I think this is true. At first it would be “Dude - who?!” and then, because it sounds like a funny, throat-clearing pronunciation, there would be some awkward silliness “really?! Van Ghochhhhh?! No way!?!?” with an attempt to make the other person seem foolish. But, over time, a bit of “hmmm, maybe I am the clueless, Yank-o-centric boob here” creeps in, followed by trying out that more Euro/cosmopolitan pronunciation in a variety of settings, followed by teasing by their U.S. friends, followed by simply getting okay with the fact that we pronounce it one way here but folks do it differently in other countries, so quit trying to be what you’re not and enjoy the variety.
To bs more precise, trying to pronounce it in the authentically Dutch manner would strike one as pretentious. “Van Goff” would sound at first like a joke. The first time I heard it, I thought my leg was being pulled.
To be sure, there’s no /ff/ sound in there, so Goff does not really approximate the real pronunciation. As was indicated above the correct Dutch pronunciation has both /g/ and /gh/ as a guttural, and a short /o/ sound (to rhyme with something between hut and hot) so that’s what I say when I speak Dutch, but when speaking English I would not do that, and just go with Ven Go. Makes things a lot easier I find.
I guess I’ll just have to make sure to avoid the name entirely next time in the US, then, because there’s no way I’ll remember to change by pronounciation to fit in.
Luckily, it’s not something that comes up in conversation very regularly.
I can understand the fact that the name has been anglicized (as with many other words containing guttural sounds) to alleviate pronunciation for most English speakers, but why is it seen pretentious to attempt to pronunce somebody’s name correctly? Would a Dutchman be treated that way in the states?
What about a Ukrainian pronouncing the word ‘borscht’ without the ‘T’, or a Lebanese asking for hummus with a guttural ‘H’? Do you get a pass for pronouncing a name correctly when it originates from your native language?
From my point of view it is because it creates an unnatural break in the flow in speech. I’ve had to deal with it since learning a second language (Swedish), which I work in these days. If I refer to London in Swedish I don’t adjust my pronunciation to a flatter English-style and say “Luhn-Duhn”, I go with the flow of the sentence and pronounce it like a Swede, “Lon-Don”. Similarly, despite knowing that the place is called Göteborg and being able to pronounce it, I still say “Gothenburg” if speaking English, because saying something like “I was in Göteborg last weekend” seems a bit precious, a bit “ooh, look at me, I know the correct name”.
*Almost *thirded, I usethe same sound for the start and finish :
faŋˈxɔx
Fun gh-o-gh
That first bit is as important as the guttural G, BTW. It’s pronounced “Fun” like the House, not “Van” like the vehicle. “Van” + xɔx sounds even more wrong to me than “Fun” + go does.
It actually comes out of my mouth as Ven xox, (the hard h sound in loch) very close to the Dutch way, but I’d change it to Van Gox so that people around me would understand who I meant.
I don’t think the comparison is apt though, because you’re comparing a local and a foreign name for a place (compare with Nihon/Japan). Both Gothenburg and Göteborg are proper names for the city in question, depending on the language being used. Likewise, when talking about the Swedish currency in English I (as a Swede) will call them ‘crowns’ instead of ‘kronor’, because using the plural conjugation ‘-or’ just doesn’t make sense in English.
van Gogh on the other hand was a person, and certainly would himself corrected anybody mispronouncing his name (as most of us do). ‘van Goff’ was simply not the man’s name.
Disclaimer: Until this thread I pronounced it ‘van Goch’, I now consider myself all the wiser.
And you know this how? The conceit that there is only one way to pronounce a person’s name is fairly recent. In the past, those whose lives and work took them across borders thought nothing of different people of different background not only using varying pronunciations, but entirely different forms as well.
That’s why I included my own (I am British) adoption of the Swedish pronunciation of “London” when I am speaking Swedish. Instead of insisting on a British pronunciation I go with the Swedish pronunciation despite being British myself, the reason being that using the “foreign” pronunciation is too jarring and ruins the flow of a sentence.
People mispronounce my name on a daily basis. Swedish is a fully Germanic language, so the Swedish pronunciation of Mark uses a short ‘a’ due to the two consonants after it. However, the British pronunciation is with a long ‘a’. I don’t think I have ever corrected anyone on the pronunciation.
It would be pretentious for a native English speaker who is speaking English in a native English accent to use a Dutch pronunciation fir a word that has a common pronunciation in English. It’s like changing your accent for one word, like the ridiculous way Oprah Winfrey insisted on pronouncing “Melbourne” in a pseudo-Australian accent but keeping her own accent for everything else.
Additionally, as Amanset says, it causes a notable break in the flow of speech. Either you’re readjusting your mouth to change all the phonemes for one word, or, more likely, you are falling into a never-never land of pronunciation, whichIs correct neither in English nor in Dutch.
Take out the word “correctly” and you’ve got it. If you are Ukranian and you speak English with a Ukranian accent, then all your native pronunciations are valid.
How Recent? Van Gogh died barely more than a century ago, hardly enough time (IMHO) for his name to become a word disassociated with his person.
And here, I believe, is where our difference lies. Your first name has a local equivalent, and leads to little ambiguity. If you have a common Nordic surname (like Anderson) I’m sure you’d put up with the Swedish pronunciation of it, and possibly the localized spelling as well (with a double ‘S’). On the other hand, with a purely Anglo-Saxon surname such as ‘Black’, I think you’d prefer to keep the English pronunciation, as it would become a very different name in Swedish.
But as this thread clearly shows, there is no common English pronunciation of his name.
My view on that is If the place has a proper name in English (the only place in Sweden that has by the way), why on Earth do some people use the Swedish name when speaking English?
That is just as silly as if we would, for some reason, say pound instead of pund, especially when people write kroner instead of kronor.
ETA If I hadn’t read this thread and heard a Brit or an American pronounce van Gogh (which I think I have never had) I would probably have no idea what person they were talking about as the Swedish pronunciation is Gog.
My full name is Samantha; lots of people in other countries can’t pronounce the ‘th’ and I don’t correct them. They also often prefer to call me Samantha because Sam to them is indisputably a man’s name.
Two common British pronunciations, not one - Van Goff and Van Gox/Goch (lots of people in the thread have mentioned the latter pronunciation). So that’s three. I’d say it’s fair to say there’s no consensus on the ‘right’ pronunciation.
I am an American, so it’s Van Go. I figured I wasn’t pronouncing it way Vincent himself said it, but I was under the wrong impression that the English speaking world was united. I wasn’t disabused of this notion until I heard Richard Thompson’s song, “Outside of the Inside,” where he pronounces it Van Goff. Now I learn there are more English ways and none are really that close to the original.
