa" as in "verse" + "a", which does indeed rhyme with cursor, not only in Buckingham Palace ;-)).

However, this question brings to mind a story my father told from his schooldays, whereby the children from the state school were taught a different pronunciation of Latin compared to that taught at the Catholic school. For instance the Protestant Latin teachers taught that "v" was pronounced like English "w" and "c" like English "k" , whereas the Catholics pronounced them "v" and "s" or "ch", respectively (the latter as in Italian). Upon being confronted and teased about this once by a group of boys from the state school, my father and his friends shouted back at the Protestant boys "wicky werka!" (for "vice versa"), at which the aggressors immediately turned and fled in fear!

So the consensus is that in modern English at least, it's /weiß wörße/ in both BE and AE.

German speakers should note that both /s/ sounds are unvoiced, so it's not an exact rhyme with Börse (except in southern regions where /z/ does not exist).

BE speakers should be aware that, as AndreasS explained, it does not rhyme with 'cursor' in any variety of English in which final R is pronounced (rhotic R). That includes not only the vast majority of AE but also many BE regions outside southeast England (Scotland and Ireland, for example). So it would be better not to say flatly that it rhymes.

I don't recall ever having heard anyone actually say /weißi/, and I would find it bizarre, though I have heard /weiße/ and it doesn't bother me, possibly because at normal speed the difference is not that perceptible. I believe the two-syllable version is still listed in some dictionaries because it used to be BE RP, back in the days of old-fashioned ultra-anglicized public-school classical Latin, with long Latin vowels pronounced as if they were long English vowels, e.g., Lat. 'pater' and 'mater' to rhyme with Eng. 'later' and 'waiter.' Remnants of this pronunciation survive in both BE and AE, especially in legal terms, such as 'habeas corpus' (long A as in Eng. 'hay') or 'prima facie' (long I and A as in Eng. 'prime' and 'face').

AFAIK, though, it's modern classical Latin that has C as /k/ and V as /u/: /uike uerßa/. Nowadays among English speakers, that pronunciation, the one Mary knew as Protestant, is used in most Latin classes, in contrast to Italianate aka church Latin, which is used in singing by both Protestants and Catholics: /wietscheh werrßa/. But no one would ever use either of those for a Latin phrase adopted into English -- so, yes, Kimi, you would be a total geek if you did. (-;

A couple of links for anyone interested in Latin as pronounced in English:
http://d.a.nicolas.free.fr/ucla/ling10/page31.html
http://p211.ezboard.com/fwordoriginsorgfrm20....
(plus other links in that thread)

See also this parallel thread on Latin phrases in English:
  related discussion:Latin phrases in English

And finally, a note for German Girl: it's proNUNciation. Everyone who missed it, your homework is to write that and say it aloud five times. (-;

Oops, a postscript (that's the word we use if we don't say P.S.):

For BE, Fowler gives only /weiße wörße/ (Mod. Engl. Usage, 3rd ed., 1996, p. 825); for AE, NOAD gives either /weiß/ or /weiße/.

Well, I never knew that I spoke BE RP (I grew up in NYC), but I have always pronounced the "vice" with two syllables, very much like "weiße". I thought everyone did. I'm going to have to listen more closely to what other people say now. hm--us must be right; the difference is so small, that in normal speech we don't notice whether someone says "weiß" or "weiße".

By the way, my dictionary shows six (!) pronounciations for "vice versa". (None of them is "wicky wersa".) The first five have the two-syllable "vice"; the sixth, one syllable.

Kimis witziges "Witze Wersa" ist spätantike Aussprache des C. Im Lateiunterricht an deutschen Schulen wird je nach Prägung des Paukers mal spätantikes C=Zeh mal antikes C=K gelehrt.

Wie es lief zeigt bestens die Wortkette: Caesar -> Kaiser -> Zar.

Richtige lateinische Aussprache kann doch wohl weder in deutschem noch in Englischem Umfeld falsch sein. Und bei Amerikanischem Auditorium wuerde ich es nicht "verenglischen, schon damit die Hörer eine Ahnung davon bekommen, wo der Nabel der Welt ist: nämlich eher überall, als in den USA.

http://www.weikopf.de/Sprache/Romanisch/Aussp...

Der lateinische Konsonant C wurde klassisch immer wie "K" ausgesprochen.

Der Satz

Cäsar und Cicero gingen ins Konzil,
Cäsar im Zylinderhut, Cicero in zivil.

würde in klassischer Aussprache daher lauten:

Kaesar und Kikero gingen ins Konkil,
Kaesar im Kylinderhut, Kikero in kivil.

Erst in der Spätantike wurde das C vor E (auch AE, OE) oder I (auch Y) zu einem Reibelaut verändert ("Z"), der in den romanischen Sprachen weiterentwickelt wurde (klass. CENTUM [kentum] = 100; spätantik CENTUM [zentum]; frz. cent [ß-]; it. cento [tsch-]; sp. ciento [ßh-]).

Thanks everyone!

For those of you who are (even remotely) interested, my presentation went remarkably well, and I did use 'vice versa' a couple of times. I think I pronounced it right, as no-one there seemed to flinch or batted an eyelid.

Thank you again,

Konzil, Zylinderhut, Zivil (Substantiv groß!) sind keine lateinischen Wörter. Warum sollte man sie lateinisch aussprechen?

@kwiedamm
Aber "consilium", "cylindrus" und "civilis" sind lateinische Wörter, wenn man echt pedantisch sein will. Andernfalls kann man ohne große Mühe zulassen, dass das Wissen der Jahrhunderte in einer kleinen Menge Humor verdünnt wird...

kwiedamm Zivil gross?

Da kennt der Duden keinen Humor (zusammenschreiben klein!):
8. in|zi|vil <aus gleichbed. lat. incivilis (eigtl. "unbürgerlich") zu → in... (2) u. civilis "bürgerlich", vgl. →zivil>: ...

@Martin:
So are you saying that there are AE speakers who can pronounce a final schwa without special training, which often fails anyway, and you are one of them?

When I was over there I almost killed myself teaching a fellow student who worked for the PBS station to announce "Eine kleine Nachtmusik".

pachulke,

zusammen? klein?
das ist doch eher kurz für in zivilkleidung, wie engl civvies

http://web.mit.edu/~flemming/www/paper/reduce...

I've just found this and I'm posting it here so that it doesn't get lost. Very interesing reading anyway.

Thanks Andreas, very interesting read indeed. I knew I couldn't trust dictionaries on their transcription of unstressed syllables.

> This distinction [between the two vowels in unstressed, non-final position] is
> not made in the American accents that we are familiar with, so Lenin and Lennon
> are homophonous, for example.

So does that mean that 'allusion' and 'illusion' are also homophonous?

Check merriam-webster.com for a sound sample. There are 2 possibilities given. A 3rd one would be to pronounce the e of vice as in Nike, ee(engl.) or i(german). Brgds, Chris

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