# How do you pronounce manlicher? (Austrian) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571 "2007-10-22T15:34:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/1 "2007-10-22T15:34:10Z")
How do you pronounce [Manlicher](http://www.a-human-right.com/steyrcarbine.html)? Also, one n or two? I’ve seen both. I’ve had one for years (used to have a C&R license), but I’ve never known how to pronounce it. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/2 "2007-10-22T15:43:09Z")
Huh, I’ve always said “Man-Licker”, and I’ve never gotten the look from other gun guys, but then again until I got something from HK I said “Heckler and Kotch” instead of “Cook”. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/3 "2007-10-22T15:44:17Z")
If it’s pronounced the normal German way, there are two sounds that aren’t found in English and so might be hard for you to pronounce: “a” and “ch”. The “a” is not like the “a” in the English word “man”, but more like a shorter form of the “a” in the English word “father” – but if you pronounce it like the “a” in “man” you’ll get away with it. The “ch” is like the sound in “loch” as pronounced by a Scottish person. ---
**Author:** ![Lionne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Lionne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lionne)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/4 "2007-10-22T15:57:47Z")
I googled and found several forums that asked the same question. They came up with Mahn-leak-air ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/5 "2007-10-22T16:03:57Z")
[QUOTE=Lionne] I googled and found several forums that asked the same question. They came up with Mahn-leak-air [/QUOTE] The middle syllable is more like English “lick” than English “leak” – and the ending consonant there is not a /k/, even though some English speakers use that because they find it the closest available sound. ---
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/6 "2007-10-22T16:31:11Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] If it’s pronounced the normal German way, there are two sounds that aren’t found in English and so might be hard for you to pronounce: “a” and “ch”. The “a” is not like the “a” in the English word “man”, but more like a shorter form of the “a” in the English word “father” – but if you pronounce it like the “a” in “man” you’ll get away with it. The “ch” is like the sound in “loch” as pronounced by a Scottish person. [/QUOTE] Is that the “a” as in bahn? What relatively common german word has the “ch” sound? I spent some time in Germany, but did not pick up much German, as I was mostly driving a Hummer or APC around the US military training areas. (I just learned the most important phrases: Ein hefe weissen bitte, and Wo ist de bahn?) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/7 "2007-10-22T16:39:40Z")
Google shows 164 hits for _Mannlicher clip_ vs. 19 for _Manlicher clip_, and similar ratios for _Mannlicher_ vs. _Manlicher_. From this I’d assume that “Mannlicher” is correct. As **Giles** noted, the German “a” is pronounced as _ah_. While that sound is found in English, the German “ch” is not. It’s a palatal, somewhat hard to describe clearly, but I would say produced with the back of the tongue pressed toward the top of the back of the mouth and a fair amount of airflow. Start by pronouncing “k” but then **don’t let the tongue actually touch the roof of the mouth**. It’s also sort of like pronouncing “k” when you’re drunk and slurring. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/8 "2007-10-22T16:41:25Z")
[QUOTE=masterofnone] Is that the “a” as in bahn? [/quote] Yes. > [@](#): > > What relatively common german word has the “ch” sound? Ich. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/9 "2007-10-22T17:25:50Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] The “a” is not like the “a” in the English word “man”, but more like a shorter form of the “a” in the English word “father” – but if you pronounce it like the “a” in “man” you’ll get away with it. . [/QUOTE] Actually the ‘a’ in English “man” is likely more nearly correct. Given typical German orthography and and phonology, the original spelling was probably “mannlicher” with an umlaut over the “a”–which is pronounced more like the ‘a’ in English “man”. Come to think of it, IIRC it’s somewhere between the vowel in “man” and “men”. Of course, how the owner of the name pronounces it trumps all, but others can’t always be blamed for mispronouncing a name if the owner’s pronunciation is way off base. (Don’t get my started on Mary Gauthier (pronounced go-SHAY)) . ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/10 "2007-10-22T17:33:00Z")
