'Mueller' as US surname - dealing with the Umlaut
halcombe
Bill Mueller.
Whose surname is (apparently) pronounced 'Miller'.
Which evidently involves a surprising touch of erudition: to know that
'Mueller' is the (old-fashioned) representation in English of the
German Müller; and that that is the German for 'miller'.
Was it common for 'Müller's to adopt this spelling on settling in the
US (rather than going straight to 'Miller')? Do most people know to
pronounce it 'Miller' rather than 'Mew-ler', or some such?
Are there other immigrant surnames that got a similar treatment (ie,
remaining more or less in their original form, but being pronounced -
not doubt after some period of acclimatisation - in the same way as
the English equivalent or translation of the name?)
[Am I right in supposing that the use of 'e' to mark a Umlaut-ed (?)
German vowel is now passé?
Some very sketchy nosing around via Google, using the name of the
current German Chancellor, suggests (with no reliability at all) that
(a) British news sources seem to prefer the Umlaut (Guardian,
Financial Times);
(b) US sources prefer the 'e' (Washington Post, NY Times);
(c) generally, on the Web, 'e' is preferred (12k Umlauts on 'English
pages' (not a foolproof filter), against 40k 'e's.
As far as pronunciation is concerned, and getting away even further
from what could reasonably be dignified by the word 'research', it
seems to me that, in general, the Chancellor (however his surname is
spelt) gets his Umlaut (rhyming with (RP) 'burr' rather than 'throw')
on UK TV and radio.
The other Umlauts may not be so fortunate.
Only 'a' I can think of offhand is Grand Admiral Räder - who will be
pronounced 'raider' both because of his age (he was dead well before
the Umlaut was much seen in English) and its neat coincidence with his
occupation.
The only 'u' ditto is Martin Büber (the philosopher) - who Google
suggests is not present on the Web in English except with his Umlaut!
Pronunciation? The only one of the 'Umlauts' without a reasonably
close native approximation - first syllable to rhyme with 'few'?]
That's enough Umlauts. Ed.
Sebastian Hew
> [Am I right in supposing that the use of 'e' to mark a Umlaut-ed (?)
> German vowel is now passé?
I don't know about passé, necessarily. It is simply a variant where the
diæresis is not available. For instance, I know a Bühler, who has it on
his name-plate with a diæresis, but, on a plane ticket, where the
diæresis is not used, his name was spelt 'Buehler'.
Goethe, I believe, is usually so spelt, without the diæresis.
> Some very sketchy nosing around via Google, using the name of the
> current German Chancellor, suggests (with no reliability at all) that
>
> (a) British news sources seem to prefer the Umlaut (Guardian,
> Financial Times);
>
> (b) US sources prefer the 'e' (Washington Post, NY Times);
>
> (c) generally, on the Web, 'e' is preferred (12k Umlauts on 'English
> pages' (not a foolproof filter), against 40k 'e's.
I suspect this preponderance of e's is a result of technological issues,
i.e., it is difficult to type the umlaut on English keyboards, and, some
systems cannot display such characters. For instance, Chinese systems
typically do not have such diacritical accents in their character sets.
Sebastian.
Aaron J. Dinkin
> Just watching the Cubs-Cards game. In the line-up for the Cubs is one
> Bill Mueller.
>
> Whose surname is (apparently) pronounced 'Miller'.
<snip>
> Was it common for 'Müller's to adopt this spelling on settling in the
> US (rather than going straight to 'Miller')? Do most people know to
> pronounce it 'Miller' rather than 'Mew-ler', or some such?
I think there's a fair number of Muellers in the US who do pronounce it
"Mew-ler" rather than "Miller".
> Are there other immigrant surnames that got a similar treatment (ie,
> remaining more or less in their original form, but being pronounced -
> not doubt after some period of acclimatisation - in the same way as
> the English equivalent or translation of the name?)
I know someone whose surname is "Siracusa", pronounced "Syracuse".
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
John Hall
wrote:
{some interesting material about [non-Anglo etc names] represented in
English).
I have been slightly involved in creating/working-with people
databases (e.g. for conferences etc.) People's names are a minefield.
