Alienvoord wrote:

Scorsese is pronounced score - say - zee The English pronuncations of these words are approximating the pronunciations in the languages they are from. Pacino and Scorsese are from Italian, Sean is from Gaelic. That's why their pronunciations are unusual.

I'm sorry for digging up this old thread, but I thought it'd be useless to start a new one.

Okay, I agree that Pacino is pronounced as pa-chee-no because it's an Italian name. But does Al Pacino use English letters to spell his surname in Italian too? I don't think so. So why isn't Pacino simply written as Pacheeno or Pachino in English to match its pronunciation? I believe even an English native won't be able to pronounce Pacino as pacheeno if s/he hasn't heard of Al Pacino before.

Hi Tanit

Thank you for such an informative and an interesting reply.

Best wishes, Jackson

Anonymous

“Actually guys Italian like Spanish spells its' words phonetically. Scorsaysee is more or less and American Italian invention its' not how the word should be pronounced.

Scor -se -se is actually the true prounciation of this LATIN word. In latin the e is never pronouced like the english long e but only as the short vowel e as eh - like egg or exit.
EE in italian is used by the letter i in which gives the long e vowel sound we know in English, ie Pacino - Pa Chee no.

The ScorSAYsee in Scorsese is most likely due to a missinterpretation of the Italian accent that colours certain vowel sounds.

But in Italian, Scorsese would sound like Scor SE se. Raising the tone of your voice and elongating the sound eh so that it sounds almost like a drawl (not an american drawl but a lazy e). Thank how an Italian would pronounce Luigi.

Whatever the correct phonetic sound of Scorsese it is NOT pronounced ScorSAYsee

”