# Pronunciation of limine



## James Brandon

How is 'limine' pronounced? This relates to the Latin expression used in the (legal and judicial) context outlined below:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-limine - Motion _*in limine*_ (Latin: "at the outset") is a motion, raised before or during trial, to allow or exclude (usually the latter) the presentation of certain evidence to the jury. Usually it is used to shield the jury from possibly inadmissible and harmful evidence. (...)

The term could be pronounced /limine/ with /e/ at the end (as in 'bet', 'set', etc.), or /limini/ with a short /i/ at the end (as in 'sit', 'flip', etc.). 

Also, there is the issue of the stress, which could be on the first syllable, /'limine/ or /'limini/. If the 2nd syllable is stressed, this would affect the pronunciation of the word and could turn the short /i/ into a long /i:/ as in 'sheep' or 'sleep' - /li'mini:/.

My guess would be that it is pronounced /'limini/ but it is purely a guess.


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## Silvia

I may be wrong, but I guess a Latin expression should follow the rules of Latin language as regards pronunciation. In that case, I think it'd be pronounced "in lee mee nay" (stress on lee).


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## James Brandon

A good principle, except that: (a) we do not know how Latin was actually pronounced by Romans in Ancient Rome (although we may try to guess); (b) Latin as I learnt it at school is pronounced vastly differently in two countries I know well, France (pronounced in a French way) and England (in the English way)! Having said all that, your suggestion sounds right.

I would like to hear from a British lawyer, who could tell us how it is pronounced when used in the UK - they love (dog and legal) Latin, as we know. 

Thanks


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## ElaineG

I don't enjoy writing pronunciation keys (they seem so inexact to me) but here in the US, we say "motions in li [short i as in sit] mi [same] nay", emphasis on the last syllable.


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## diegodbs

Although we can't be completely sure of how Latin was really pronounced, I think that the way it is pronounced in Italy or Spain must be closer to the original pronunciation than that of France or UK. The Latin vowel system had nothing to do with English of French vowels as they are pronounced today, and it was closer to Italian or Spanish vowels. So "limine" was surely pronounced in Latin with the last syllable (-ne) not like "-nay" and its vowel diphthong, but resembling -ne in net/let/set, and that's how it is pronounced both in Italian and in Spanish.


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## Outsider

"Een LEE-mee-neh", I think. Or [in 'limine], if you prefer phonetic transcription. Just like it's written.


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## James Brandon

We seem to have 2 suggestions here: one based on what would be an approximation of the Latin pronunciation, or /'limine/; and one based on current practice among lawyers (American ones at any rate, from the origin of the Post), or /'liminei/. In phonetics, this is the way the latter would be represented (assuming the stress is indeed on the first syllable for the latter one too), with /ei/ standing for the sound found in 'to say', 'to pray', 'veil', 'mate', etc. 

Personally - being neither a native speaker of Italian or Spanish, nor a lawyer - I would tend to opt for the latter, because I was looking for the current/prevalent pronunciation of this Latin term in English today, as pronounced by native speakers of English - not native speakers of Latin (and it may be difficult to find any Latin native speakers). 

There is a wider point here - and without meaning to be terribly pedantic! - about Latin/language. It does not matter very much that the expression is quite obviously Latin. Many French and other words are pronounced in a way that no native speaker would recognise in English - words get borrowed and the pronunciation adapted. (In fact, in Spanish, for instance, the spelling of English words is altered to suit Spanish phonetics, the end-result having to do very little with an English pronunciation - e.g.: 'futbol' for 'football', with a short 'u' and short 'o' sound that have nothing to do with the English /u:/ and long /o:/ as in 'ball', 'call', etc.) So, the argument of origin to determine pronunciation is not valid, in my view. 

Neither is the argument that a Latin-based language should 'know best' how Latin was pronounced. This is not a rational argument. How do you reconcile the pronunciation of Spanish (Castilian) with that of Portuguese, for instance, given the fact both are Romance languages...


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## diegodbs

James Brandon said:
			
		

> We seem to have 2 suggestions here: one based on what would be an approximation of the Latin pronunciation, or /'limine/; and one based on current practice among lawyers (American ones at any rate, from the origin of the Post), or /'liminei/. In phonetics, this is the way the latter would be represented (assuming the stress is indeed on the first syllable for the latter one too), with /ei/ standing for the sound found in 'to say', 'to pray', 'veil', 'mate', etc.
> 
> Personally - being neither a native speaker of Italian or Spanish, nor a lawyer - I would tend to opt for the latter, because I was looking for the current/prevalent pronunciation of this Latin term in English today, as pronounced by native speakers of English - not native speakers of Latin (and it may be difficult to find any Latin native speakers).
> 
> There is a wider point here - and without meaning to be terribly pedantic! - about Latin/language. It does not matter very much that the expression is quite obviously Latin. Many French and other words are pronounced in a way that no native speaker would recognise in English - words get borrowed and the pronunciation adapted. (In fact, in Spanish, for instance, the spelling of English words is altered to suit Spanish phonetics, the end-result having to do very little with an English pronunciation - e.g.: 'futbol' for 'football', with a short 'u' and short 'o' sound that have nothing to do with the English /u:/ and long /o:/ as in 'ball', 'call', etc.) So, the argument of origin to determine pronunciation is not valid, in my view.
> 
> Neither is the argument that a Latin-based language should 'know best' how Latin was pronounced. This is not a rational argument. How do you reconcile the pronunciation of Spanish (Castilian) with that of Portuguese, for instance, given the fact both are Romance languages...