[QUOTE=Gary T] Yes. Ich. [/QUOTE] Interestingly, english ‘h’ followed by ‘u’ is almost identical to /ch/, though /ch/ is one of the sounds in German that we usually think don’t occur in English. Actually there are two /ch/ sounds, the “ach-laut” and the “ich-laut”. The former is like the final sound of Scottish “loch” and is truly absent from Standard English. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/11 "2007-10-22T19:07:27Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] Given typical German orthography and phonology, the original spelling was probably “mannlicher” with an umlaut over the “a”–which is pronounced…somewhere between the vowel in “man” and “men”. [/QUOTE] Good point. Hadn’t thought of that. > [@](#): > > Actually there are two /ch/ sounds, the “ach-laut” and the “ich-laut”. True. I was trying to keep it simple. I should have said “the ‘ch’ in this word…” ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/12 "2007-10-22T19:15:38Z")
/Mann/ -“Hey, Mon”, like a Jamaican /lich/- similar to “lish” but with an afterthought of Le **Ch** aim (Hebrew- 'To Life") /er/- er… umm… ---
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/13 "2007-10-22T19:17:35Z")
[QUOTE=Gary T] Yes. Ich. [/QUOTE] Cool, I think I get it now. The closest I can come phonetically would be monlischer, with the mon as in monacle or Jamaican mon. Sound right? ---
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/14 "2007-10-22T19:19:51Z")
[QUOTE=devilsknew] /Mann/ -“Hey, Mon”, like a Jamaican /lich/- similar to “lish” but with an afterthought of Le **Ch** aim (Hebrew- 'To Life") /er/- er… umm.. [/QUOTE] You beat me to it! ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/15 "2007-10-22T19:33:06Z")
[QUOTE=masterofnone] Cool, I think I get it now. The closest I can come phonetically would be monlischer, with the mon as in monacle or Jamaican mon. Sound right? [/QUOTE] If the “a” had no umlaut, yes. If, as **Spectre of Pithecanthropus** suggested, the “a” had an umlaut, _menlischer_ would be closer. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/16 "2007-10-22T19:54:21Z")
Yea, with an umlaut it would sound like “main-lisch-er”. You can get away with pronouncing the German “ch” like an American “sch”, as there are some dialects of German that don’t emphasize the gutteral. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/17 "2007-10-22T20:10:59Z")
[QUOTE=Gary T] If the “a” had no umlaut, yes. If, as **Spectre of Pithecanthropus** suggested, the “a” had an umlaut, _menlischer_ would be closer. [/QUOTE] I agree that the word looks as if it should have an umlaut but it doesn’t. One thing that’s important is the length of the “a”. In German there are two versions of the vowel in “father”. One is short and the other is long but otherwise they are exactly the same. In this case it should be the short version. ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2007, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/18 "2007-10-23T06:06:03Z")
Yeah, I wanna say that word has an umlaut, too, since there is a perfectly good German word, ‘männlich’ (“masculine, manly”). Its pronunciation is something like “MEN-lish”, with that last ‘sh’ sounding something like the ‘h’ in ‘huge’ — sort of an ‘h’ and a consonant ‘y’ (as in ‘Yoda’) pronounced at the same time. But, if it doesn’t have an umlaut (and I have no idea if it does or not), you’d be better off saying ‘MON-lish-er’, the vowel in ‘mon’ being something like ‘bahn’, but ‘clipped’. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2007, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/19 "2007-10-23T06:51:08Z")
… there is always Cinna **bon**. The a is the o here. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2007, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571/20 "2007-10-23T13:31:02Z")
The rifle is indeed a Mannlicher (and a Mannlicher was used to kill J. F. K) I would not reccomend you pronounce it Mann as the Jamaican “Mon” - that’s also a egionalism and may sopund different from different people. Try this: “Mahn”. It’s a little drawn out and softened, bt it’s distinctly an soft A sound, not an O in any sense. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-manlicher-austrian/423571.md?page=2)