Apart from needing characters/glyphs that are not available, there are
other challenges...
Some people give their name as "Last-name, First-name", others as
"First-name, Last-name". Or pre-register with f/l and show up at the
desk as l/f.
The French have recently (I think) adopted the practice of writing the
Family-name in UPPER_CASE, so first/last or last/first is no problem.
But their Saint's name might be, with two "first names" (aka
"Given-name(s)").
Spanish people often have "two last names": patronymic(?) and
Matronymic(?). I think they are in the phone directory by Father's.
Muslims may not be amused to be asked for their "Christian name".
IIRC, several years ago about 60% of Swedes were named Johnsson,
Jansson or Hansson and a few others.
(No nitpicking please, I'm illustrating the principle).
Their government set up some kind of deal to encorage many of them to
select new family names for themselves.
Now that the ISO has got dates sorted out, perhaps they'll tackle
names.
--
John W Hall <wweexxss...@telusplanet.net>
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
"Helping People Prosper in the Information Age"
J. J. Lodder
> [Am I right in supposing that the use of 'e' to mark a Umlaut-ed (?)
> German vowel is now passé?
No you are not.
Just look in any de.* newsgroup.
Muelller, Schroedinger, etc is even the preferred spelling,
usenet still being officially 7-bit ASCII.
And while message bodies usualy come through OK
there are still some newsservers around
that garble headers when in 8-bit.
The two spellings are completely interchangeable,
and both are correct.
Best,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
> On 28 Jul 2002 19:03:55 -0700, halc...@subdimension.com (halcombe)
> wrote:
> {some interesting material about [non-Anglo etc names] represented in
> English).
>
> I have been slightly involved in creating/working-with people
> databases (e.g. for conferences etc.) People's names are a minefield.
> Apart from needing characters/glyphs that are not available, there are
> other challenges...
>
> Some people give their name as "Last-name, First-name", others as
> "First-name, Last-name". Or pre-register with f/l and show up at the
> desk as l/f.
And then there are countries where names may have middle parts,
like in the Dutch.
These names invariably end up with at two alphabetizations,
and have their citation score halved.
Best,
Jan
Andreas Prilop
> The only 'u' ditto is Martin Büber (the philosopher) - who Google
> suggests is not present on the Web in English except with his Umlaut!
"Martin Buber" has no umlaut in his name.
--
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/plonk.txt
E-mail from .com addresses is automatically deleted.
Richard Fontana
On 28 Jul 2002, halcombe wrote:
> Just watching the Cubs-Cards game. In the line-up for the Cubs is one
> Bill Mueller.
>
> Whose surname is (apparently) pronounced 'Miller'.
I don't know from baseball, but that seems like an odd pronunciation to
me.
> Which evidently involves a surprising touch of erudition: to know that
> 'Mueller' is the (old-fashioned) representation in English of the
> German Müller; and that that is the German for 'miller'.
Quite!
> Was it common for 'Müller's to adopt this spelling on settling in the
> US (rather than going straight to 'Miller')?
I suspect so. It's my AmE impression that "Mueller" is a fairly common
American surname, though not nearly as common as "Miller".
> Do most people know to
> pronounce it 'Miller' rather than 'Mew-ler', or some such?
I think it's dead obvious that the default AmE pronunciation of AmE
"Mueller" is "Mewler" /mjulR/. This rendition of <ue> seems pretty
standard, though in certain names I can think of /jU/ or /u/ seem to be
used instead. But /I/? No way.
> Are there other immigrant surnames that got a similar treatment (ie,
> remaining more or less in their original form, but being pronounced -
> not doubt after some period of acclimatisation - in the same way as
> the English equivalent or translation of the name?)
I suppose it depends on how you define "English equvalent or translation".
One possibility might be certain French surnames. Take that dictionary
guy, "Robert". I am told that "Robert" is not an uncommon French surname.
Well, you can be dead sure that any French immigrant to the US in
Yesteryear (not counting those who settled in strong
Francophone communities) with the surname "Robert" would be fairly likely
to settle on or otherwise accept the Anglicized pronunciation /'rA bRt/
(or dialectal alternatives, e.g. ENENR /'rA' b@t/) in place of the native
French [g"obeg"] or whatever.