That's why I didn't mention Portuguese.
I agree with you in everything you say, especially about Spanish pronunciation of English words. And, of course, I shouldn't say how you must pronounce Latin words in you own language, or how people in France might do that.
I just wanted to point out that perhaps:


> (b) Latin as I learnt it at school is pronounced vastly differently in two countries I know well, France (pronounced in a French way) and England (in the English way)!


 
this was not a good guide on how Latin pronunciation originally was.

If my comment sounded as if was telling you how to pronounce Latin words in English, that was not my intention at all and I apologize.


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## Outsider

James Brandon said:
			
		

> There is a wider point here - and without meaning to be terribly pedantic! - about Latin/language. It does not matter very much that the expression is quite obviously Latin. Many French and other words are pronounced in a way that no native speaker would recognise in English - words get borrowed and the pronunciation adapted. (In fact, in Spanish, for instance, the spelling of English words is altered to suit Spanish phonetics, the end-result having to do very little with an English pronunciation - e.g.: 'futbol' for 'football', with a short 'u' and short 'o' sound that have nothing to do with the English /u:/ and long /o:/ as in 'ball', 'call', etc.) So, the argument of origin to determine pronunciation is not valid, in my view.


Pragmatically speaking, I agree with you. However, in your original post, you did not say you wanted the common pronunciation of English speakers. Since this is a multilingual forum, we naturally assumed you were asking for the Latin pronunciation.


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## James Brandon

Fair enough, but in fact I posted up my request for info on the English-only forum. (I was curious to know how lawyers use/pronounce the phrase.) The Post was moved by The Mods. 

To be honest, I would never ask how a word is pronounced in Latin for 2 reasons: (a) I did 6 years of Latin at school and rather liked it, but I cannot quite see the relevance of Latin phonetics to my life today (admittedly, a subjective point I am making here); (b) I do not believe we can tell how Latin was pronounced. 

If you think about it and you take, say, Europe's early medieval music, before a sophisticated system to write down the notes etc. was devised (part-guess here on my part since I am no specialist in this field) - all we have is vague written accounts of how the music sounded, and the instruments (or descriptions of those), often in fact later versions of those instruments that were remakes, as it were. We don't actually know how the music was played and what it sounded like. We can make an educated guess, that's all. The rest is down to re-interpretation and impressions. In other words, we don't know how the world sounded (music, language, etc.). We merely imagine it. 

To pretend that we can guess how Latin was pronounced is fair enough - also from Church songs etc. To say that we know on the basis of modern-day Romance languages, is, quite frankly, and to be blunt, preposterous, in my view.


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## Outsider

James, we can't be 100% sure how Latin was pronounced, but we _can_ be pretty sure about something like 80% of its features. There _is_ information. We don't 'know' anything about the past on a first hand basis, but that doesn't stop most people from believing that World War II actually happened, or that Americans actually landed on the Moon, either.


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## diegodbs

I'm not trying to be preposterous, but certainly no linguist that I know of has ever said that Latin vowels were pronounced the way that English, French or Portuguese vowels are pronounced.


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## James Brandon

So, how were they pronounced? More like Catalan, or Portuguese, or Italian? Which Italian language/dialect? You simply do not know. 

The parallel drawn with WW II is not rational or reasonable either, I am afraid. For a start, apart from the fact we have people who are alive and witnessed WW II, there are audio-visual records. That is precisely what we do not have for language at the time of Julius Caesar. 

You can guess and it can be an educated guess, and you can be 80% sure you know (which I doubt) - but it is still a guess and only that. You can say that you think you know - you cannot actually say that you know for sure.


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## Outsider

James Brandon said:
			
		

> The parallel drawn with WW II is not rational or reasonable either, I am afraid. For a start, apart from the fact we have people who are alive and witnessed WW II, there are audio-visual records. That is precisely what we do not have for language at the time of Julius Caesar.


So you only believe in a past event when it was caught on film?

That's the trouble with Latin courses that don't teach how to speak: the students end up thinking that the pronunciation is arbitrary.  

James, before you talk anymore about what you do not know, I urge you to check out the following book:

W. Sidney Allen, _Vox Latina_ (1989)


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## James Brandon

I am sorry but I do know what I know and what I do not know. Having an MA in history and having done 6 years of Latin in school, I am not ignorant of the issues at stake here. Historical evidence is what is being discussed and assessed here. Regarding sounds and language as it was spoken centuries ago, the evidence is not _direct_ (e.g.: documents for printed words, recordings and films for events and sounds, etc.) but _indirect_ (i.e. a reconstitution and approximation). 

There is the same difference between the direct historical evidence relating to WW II on the one hand, the indirect evidence used to guess how Latin sounded on the other, as there is between the CCTV footage of a suspect (or his photo) and the reconstitution of what a dead man might have looked like on the basis of fragments of his skeleton found centuries later. The former is direct and reliable evidence; the second is indirect evidence, i.e. scientific guesswork. But it is still guesswork. (I am thinking here of archaeologists telling you what a person looked like on the basis of two bones and one tooth found in a tomb or a bog somewhere in Wales.) 

I rest my case, as lawyers say.


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