I can’t speak to Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish, because I don’t know their phonologies well enough, but as to English, German, and French –
German ö indicates - [ø] before a single consonant or h or [œ] before a double vowel
French eu or œ indicates [ø]
However, in general rhotic American English, “burner” is [bɝnɚ] and in British English RP it’s [bɜnə]. Very different vowel. In some English accents, you could see the rounded [ø] popping in here, especially in northern England and the Antipodes, but not in the standard American and British accents.
German’s ä is [ɛ], which in standard American English and British RP is the vowel in bet, let, set, get, met, jet, pet, etc.
But the [æ] vowel is different. It’s lower (“flatter”). It’s used in bat, sat, Gatt, mat, pat, can, etc.
If you’re matching the German a-umlaut tomthe vowel in “can” it’s possible you’re shifting the “Ken” vowel up to [e], which manifest as a diphthong in standard American English and British RP.
No, the reason is our pronunciation of Swedish is different from our pronunciation of English.
Both cans are pronounced the same, but can and can’t have two distinctly different sounds.
True, but that’s the closest approximation I can get. There is the same difference in Swedish pronunciation, too, between ‘ör’ and ‘ö+whatever’, except for some cases where an original ‘ör’ has turned into ‘öl’.
It’s the other way round. can is a fair approximation of the pronunciation of ‘ä’. Ken has got nothing to do with it.
I take it you mean that “(BE) can’t and (AE) can’t have two distinctly different sounds.”
ETA: I’ve alwayd had problems with metal bands using the umlaut for no apparent reason. To me, “Mötorhead” should be pronounced “Møtørhead” (think Peter Sellers in "Pink Panther), and “Hüsker Dü” is really, really weird, since “husker du” means “do you remember” in Scandinavian
Darn, missed some stuff when I tried to make the edit window. The last sentence should read “To me, “Mötörhead” should be pronounced “Møtørhead” (think Peter Sellers’ “a bøømb” in “Pink Panther”), and “Hüsker Dü” is really, really weird, since “husker du” means “do you remember” in Scandinavian”
One of the worst cases of umlaut abuse I know is when Swedish brewery Pripps (now in the Carlsberg group) tried to introduce a beer on the international market called “Nördik Wölf”. :smack:
My gf has a friend with this last name. She pronounces it kinda like “Beaner” but not exactly. So her friends all call her “Beaner”. Which almost led to a problem when we saw her at a music festival and my gf yelled, “Hey Beaner!”.
And just where do you think the founding fathers of Versailles got that name; random letters? Be reasonable, they took the name from the French and anglicized it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by C. Montgomery Burns
Hey! We pronounce it Ver-sales in Illinois, too! I’m from the town of Versailles. It was names after a town in Kentucky, also pronounced Ver-sales, by the founders of the town. That is the way it’s pronounced! It has nothing to do with France.
Thank for responding to him; I gave up trying to deal with “people” from Ver-Sales long ago. Boehners that they are!
Those aren’t the same dynamic at all. Those places in Ohio are not the places in Europe whence their names derive. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with them having different pronunciations.
Of course. And that makes it a different name, for a different place.
Whereas Boehner’s own name, like everyone’s, is his–any pronunciation other than the one he favors is wrong.
And of course when you leave the farmland and pronounce Versailles as Ver-Sales people don’t look at you like your a hick because the world is so understanding. The town in Ohio was named after the town in France, it’s just that over the years the French influance dwindled and the German farmers became dominant; I always beleived that the change in pronunciation was due to the Germans being disrespecful to the French.
The name of the French city is correctly pronounced one way, no matter who or where you are. The name of the Ohio village is correctly pronounced another way, no matter who or where you are. In either case, someone looking askance at you for using the correct pronunciation is themselves uninformed.
Or, folks of German extraction just tended to speak differently.
If you are interested to hear the German pronunciation of a couple of our words or names that are well-known in the English speaking world, you could check out “How Do You Say ‘Porsche’?”
The online dictionaries “www.dict.cc” and “leo.org” provide sound samples of almost all words, including the German ones. It sounds rather robotic, but it gives you an idea how an umlaut is pronounced in different words.
If you want to hear the “ö”, search for words like “Böhmen”, “Öse” or a verb like “verblöden”.
The Phonetics Flash Animation Project of the University of Iowa might help you articulate words in German (or Spanish), although it’s not perfect because the sound of the German letters, including the “Umlaute” ä - ü – ö, changes with the letters surrounding them.
Im my experience, quite a lot of Americans don’t even recognize the sound of an umlaut at first, simply because they are not used to it. So if you have any trouble to identify the sound or hear differences among words that contain an umlaut, don’t feel bad about it.
The town in Ohio was named after the town in France, it’s just that over the years the French influance dwindled and the German farmers became dominant; I always beleived that the change in pronunciation was due to the Germans being disrespecful to the French.