Andre Weil -- pronunciation?

[W Kenner Rawdon]

When I was a math major, long ago, 'Weil' was pronounced to rhyme with
'Vay.' His sister, Simone, was/is more widely known. Tracing her might be
a good lead to the pronunciation.

Tom McFarlane (thom...@netcom.com) wrote:
: How does one pronounce Andre Weil, in particular "Weil"?

: 1. Is the W pronounced as a V or W?
: 2. Is the L pronounced at all? (He was French)
: 3. Is the EI pronounced as AY or EYE?

: Thanks - Tom McFarlane

[Tom McFarlane]

I have received several responses via email to the original post, all of
which agree that Andre Weil is conventionally pronounced Andray Vay.
Thank you to all those who responded.

Simone Weil, Andre's sister, is a philosopher well-known for her
religious writings. Paradoxically, I have been told by one of the
respondents that Simone's last name is conventionally pronounced Wile.
Can anyone confirm this odd disparity in pronounciation?

Thanks,
Tom McFarlane

[Tom McFarlane]

[Dan Moran]

I've personally known two of Andre Weil's six successful doctoral
students. Both of them referred to their mentor as

Vay-ee, with accent on first syllable.

D. Moran

[Lee Rudolph]

There is a present-day Frenchwoman who is a public figure of some sort
(politics? possibly philosophy?) whose given name is Simone and whose
family name is pronounced "Wile"--I forget how it's spelled, but maybe
"Weil" is right. She is, of course, not Andre Weil's well-known sister,
who's been dead for 50 years more or less. But perhaps this point
escaped that respondent.

Lee Rudolph

[Len Evens]

In article <thomasmcD...@netcom.com>,

Tom McFarlane <thom...@netcom.com> wrote:
>I have received several responses via email to the original post, all of
>which agree that Andre Weil is conventionally pronounced Andray Vay.
>Thank you to all those who responded.
>
>Simone Weil, Andre's sister, is a philosopher well-known for her
>religious writings. Paradoxically, I have been told by one of the
>respondents that Simone's last name is conventionally pronounced Wile.
>Can anyone confirm this odd disparity in pronounciation?
>

>Thanks,
>Tom McFarlane

My wife informs me that when she was in France in the middle 50s,
the French pronounced Simone Weil's last name as `Vay' or some
close approximation of that, not `Wile'. French speakers if
they thought the name was supposed to be German might pronounce
it something like `Vile' as in Hermann Weyl, but they would not
pronounce the `W' as an English `w'.

My self, I've never heard Simone's Weil's name pronounced any
differenly from her brother's name.

Leonard Evens l...@math.nwu.edu 708-491-5537
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208

[Baron]

Andre Weil is french (still alive, 91 years old)

Suppose you want to translate "Andre keeps awake" into french...
You will get: "Andre veille" (look at your best English-French
dictionnary)... So, "Andre Weil" is pronounced exactly as "Andre
veille"
Sylvain Baron (Paris, FRANCE)

[Gerry Myerson]

In article <3nt650$n...@panix.com>, lrud...@panix.com (Lee Rudolph) wrote:
=>
=> Tom McFarlane <thom...@netcom.com> wrote:
=> >I have received several responses via email to the original post, all
of
=> >which agree that Andre Weil is conventionally pronounced Andray Vay.

When I studied French in high school, I was taught to be CaReFuL; the
consonants in that word are the ones that *aren't* silent when they end
a word. By that mnemonic, Weil should be pronounced as the English words
veil and vale.

I guess you can't believe everything they teach you in high school.

[ibo...@metz.une.edu.au]

In article <3nt650$n...@panix.com> Lee Rudolph, lrud...@panix.com
writes:

>There is a present-day Frenchwoman who is a public figure of some
sort
>(politics? possibly philosophy?) whose given name is Simone and
whose
>family name is pronounced "Wile"--

By whom? Certainly not by the good woman herself
or by anyone else who is attempting pronounce it
correctly.

> I forget how it's spelled, but maybe

"W - E - I - L".
She was Minister for Edcuation or something like that at one stage.

[Josep M. Lopez]

If he's still alive someone could ask him.

The name looks German. If so, it should be pronounced something like "byle",
where the "b" is between an English "b" and the English "w" in "wood".
Anyway, according to my (bad) handy German dictionary, "weil" means "as" or
"because", which is strange for a name. Can any German speaker give some
further information?
The name could also be Flemish or Dutch. Can anyone from there say anything
about this?
--
_________________________________________________
Josep M. Lopez Besora jlo...@etse.urv.es
Universitat Rovira i Virgili TARRAGONA(Catalonia)
-------------------------------------------------

[Truett Smith]

ge...@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au (Gerry Myerson) writes:

You mean "parler" is pronounced like "parlor"! :-) So much for your
rule. By the way, that single "ell" in French is more like an uvular
liquid sound than the flapped "ell" of English which is alveolar. Think
of it as the word "veal" with the long E sound replaced by the AY sound.
Veil is quite close but the final ell sound is softer in French. And
finally, his first name should have an acute accent on the final e as in
Andr\'e.
--
Truett Lee Smith
Tandem Computers, 10100 N. Tantau Ave., LOC 251-04,
Cupertino, California 95014-2542

Home: (415) 961-3258 Work: (408) 285-6675
tru...@netcom.COM smith_...@tandem.com
7603...@compuserve.com

[Truett Smith]

<ibo...@metz.une.edu.au> writes:

If she was from the Alsace-Lorraine area, as my junior high French
teacher was, then she may very well give her surname a Germanic
pronunciation.

[Neurosurfer]

>> I forget how it's spelled, but maybe
>
>"W - E - I - L".
>She was Minister for Edcuation or something like that at one stage.

The last name is of Grman origin and is pronounced like vile.