# Veni, Vidi, Vici



## fragilistic

Hi...
I have a very quick question concerning the phrase "Veni, vidi, vici." My Latin teacher pronounces Veni with a long e sound. However, my friend has a different Latin teacher, and he pronounces Veni with a short i sound, more like 'vini.' Which teacher is right, or is just a matter of preference to make the sentence sound better?


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## Forero

The short answer is: _your_ teacher is right.  But without hearing the other teacher's pronunciation, I can't say whether it is at all authentic.

Here's some more detail:

When classical Latin was written, the vowels were written as the Romans pronounced them, except that length was not indicated.  Both the _e_ and the _i_ of _veni_ were long and sounded approximately like the names of those letters in Spanish or Italian.

But before Latin became the Romance languages, the whole rhythm and accent of Latin changed, and the vowels became more like they are in modern German, except for short _i_ and short _u_, which were only a little bit different.  At one point, short _i_ sounded a lot like long _e_, and short _u_ sounded a lot like long _o_, and native speakers of Latin became confused about spelling vowels since there had come to be more vowel sounds than vowel letters.

On top of the difference in native Latin sounds, the English sounds commonly used to teach Latin make things even more complicated.  Since Latin was first taught in England until now, English vowels have changed so much that what we call "long _e_" or "short _i_" in English words are very different sounds from the native Latin sounds.  Our vowels, especially when accented, are glides rather than pure vowels like the Romans used/use.  An English glide begins with one vowel sound and glides to another, usually a _y_, a _w_, or a _schwa_ (vowel that doesn't correspond to any letter in particular).


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## Musical Chairs

My teacher said it like "weenie," though I can see it being like "winnie" if the person said it really fast.

I think it sounds better like "weenie" because the words after that are said like "weedie" and "weekie" (parallel construction if you will) as far as I know.


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## Forero

Musical Chairs said:


> My teacher said it like "weenie," though I can see it being like "winnie" if the person said it really fast.
> 
> I think it sounds better like "weenie" because the words after that are said like "weedie" and "weekie" (parallel construction if you will) as far as I know.



The first vowels of these three words are not supposed to be the same, tempting as it is to make them rhyme.  The use of the initial "w" sound indicates the teacher is attempting to imitate Classical Latin but is mispronouncing the _e_ of _veni_ because all the other vowels are _i_'s.


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## Whodunit

Forero said:


> The use of the initial "w" sound indicates the teacher is attempting to imitate Classical Latin ...


 
That's called an alliteration. 

I pronounce the _e_ in _Veni_ long, a mixture between the sound of English _ay_ (in _lay_) and _ee_ (in _bee_). The sound doesn't exist in English.

The _i_'s in _vidi_ and _vici_ are all long like English _ee_.

The _c_ can be pronounced either as _k_ (in _kind_) or _ch_ (in _church_). I prefer the former, but only because that's the way I was taught to be pronounce it like that.


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## virgilio

Forero,
         You wrote:" When classical Latin was written, the vowels were written as the Romans pronounced them, except that length was not indicated."

Depends, I would say, on what you mean by "indicated". They may not have been visibly indicated, as Arabic, for example, does but in Latin verse the vowel lengths of vowels in naturally short syllables is very clearly indicated to anyone who has learned the scansion system.

Virgilio


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## Forero

virgilio said:


> Depends, I would say, on what you mean by "indicated".


 
Hi, virgilio:

I was referring to the fact that the word _latus_, for example, with a long _a_ was spelled the same as the other word _latus_, with a short _a_, and also because of a shorter _a_, _pater_ did not quite rhyme with _mater_ and _frater_ just as _father_ does not rhyme with _mother_ and _brother_.

_V_ actually had at least three different pronunciations: two lengths in _murus_, for example, plus whatever the _u_s sounded like in _uacuum_ and _equus_. I need someone else to respell Latin words for me using breves, macrons, and _v_s contrasted with _u_s before I dare to pronounce them. Or, as I believe you were alluding to, I could make a pretty good guess if I saw words used in a poem.


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## virgilio

Hi, Forero,
              Thanks for your reply. That's why I much prefer reading Virgil and Ovid to reading Cicero and Livy, excellent though the latter two undoubtedly are. The verse-writers give you the music.
Reading the prose writers is like reading an orchestral score; reading the poets - and especially Ovid - is like playing the CD.

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## unknown001

In Caesar's time, he would have pronounced it:

_"Wain-ee, Wee-Dee, Wee-Kee".
_"Veni, vidi, vici."


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## VISEL

Please, use acapela (demo.acapela-group.com/)  
italian speaker.
The pronunciation and accent are the same.

Ave Caersar, Visel te salutant!


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## Forero

VISEL said:


> Please, use acapela (demo.acapela-group.com/)
> italian speaker.
> The pronunciation and accent are the same.
> 
> Ave Caersar, Visel te salutant!


 


VISEL said:


> Please, use acapela (demo.acapela-group.com/)
> italian speaker.
> The pronunciation and accent are the same.
> 
> Ave Caersar, Visel te salutant*o*!


 
Thank you, Visel.  And welcome to the forum.

I have not been able to get acapela to "speak" for me, but let me say that the Italian pronunciation is authentic but not quite classical when it comes to the _v's _and the _c_, but the long _e_ and _i_ are as classical as I can imagine possible without an actual audio recording from ancient Rome.


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