Thanks!
With apologies to polite society but Kant=Cunt?
Really? “Kant” is a German last name, and A’s are generally pronounced “ah” in that case. For example, the phrase “Was ist das?” is (roughly) pronouced “Vahs iest dahss,” not “Vuhs iest duhss.”
And, IIRC, He-Evelyn’s first E is long; hers is short. *Eevlin, meet Evalin. *
How about dead painters?
I always heard VanGogh pronounced Van GO, but then I heard it pronounced Van Goff and lately I have heard it pronounced Van Gochhh (as in loch ness.) Which is it? Anyone know?
And I still want to know how to pronounce Goethe.
Kant in German is pronounced exactly the same way as cunt in English.
I think this may depend on what variety of English you speak. :dubious:
That’s true, of course. I have recorded an mp3 of me saying Kant, Goethe and Nietzsche. Does anyone know where I can upload it?
I think it’s GEE-teh (or possibly GEE-theh).
Here are some audio files:
The German pronunciation of Kant is much closer to this:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?cunt0001.wav=cunt
than to this:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?bixkan04.wav=Kant
Just go to m-w.com and look them up. There’s an audio pronunciation with each of those.
‘Moi’ is pronouced ‘mwa’.
I mention this because it will come in handy if anyone needs to say “Pretentious? Moi?”
Crap, I didn’t realize M-W had pronouns in the dictionary. Hah, it doesn’t contain Langewiesche, Ondaatje, or Coraghessan!
In German it sounds (to my ear) like Gur (like cur)- tuh.
No, it’s not, but it could easily be mistaken for that. As Lisa-go-blind says the german short a sounds basically like our “ah.” Thus Kant would sound approximately like “Kahnt.” A very clipped pronunciation could sound very similar to cunt, but it’s not supposed to.
Do you mean proper names?
Yeah, I knew someone would say that. I missed the edit window.
Please listen to the to m-w links I posted above. Are you saying that the way they say Kant there is the correct German way? If so, you’re wrong. It may be the preferable way of saying the name in English, but I’ve never heard anyone in Germany saying it like that. And I am German.
Everybody in Germany pronounces the name almost exactly like “cunt” is pronounced in the m-w link.
Almost: The stress is on the first syllable, making it KEER-kuh-gohr. The “gohr” is the same sound as in Al Gore - only shorter.
My philosophy professor at Uni. Hannover said it as “Kahnt”.
Possibly in other regions the middle “a” will have a different sound.