latin - can anyone help me out?

[hockeyshmockey10 0]

i recently was looking through a photo album from my grandfathers life. he past away last year, and i wanted to just see if there was any interesting photos.

i came across one which shocked me, he had a tattoo on his arm. i can (i think) make out exactly the spelling. i was wondering if anyone could give me a definition for it and a pronunciation.

"vinco vici victum"

[crutesie 0]

the definition - conquer, overcome, master, win, surpass, excel.

[Allsmokenopancake 0]

I think roughly translated it's "Conquer, Overcome and Excel"

Although there are variants of it such as Conquer, Overcome, Master

Some say that the Vinco means Victory rather than Conquer, but I am not a master at latin, so will defer to those who know.

Was your grandfather in the military, that sounds like an army tat from back in the day

[Jason Harris 31]

The 'V' is pronounced like a 'W'

[Chadd 916]

The 'V' is pronounced like a 'W'

V and W together is pronounced "re-call".

[hockeyshmockey10 0]

anyone could give me like a pronunciation via internet...

[Allsmokenopancake 0]

The 'V' is pronounced like a 'W'

Are you sure. One of the latin songs/hymns we had to learn in school was "veni creator spiritus"

And it was a V not a W sound.

Veni Creator Spiritus

Ments Tuorum Visitas

Both words (though my spelling may be off here, its been about 15 years) were pronounced with the V sound

If I had to hazard a guess at the pronounciation I would say

vinco = Vink Ohh

vici = Vee Chee

victum = Vick Tomb

[RadioGaGa 162]

I had an English teacher in College who read Vini Vidi Vici

as...

Win-ee weed-ee week-ee

[Jason Harris 31]

It depends on the use of the V. In his case, it would be a W.

I found this on the Net: "<V> was, depending on the stress, pronounced as [u:] in "goose" or in "you" in English, but probably with more lip-rounding and backing, resembling an [o:] at times. Even in the upper class, it was a frequent spelling mistake of nobles to write <O> when they should have written <V>. Important to note is that a <V> followed by another vowel is usually pronounced [w]. In most Latin transcriptions, this will be shown by actually using a <v> and making the difference clear by using the <u> for the real vowel."

It's been almost 30 years since I took Latin, but my guess would be: Wink-ko, Week-EE, Wick-Tum.

Radio, I recall being taught that "Vini" was pronounced the same as the other two words: Ween-ee.

That was a famous quote attributed to Caesar after he returned from the wars: "I came. I saw. I conquered."