# Pronunciación de "deus ex machina"



## Schenker

Hola a todos. Hace un día pregunté el significado de esta frase y ya me lo explicaron. Ahora me gustaría ,si es posible, saber como es pronunciación. 

Gracias.


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## Whodunit

Hola, 

que yo sepa, eso dicho se pronuncia como "dé-us eks máa-ki-naa:"

de - como el "*de*" español
us - como en "*us*ted"
eks - como en "*ex*igir", pero un poco más duro como en "La*chs*" en alemán.
maa - como en "*ma*dre", pero más larga
ki - como en "*quí*mica" (la 'ch' en latín se pronuncia con una ligera aspiración)
na - como en "*na*da"

PD: Las tildes sobre las vocales indican el acento.


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## Schenker

Gracias por la respuesta.

Saludos.


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             Re your: "us - como en "*us*ted"". I disagree because the "us" in the Spanish "usted" (as you will know from the Arabic "Ustaid") is, que yo sepa, a long syllable, whereas the "us" of "deus" is a short syllable, being nominative singular.
Re your" na - come en *na*da: Whenever I hear this word pronounced in Spanish, both "a"s are short, whereas both "a"s in "m*a*chin*a*" are (in this phrase) long by nature (ablative singular).

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             Sorry. I must apologise. Having consulted my Hans Wehr dictionary - which I should have consulted earlier - I see that the first syllable of the Arabic "Ustaid" is short after all. So please disregard my criticism above of "*us*ted". The "nada", however, still stands, as far as I can see.
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Outsider

Spanish does not have length distincions. All vowels are short.


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## virgilio

Outsider,
            Perhaps not but the question was about Latin and Latin does. Consequently it was important to get somewhere near a difference between short and long vowels, as Whodunit tried with "madre"(maa)". As Whodunit - who, I notice, is a student of Arabic - will know, Latin - like Arabic - has both long and short vowels.
The distinction in Latin is essential.
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> As Whodunit - who, I notice, is a student of Arabic - will know, Latin - like Arabic - has both long and short vowels.
> The distinction in Latin is essential.
> Best wishes
> Virgilio


 
Yes, you're right, but since Spanish - and I tried to compare with Spanish, because the thread starter's native language was Spanish - doesn't have long nor short vowel, only semi-long vowels (as far as I can tell), it's hard to use Spanish words and examples for Latin prunciation.


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## Outsider

And I would add that, in the present context, a perfect classical reconstructed pronunciation was probably not a requirement.

I've got into heated arguments about the pronunciation of Latin, but, really, nowadays I think we must acknowledge that there are several ways to pronounce Latin, and most people _will_ do it with some sort of accent. After all, there are no native speakers left to correct us.


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## virgilio

Outsider,
            You write:"a perfect classical reconstructed pronunciation was probably not a requirement."
But how "probably"? Is the man not entitled to the most accurate answer we can give? We may not achieve perfection, but there's no harm in aiming at it.

Re:"there are several ways to pronounce Latin, and most people _will_ do it with some sort of accent. After all, there are no native speakers left to correct us."
And even if there were, they too would have 'accents'. But it wasn't accents that I was talking about but vowel quantity, which in Latin - unlike many modern European languages - was an essential feature of Latin pronunciation, as is clearly apparent from Latin verse.

Virgilio


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## Outsider

But do we know that the aim of the original poster was to read Latin poetry with correct meter?


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## virgilio

Outsider,
           True but we don't know either that it wasn't. We don't know what the reason for his inquiry was. Even if it had nothing whatever to do with Latin verse (I know little or nothing about poetry!), so what?
Unless and until the inquirer chooses to modify or limit his inquiry, why should we not pay him the compliment of taking him seriously? 
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

Let me tell you how we (in Germany) have learned to pronounce the words in the phrase given:

deus - as if it were "day" (EN) + "ous" (EN: notori*ous*)
ex - like the English "ex"
machina - as if it were "mu" (EN: *mu*m) + "shee" (*shee*ny) + "nu" (*nu*t)

That would be considered wrong, but no one knows for sure! The pope says "vici" like in Italian, I've learned it as "vichi" (Italian pronunciation rules). The vowel length in "deus" is not that important other than in "exercit*us*".


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             Re your:" That would be considered wrong, but no one knows for sure!" A little philosophical problem.
How can it be known that "no-one knows"? 

Vigilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> How can it be known that "no-one knows"?
> 
> Vigilio


 
Assuming that you're referring to the fact that no one can prove whether or not my thesis was true and not to the philosophical meaning of _no one can know _(cf. epistemology), I can tell you that there are no audio recordings available that are able to tell use which pronunciation is correct.

No one knows for sure which pronunciation is the one the Romans used. The ones we use today are only reconstructed by scholars.


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             Re:"I can tell you that there are no audio recordings available that are able to tell use which pronunciation is correct.
No one knows for sure which pronunciation is the one the Romans used. The ones we use today are only reconstructed by scholars." 

You can tell me - and, if I had to bet one way or the other, I would bet that you were right.
Aber meiner meinung nach würde es sich für uns beide um eine Wette behandeln.

Nicht wahr?

Best wishes
Virgilio


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