The opposite sometimes happens in recent times -- indeed that sort of
thing may now be more common. For example, I knew a native English
speaker who was born and raised in California whose name was "David" -- he
pronounced it /d@ 'vid/ and I believe he expressed some consciousness of
possessing French or Francophone roots.
> [Am I right in supposing that the use of 'e' to mark a Umlaut-ed (?)
> German vowel is now passé?
Not really; I still see this done. But it's less common now; I think it's
a bit easier today for the average Joe or Josie to create umlauted vowels.
I think that today it may be more likely for the umlaut dots to just be
omitted when the person doesn't know how to, or is unable to, make the
umlauted vowel.
> Some very sketchy nosing around via Google, using the name of the
> current German Chancellor, suggests (with no reliability at all) that
>
> (a) British news sources seem to prefer the Umlaut (Guardian,
> Financial Times);
>
> (b) US sources prefer the 'e' (Washington Post, NY Times);
>
> (c) generally, on the Web, 'e' is preferred (12k Umlauts on 'English
> pages' (not a foolproof filter), against 40k 'e's.
>
>
> As far as pronunciation is concerned, and getting away even further
> from what could reasonably be dignified by the word 'research', it
> seems to me that, in general, the Chancellor (however his surname is
> spelt) gets his Umlaut (rhyming with (RP) 'burr' rather than 'throw')
> on UK TV and radio.
>
> The other Umlauts may not be so fortunate.
>
> Only 'a' I can think of offhand is Grand Admiral Räder - who will be
> pronounced 'raider' both because of his age (he was dead well before
> the Umlaut was much seen in English) and its neat coincidence with his
> occupation.
>
> The only 'u' ditto is Martin Büber (the philosopher) - who Google
> suggests is not present on the Web in English except with his Umlaut!
> Pronunciation? The only one of the 'Umlauts' without a reasonably
> close native approximation - first syllable to rhyme with 'few'?]
I've generally heard AmE speakers pronounce that guy's name as
/mArt@n bubR/ (surname rhyming with "goober"), unless I was mishearing
them.
R J Valentine
...
} I think it's dead obvious that the default AmE pronunciation of AmE
} "Mueller" is "Mewler" /mjulR/. This rendition of <ue> seems pretty
} standard, though in certain names I can think of /jU/ or /u/ seem to be
} used instead. But /I/? No way.
There was a guy in my high-school class whose "Mueller" was pronounced
"MULLer" (['mVlR]), which made it a little rough for a few years on the
teacher whose "Mueller" was pronounced "MEWler" (['mjulR]) as the wave of
people who had known the student for years passed through the school.
On the other hand, I have relatives in Lorraine whose ancestral
"Mueller" (or the superscripted-e equivalent) was spelled "Muller" in
France, but pronounced like the German "Mueller".
On yet another hand, my godfather's ancestors' "Meunier" came to be
spelled and pronounced "Miller" in Canada.
On a related hand, my Munch kin originally had an umlaut, but it was just
dropped when they came to the USA. People who talked about them in my
lifetime rhymed it with "lunch", but I suspect they used a range of
pronunciations for a while.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Raymond S. Wise
news:Pine.GSO.3.95.102072...@facstaff.wesleyan.edu...
[...]
>
> I suppose it depends on how you define "English equvalent or translation".
> One possibility might be certain French surnames. Take that dictionary
> guy, "Robert". I am told that "Robert" is not an uncommon French surname.
> Well, you can be dead sure that any French immigrant to the US in
> Yesteryear (not counting those who settled in strong
> Francophone communities) with the surname "Robert" would be fairly likely
> to settle on or otherwise accept the Anglicized pronunciation /'rA bRt/
> (or dialectal alternatives, e.g. ENENR /'rA' b@t/) in place of the native
> French [g"obeg"] or whatever.
>
[g"ObEg"], as in the French word "robe" ( = "dress, robe" ), [g"Ob]. The
French pronunciation of "robot" has both "o" sounds: [g"Obo]. The male and
female versions of "Paul" curiously have two different "o" sounds: "Paul"
(male) is [pOl] and "Paule" (female) is [pol].
