Beethoven

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Hi,Here is a question that is kind of "half-English half-German"... (I realize this is an English forum but could somebody please help me with this anyway?)(1) Albert Eistein. Fahrenheit. etc.In German names (meaning the way English speakers pronounce them!), EI always produces the diphthong [-ai-].Is this guess correct?(2) BeethovenWould it be correct to say that EE always produces the diphthong [-ay-] ( like in bay, May) in German names?mus-te

Elanguest · Accepted Answer

Not exactly. Baytoven is a not-too-correct English pronunciation of a German word. The e is actually more like the diphthong ay minus the y part, if that makes any sense. The extra e just lengthens the duration of the vowel.

MUSCOVITE · Answer

Thanks Elanguest!

What I have been looking for is (kind of ) a hard and fast rule "governing" the way most native Enlish speakers pronounce Beethoven and similar (German) family names with 'ee' inside.
There must be quite a few celebrities of German descent in the US (and maybe in the UK and elsewhere) whose family names have "ee" in them. Can you think of any? We might then see HOW their familty names are actually pronounced by other Americans?

CalifJim · Answer

MUSCOVITEThere must be quite a few celebrities of German descent in the US (and maybe in the UK and elsewhere) whose family names have "ee" in them. Can you think of any?

No, I can't. In fact, is the "ee" that common even in German surnames? Wasn't the Beethoven family from somewhere west of Germany originally, maybe from the Netherlands? Who knows how many generations of them had lived in Germany before Ludwig was born?

Most German surnames I know of in the U.S. have "ie" or "ei", not "ee". And in any case, the same surname can be pronounced in more than one way depending on the family. Some Schroeders say /'?ro?d?/; others say /'?re?d?/.

CJ

MUSCOVITE · Answer

Thank you so much CalifJim!

CalifJimAnd in any case, the same surname can be pronounced in more than one way depending on the family. Some Schroeders say /'?ro?d?/; others say /'?re?d?/.

Well, even the most common Russian surname Ivanov (Ivanoff) can be pronounced differently (either [iva'nof] or [i'vanof]

Seriously, before we close this micro-thread, do the following "German" words have alternative pronunciations in modern English?

Fahrenheit (only [-ai-])
Reuters (only [-oi-])

On a different note (before I forget).
I was asked the other day why
(1) height is pronounced with [-ai-], whereas
(2) weight, freight etc. use the diphthong [-ei-]

Perhaps there are some good reasons for height to have a "special" pronunciation?

CalifJim · Answer

MUSCOVITE alternative pronunciations

You hear an unusual pronunciation only when the speaker has never heard the word and is just guessing from the look of the word on the page. For example, I have heard people read Reuters as "rooters", even though it's wrong. It's just that they don't even know what Reuters is.

MUSCOVITEFahrenheit (only [-ai-])Reuters (only [-oi-])

Yes.

MUSCOVITE1) height is pronounced with [-ai-], whereas(2) weight, freight etc. use the diphthong [-ei-]Perhaps there are some good reasons for height to have a "special" pronunciation?

The reason is probably buried somewhere in the history of the English language. I don't know any of the details of those historical developments. Nevertheless, "eigh" is 'always' AY. weigh, weight, sleigh, neighbor, eight, .... There are two exceptions: height and sleight. Note that "sleight", meaning "trickery", is almost never used except in the expression "sleight of hand". "slight" (same pronunciation) is used in expressions like "a slight headache".

Additionally, note that the "e" is silent in the final "feit" of "surfeit", forfeit", and "counterfeit", so these unstressed syllables are all said as "fit".

CJ

Elanguest · Answer

American pronunciation of German surnames has a shaky history. A lot of the immigrants who came through Ellis Island ended up with funny transliterations of their surnames because the people working in registration didn't have any foreign language knowledge. Imagine an officer saying to someone "Name, please," and the immigrant says "Eisenburg." The officer might write Eisenburg, Aisenburg, Ajzenburg or any number of spellings. Sometimes if they couldn't understand, they would just make something up! A lot of Jewish immigrants just got labeled Cohen.

Elanguest · Answer

Additionally, some immigrants found that their name was constantly misread by Americans, and so they adopted alternate spellings or alternate pronunciations to avoid having to constantly correct them. Ibrahim to Abraham, Schroeder to Schroder,etc.

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