# prima facie



## bmle

prima facie


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## Alfry

facie makes no sense.

where did you find it?


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## ElaineG

Prima facie is Latin (at first sight).  It is a legal term in English, but I won't bore anyone with the details unless anyone actually cares.


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## Frenko

It's used in giuridical contexts in italian too (with the same meaning)


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## walnut

I'm moving this thread to the Other Languages Forum.  Walnut


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## Outsider

"At first sight", or "at first glance".


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## ampurdan

A prima facie analysis of whatever is a shallow analysis. Literally, it means "at first face", because it's the face the first thing we look at whe we meet someone.


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## Howdy

Apologies for bumping up an old thread, but I was wondering what is the correct way to pronounce prima facie in authentic Latin?

Is it "pry-ma fay-shee", "pree-ma fay-see", "pree-ma fah-chi-ay"......?


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## natkretep

The traditional pronunciation, based on the older English style of pronouncing Latin is PRIGH-muh FAY-shi-ee. I think this is still common in American English. In the UK, I'm beginning other pronunciations more.


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## Kevin Beach

*Facie* _is_ Latin. It is the ablative of *facies* (meaning "face").

*Prima facie* literally means "on the first face" or, idiomatically, "at first sight".

In the English legal system, it is generally pronounced "prime-uh face-ee".

A "prima facie case" is a case that stands up to first scrutiny, i.e. it will win if not successfully challenged by contrary evidence.

There has been a move to remove Latin from English legal cases over the past 20 years, so "prima facie" is often replace by "at first sight".


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## Howdy

Yeah I know as much, Kevin, but as you said that's just how the English pronounce it.

Somehow I doubt "prime-uh face-ee" is what it really sounds like in Latin, not that I'd know any better...

Perhaps somebody who's studied the language can shed some light on this? (No offence intended, Kevin.)


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## brian

Kevin Beach said:


> In the English legal system, it is generally pronounced "prime-uh face-ee".



Is it really?!  Wikipedia gives /ˈpraɪmə ˈfeɪʃiː/, PRIME-uh FAY-shee, but I don't know if that's American or English or what.

In classical Latin it would be something like: PREE-mah FAHK-ee-eh, or /ˈprima ˈfakie/ or so.

In ecclesiastical Latin, I think it would be more like: PREE-mah FATCH-(i)-eh, or /ˈprima ˈfatʃie/, I think.

I've never had occasion to utter this, not being a lawyer or anything, but I've always pronounced it in my head like the classical Latin I wrote above. It's a bit shocking and hilarious that people actually say it like _facey_, but I suppose I wouldn't feel that way if I had grown up hearing it like that.


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## Kevin Beach

Howdy said:


> Yeah I know as much, Kevin, but as you said that's just how the English pronounce it.
> 
> Somehow I doubt "prime-uh face-ee" is what it really sounds like in Latin, not that I'd know any better...
> 
> Perhaps somebody who's studied the language can shed some light on this? (No offence intended, Kevin.)


None taken.

In classical Latin, so far as anybody can tell, it would have been pronounced *Preema Fakye* (with the -*ak-*  pronounced as in Modern English fl*ak and* the -*e* pronounced as in modern Italian).

In the post-classical period, best represented now by the Latin of the Catholic Church, it would be pronounced *Preema Fachye* (with the *-ach-* pronounced like *atch* in modern English *patch* and the *-e* pronounced as above). In other words, it would be pronounced as the Italians pronounce it.


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## Starfrown

According to what I have learned of classical pronunciation, I offer:

*ˈprē*-*mä* ˈfä-ki-*ā*

I have indicated the stressed syllables with preceding apostrophes, and bolded the long. Note that long syllables ought to be held for roughly twice the length of the short. 

There is some debate as to whether or not short and long "a" differed at all in quality; most books teach that they differ only in quantity.

When a consonant comes between two vowels in Latin, it is pronounced with the following vowel, not the preceding. Thus, the "c" in _facie_ is in the same syllable as the short "i," not the short "a."

Also note that the English long "a," represented phonetically above as ā, is not a perfect represenation of the Latin long "e," because the English long "a" is pronounced as a glide, or diphthong. As Keven pointed out, the Latin long "e" should be pronounced like the long, closed "e" of Italian (e.g. the middle "e" in _vedere_), which is a pure vowel.


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## prlily

As ar as I know, "pree-ma fah-chi-ay" is the correct Latin pronunciation.  English-speaking people tend to pronounce based on the phonetics of the English language as in "pry-ma fay-shee".


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## Starfrown

prlily said:


> As ar as I know, "pree-ma fah-chi-ay" is the correct Latin pronunciation. English-speaking people tend to pronounce based on the phonetics of the English language as in "pry-ma fay-shee".


 
I think you're giving the _ecclesiastical_ pronunciation.

The classical language did not have the soft "c" sound of Italian, which is pronounced like the English "ch" in "chair."  Latin "c" was always hard.

Also, "ay" represents the long "a" sound of English, which, as I pointed out above, is a diphthong.  The Latin long "e" was a pure vowel.


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## Fred_C

Salvete,
Sinite dem pronuntiatum alphabeto phonetico utens, quia nemo adhuc fecit :
/'pri:ma 'fa.ki.e:/ vel /'pri:ma 'fa.kje:/ Non enim arbitror scriptum anglicum bene aptum esse ad pronuntiatus notitiam recte explicandam.

Hi,
Please allow me to give the pronunciation in the phonetic alphabet, because nobody did :
/'pri:ma 'fa.ki.e:/ or /'pri:ma 'fa.kje:/. I do not think that English spelling is well suited to represent correctly a pronunciation.


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