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Jerry Friedman
> The opposite sometimes happens in recent times -- indeed that sort of
> thing may now be more common. For example, I knew a native English
> speaker who was born and raised in California whose name was "David" -- he
> pronounced it /d@ 'vid/ and I believe he expressed some consciousness of
> possessing French or Francophone roots.
Can we blame Tony Dorsett (who I feel sure is mistaken) or was your
acquaintance first?
--
Jerry Friedman
Jonathan G. Ballard
halc...@subdimension.com (halcombe) wrote:
>
> Are there other immigrant surnames that got a similar treatment (ie,
> remaining more or less in their original form, but being pronounced -
> not doubt after some period of acclimatisation - in the same way as
> the English equivalent or translation of the name?)
>
Well, here in the southern half of Indiana, the folks who run the
Holiday World amusement park spell their name "Koch". It's pronounced
as "Cook" /kUk/ Not /kAtS/ or /kAk/. I knew someone in school that did
the exact same thing. I believe I've also ran into "Schumachers" (and
"Schumakers") pronounced as /Su meIk@r/.
Cheers.
J.G.B.
Jens Brix Christiansen
> The French have recently (I think) adopted the practice of writing the
> Family-name in UPPER_CASE, so first/last or last/first is no problem.
I have also wondered how old this custom was. Four years ago I was on
a bike trip in the Ardennes, and on a rainy morning I checked the
cemetery in little town of Mariembourg in the Francophone part of
Belgium. It had gravestones dating back to the 19th century, all of
them with names held in the style "Louis MEUNIER".
So it seems that this custom is not all that recent.
I once spent a few years working on projects partially sponsored by
the European Union, where this practical French-speaking custom has
been adopted more widely, so I actually for a while was the habit of
writing my name as Jens Brix CHRISTIANSEN.
Which reminds me: I have noticed that in Sweden the custom is to write
names of postal districts, not surnames, in capitals. But this is
getting too far off topic.
John Estill
<wweexxss...@telusplanet.net> wrote:
>On 28 Jul 2002 19:03:55 -0700, halc...@subdimension.com (halcombe)
>wrote:
>{some interesting material about [non-Anglo etc names] represented in
>English).
>
>I have been slightly involved in creating/working-with people
>databases (e.g. for conferences etc.) People's names are a minefield.
>Apart from needing characters/glyphs that are not available, there are
>other challenges...
>Spanish people often have "two last names": patronymic(?) and
>Matronymic(?). I think they are in the phone directory by Father's.
Not only Spaniards, but many (if not most) natives of Latin American
countries use this system. It can be a problem when, e.g., José
Alfredo Márquez Hernández applies for a driver's license here in the
States and finds that his name has been changed to Jose A. Hernandez.
Since, as you say, Hernández is the matronymic, José has just lost his
family name.
>Now that the ISO has got dates sorted out, perhaps they'll tackle
>names.
The date thing hasn't taken hold here, either.
Regards,
John
--
John Estill
Native English speaker (midwestern variety), español al estilo mexicano
Millersburg, Ohio, U.S.A.
Tony Cooper
"John Estill" <jmes...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:aflgkuk5a78qfk54s...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 29 Jul 2002 03:22:01 GMT, John Hall
> <wweexxss...@telusplanet.net> wrote:
>
> >On 28 Jul 2002 19:03:55 -0700, halc...@subdimension.com (halcombe)
> >wrote:
> >{some interesting material about [non-Anglo etc names] represented in
> >English).
> >
> >I have been slightly involved in creating/working-with people
> >databases (e.g. for conferences etc.) People's names are a minefield.
> >Apart from needing characters/glyphs that are not available, there
are
> >other challenges...
>
> >Spanish people often have "two last names": patronymic(?) and
> >Matronymic(?). I think they are in the phone directory by Father's.
>
> Not only Spaniards, but many (if not most) natives of Latin American
> countries use this system. It can be a problem when, e.g., José
> Alfredo Márquez Hernández applies for a driver's license here in the
> States and finds that his name has been changed to Jose A. Hernandez.
> Since, as you say, Hernández is the matronymic, José has just lost his
> family name.
