There's a pub in Sydney called the Löwenbräu Keller. Everyone pronounces the name "low-en-brow" (I don't know about phonetic spelling, but that's low as in the opposite of high and brow as in eyebrow), even people who should know better (such as the Austrian person I didn't go there with once, and the dude from my german class who managed the place for 7 years, and even Reto these days). Frankly, it's called the "low-en-brau" and if anyone tried to pronounce it properly no one would know where they were talking about*.
I was reading something the other day about german words in english, and how english speakers are abysmal at pronouncing a lot of them. Apparently we are quite good at saying "poltergeist", "gesundheit" and "kindergarten", but we fall down all over the place with "Porsche", "neandertal" and "Fahrvergnügen" (which apparently featured in a VW ad years ago, although possibly only in the USA. I don't know, but I do know that I have never heard anyone try to say it, correctly or otherwise).
I am willing to accept that we generally don't say "Porsche" properly. It's a business, or more importantly a proper noun, and as such, in my opinion, we should pronounce the "e" and try to say its name as it was originally intended (even though we then do run the risk of being misunderstood or thought of as wankers) . Obviously that is the complete opposite of what I apparently so heartily approved of in the first paragraph (that the Löwenbräu is the low-en-brow), but I am willing to admit that I am not only occasionally wrong but also occasionally inconsistent, and to not apologise for that at all.
The "neandertal" thing, however, is another matter entirely. The point in the thing I read was that "neandertal" is a german word and although we use the word in english (albeit possibly spelt slightly differently, ie. with an h. Apparently both spellings are acceptable in english, incidentally, but I have never seen it without an "h" before) but we don't pronounce it properly like the german-speakers do. Umm, that would be because it is not a german word any more, I say. I mean, obviously it is a german word, but it is also an english word now as well, and once a word has been adopted into a new language, I really think that the new language people should be able to pronounce it as the general rules of their language dictate. And that means with a "th" sound, in my opinion. Although apparently, according to that article I read, that means that I am not one of the "informed people", who all prefer the germanic-type pronunciation.
Any opinion?
* Possibly a slight exaggeration, but you get my point.
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5 comments:
i agree. once a word becomes "internationalised", the people whose language it has now entered should be able to pronounce it according to their own rules of pronunciation (or to preserve the original pronunciation if they like).
i would posit the completely baseless theory that the more "foreign" a word looks/ is spelt the more likely we are to pronounce it correctly in english. we wouldn't know any way of pronouncing it otherwise, so we take on the native pronunciation. but if it looks like an english word, or a word that could easily be pronounced according to english rules of pronunciation, then it's quite natural that we would want to pronounce it that way. this is, i suppose, why people can pronounce "weltanshauung" and "schadenfreude" better than they can pronounce "angela merkel".
as for company names like porsche and nike (mentioned in the article), i couldn't really give a shit how many people mispronounce them.
Isn't the problem with Löwenbrau that there's no equivalent to german/danish vowels in english? There's no ä, ö(or the danish equivalent æ, ø).
Löwenbrau is actually not pronounced low-en-brau.
Löwen means lion('s) and brau means brew. So it'd be more correct with lowen-brau. However - the ö-sound is closer to the vowel-part of blurp or burp - the "ur"-sound, without rolling of the r, making it more short and abrubtly cut.
So Lur(-r)wen-brau.
- btw, I can pronounce fahrvergnügen properly (which I believe means joy of driving, or driving pleasure)
- feels like I am trying to teach Kim danish again... hehe
It occurs to me that I have never and would never pronounce "Porsche" with the e sound. I might have to rethink my rules.
And yes, I agree, Nick. It's the wacky vowel sounds that are the problem. All those dots and lines and things are confusing.
Gee I thought it was pronounced 'loof en broy'.
As for Porsch-a -- I Adrienne Goehler ('Berlins former senator for Arts and Science') say it that way at an interesting talk called Liquid Cities last week, comparing the cultures of Berlin and Sydney. I'm sure the audience (1100 of them) will now go around correcting people 'No no, it's Porsch-a, you pleb', or similar.
Language, according to voice artist Laurie Anderson, is a virus.
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