How does he "find" his name has been changed? It's his option to keep
his name in whatever form he chooses. Since the custom is prevalent in
Puerto Rico, and Orlando has a large Puerto Rican population, I checked
"Rodriguez" in our phone book. There are six pages of Rodriguez's, and
many of the listings are double names like "Rodriguez-Torres". There's
only 2.5 columns of Marquez, but they include Marquez-Diaz and other
doubles.
I had an agent named Porfirio Rodriguez working for me in Puerto Rico.
One time, when I was there, I tried to look up his phone number. There
were several columns of Porfirio Rodriguez's, and without the matronymic
I couldn't determine which one I wanted. I had to call the office in
Orlando to get the number.
--
Tony Cooper aka: Tony_Co...@Yahoo.com
Provider of Jots & Tittles
David Tomkins
news:3d44a698$0$16940$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
> halcombe wrote:
>
> > [Am I right in supposing that the use of 'e' to mark a Umlaut-ed (?)
> > German vowel is now passé?
>
> I don't know about passé, necessarily. It is simply a variant where the
> diæresis is not available. For instance, I know a Bühler, who has it on
> his name-plate with a diæresis, but, on a plane ticket, where the
> diæresis is not used, his name was spelt 'Buehler'.
Strictly speaking I don't think it is correct to refer to the German umlaut
as a "diaeresis". A diaeresis indicates that a vowel is pronounced where it
otherwise would be silent or dipthongal -- e.g. noël, naïve, Zoë. OTOH an
umlaut serves to indicate an articulation of the vowel different from what
it otherwise would be. e.g. Müller -- If the umlaut wasn't there, the "u"
would still be pronounced (it is not silent or dipthongnal like "noel"
without the diaeresis), albeit differently.
DT
Richard R. Hershberger
>
> > Just watching the Cubs-Cards game. In the line-up for the Cubs is one
> > Bill Mueller.
> >
> > Whose surname is (apparently) pronounced 'Miller'.
>
> I don't know from baseball, but that seems like an odd pronunciation to
> me.
I agree that this is unusual. Being a German Lutheran, I have known
my share of Muellers over the years and they have always retained a
more-or-less German pronunciation. Of course during WWI a lot of
Muellers changed their name to Miller, but that is a different
situation.
>
> > Are there other immigrant surnames that got a similar treatment (ie,
> > remaining more or less in their original form, but being pronounced -
> > not doubt after some period of acclimatisation - in the same way as
> > the English equivalent or translation of the name?)
>
> I suppose it depends on how you define "English equvalent or translation".
>
> One possibility might be certain French surnames. Take that dictionary
> guy, "Robert". I am told that "Robert" is not an uncommon French surname.
> Well, you can be dead sure that any French immigrant to the US in
> Yesteryear (not counting those who settled in strong
> Francophone communities) with the surname "Robert" would be fairly likely
> to settle on or otherwise accept the Anglicized pronunciation /'rA bRt/
> (or dialectal alternatives, e.g. ENENR /'rA' b@t/) in place of the native
> French [g"obeg"] or whatever.
For that matter, what are the chances of an Englishman settling in the
U.S. who is surnamed "St. John" retaining the pronunciation? Even if
he does, what about his children or grandchildren?
Apurbva Chandra Senray
> Strictly speaking I don't think it is correct to refer to the German umlaut
> as a "diaeresis
Exactly what I was going to say, David.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Mon, 29 Jul 2002 03:22:01 GMT, John Hall
> >Spanish people often have "two last names": patronymic(?) and
> >Matronymic(?). I think they are in the phone directory by Father's.
>
> Not only Spaniards, but many (if not most) natives of Latin American
> countries use this system. It can be a problem when, e.g., José
> Alfredo Márquez Hernández applies for a driver's license here in the
> States and finds that his name has been changed to Jose A. Hernandez.
> Since, as you say, Hernández is the matronymic, José has just lost his
> family name.
A case in point from major league baseball. When the Rojas Alou
brothers of the Dominican Republic broke into baseball, they did so
with the last name of Alou, rather than Rojas.
Sometimes it goes the other way. When José Altagracia Gonzalez Uribe,
also of the Dominican Republic broke into the major leagues, he did so
as José Gonzalez. After a couple of years he decided that there were
"too many Gonzalezes" in the major leagues and announced that he
wanted to be called "Uribe". Unfortunately, this confused a number of
people, and for a few days, at least, he appeared to be officially
"Uribe Gonzalez" (no "José") before stabilizing on "José Uribe".
The prompted someone to quip that he was "truly the player to be named
later."[1]
[1] For the benefit of those who don't follow American sports, it's
common for teams to "trade" the contracts of players. Often, this
isn't one-for-one, the imbalance being made up by cash, future
draft picks, or "a player to be named later".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The misinformation that passes for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |gospel wisdom about English usage
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |is sometimes astounding.
| Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | of English Usage
(650)857-7572
John Estill
<tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"John Estill" <jmes...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
>news:aflgkuk5a78qfk54s...@4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 29 Jul 2002 03:22:01 GMT, John Hall
>> <wweexxss...@telusplanet.net> wrote:
>>
>> >On 28 Jul 2002 19:03:55 -0700, halc...@subdimension.com (halcombe)
>> >wrote:
>> >{some interesting material about [non-Anglo etc names] represented in
>> >English).
>> >
>> >I have been slightly involved in creating/working-with people
>> >databases (e.g. for conferences etc.) People's names are a minefield.
>> >Apart from needing characters/glyphs that are not available, there
>are
>> >other challenges...
>>
>> >Spanish people often have "two last names": patronymic(?) and
>> >Matronymic(?). I think they are in the phone directory by Father's.
>>
>> Not only Spaniards, but many (if not most) natives of Latin American
>> countries use this system. It can be a problem when, e.g., José
>> Alfredo Márquez Hernández applies for a driver's license here in the
>> States and finds that his name has been changed to Jose A. Hernandez.
>> Since, as you say, Hernández is the matronymic, José has just lost his
>> family name.
>
>How does he "find" his name has been changed?
By looking at his brand-new drivers license. In this neck of the
woods -- I'll bet your native Indiana isn't much different -- the
driver's license clerks don't know about this custom.
>It's his option to keep
>his name in whatever form he chooses.
Certainly it is. If he's like the hispanics around here, though, he
probably doesn't speak English well enough to get the point across; he
may also not want to make waves.
>Since the custom is prevalent in
>Puerto Rico, and Orlando has a large Puerto Rican population, I checked
>"Rodriguez" in our phone book. There are six pages of Rodriguez's, and
>many of the listings are double names like "Rodriguez-Torres". There's
>only 2.5 columns of Marquez, but they include Marquez-Diaz and other
>doubles.
It helps that the Puerto Rican custom is to hyphenate
patronymic-matronyic. (Strict grammatical correctness has been
sacrificed for the sake of clarity.) Do Cubans do the same, do you
know? Mexicans, for a counter-example, don't.
>I had an agent named Porfirio Rodriguez working for me in Puerto Rico.
>One time, when I was there, I tried to look up his phone number. There
>were several columns of Porfirio Rodriguez's, and without the matronymic
>I couldn't determine which one I wanted. I had to call the office in
>Orlando to get the number.
I believe that. We had a similar experience when, while on a trip to
Puerto Rico, we tried to look up a school chum of my brother's. We
had to report failure.
Sebastian Hew
> Strictly speaking I don't think it is correct to refer to the German
> umlaut as a "diaeresis". A diaeresis indicates that a vowel is
> pronounced where it otherwise would be silent or dipthongal -- e.g.
> noël, naïve, Zoë. OTOH an umlaut serves to indicate an articulation
> of the vowel different from what it otherwise would be. e.g. Müller
> -- If the umlaut wasn't there, the "u" would still be pronounced (it
> is not silent or dipthongnal like "noel" without the diaeresis),
> albeit differently.
Agreed.
Sebastian.
Robert Bannister
> "Sebastian Hew" <rada...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3d44a698$0$16940$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
> > halcombe wrote:
> >
> > > [Am I right in supposing that the use of 'e' to mark a Umlaut-ed (?)
> > > German vowel is now passé?
> >
> > I don't know about passé, necessarily. It is simply a variant where the
> > dięresis is not available. For instance, I know a Bühler, who has it on
> > his name-plate with a dięresis, but, on a plane ticket, where the
> > dięresis is not used, his name was spelt 'Buehler'.
>
> Strictly speaking I don't think it is correct to refer to the German umlaut
> as a "diaeresis". A diaeresis indicates that a vowel is pronounced where it
> otherwise would be silent or dipthongal -- e.g. noėl, naļve, Zoė. OTOH an
> umlaut serves to indicate an articulation of the vowel different from what
> it otherwise would be. e.g. Müller -- If the umlaut wasn't there, the "u"
> would still be pronounced (it is not silent or dipthongnal like "noel"
> without the diaeresis), albeit differently.
Moreover, in handwriting and a a very few good fonts, they don't even look the
same: a diaeresis is definitely two dots, an Umlaut mark consists of two
short, vertical strokes which were originally (as I have posted before in aue)
an 'e' in old German handwriting - it looks vaguely like a very small, spiky
'N'.
http://www.mun.ca/rels/morav/pics/tutor/mscript2.html
(Thanks to Skitt for the url)
--
Rob Bannister
Richard Fontana
On 1 Aug 2002, Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> For that matter, what are the chances of an Englishman settling in the
> U.S. who is surnamed "St. John" retaining the pronunciation? Even if
> he does, what about his children or grandchildren?
Slim to none.
There was a scene in the 1990s BrE film _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ (a
favourite of Tony Cooper's from what I understand) that
indicated to me that in the UK itself both /'sIN ,dZIn/ and /seInt dZA.n/
are found, though I'd imagine that the "Sin-jin" pronunciation is
considered more "proper".
Jonathan Jordan
an upper class thing, but I'd regard it as an upper class name. I don't
actually know of anybody having the name and using the /seInt dZA.n/ form.
Jonathan
Richard Fontana
On Sat, 3 Aug 2002, Richard Fontana wrote:
> There was a scene in the 1990s BrE film _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ (a
> favourite of Tony Cooper's from what I understand) that
> indicated to me that in the UK itself both /'sIN ,dZIn/
Sorry, that should have been /sIn dZIn/ .
Donna Richoux
> Richard Fontana <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.3.95.102080...@facstaff.wesleyan.edu...
> >
> > On 1 Aug 2002, Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> >
> > > For that matter, what are the chances of an Englishman settling in the
> > > U.S. who is surnamed "St. John" retaining the pronunciation? Even if
> > > he does, what about his children or grandchildren?
> >
> > Slim to none.
> >
> > There was a scene in the 1990s BrE film _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ (a
> > favourite of Tony Cooper's from what I understand) that
> > indicated to me that in the UK itself both /'sIN ,dZIn/ and /seInt dZA.n/
> > are found, though I'd imagine that the "Sin-jin" pronunciation is
> > considered more "proper".
> >
> More /'sIndZ@n/ ("sinjan" rather than "sing jin"), I think,
Actually, I would spell out /'sIndZ@n/ as "sinjun". Wouldn't you?
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Jonathan Jordan
Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1fguqzu.1dbqyisqou4v0N%tr...@euronet.nl...
thing - I know that some Americans do.
Actually, any of "sinjan", "sinjen", "sinjin", "sinjon" or "sinjun" could
suggest the appropriate "short" vowel in the second syllable. This is one
of the (many) reasons that I don't like eye-dialect and ad hoc respellings
to get pronunciations across - there's no good way to write a schwa. Maybe
"sinjn" would have got the message across better.
When I posted the original message, I forgot to say that the abbreviated
form "St." is almost always /sInt/ in BrE, so it's highly unlikely that "St.
John" would ever be /seInt dZA.n/. The scene in "Four Weddings and a
Funeral" is a joke.
Jonathan
Aaron J. Dinkin
> Jonathan Jordan <jonatha...@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> More /'sIndZ@n/ ("sinjan" rather than "sing jin"), I think,
>
> Actually, I would spell out /'sIndZ@n/ as "sinjun". Wouldn't you?
Would you pronounce "sinjan" differently than "sinjun"?
