pronunciation
J is always a Y sound in the Scandinavian languages, so Kjærholm is "Kyare-holm", more or less. Except you should drop the R sound, pretty much.
The one that gets me is Georg Jensen. It's pronounced "Gyor Yen-sen" (hard G on Georg). I hear American dealers at auction pronouning it "George Jensen" and I always think they are saying "George Jetson" (cartoon character from the 60s, for you foreigners and young kids).
A "g" in the middle of a word is silent, so Børge Mogensen's last name is pronounced "MO-en-sen". I totally suck at the ø sound so I'm not going to attempt to explain that one other than to say that I think both the R and G are silent and the ø is a sound that you might make if punched in the stomach. OK, i guess that was kind of an explanation.
Hans Wegner is another one that doesn't sound like it looks. Hans is sort of halfway between Hens (s sound on the end, not Z) and Hans. Wegner sounds like "Vine-nehr" with barely any R sound on the end. And you have to do a glottal stop at the end of "Vine". It's not hard to do once you hear it.
Peter Hvidt sounds like "Peter Vilth" except you barely say the Th on the end. You kinda just end the L with your tongue between your teeth as if you mean to make a TH sound but you stop before it gets out. And actually, the D isn't so much an L sound as it is a really soft D.
Danes, please correct me if i'm wrong, which I probably am. I know vocabulary better than pronunciation but I'm not great at any of it. I just like to get the basics if I can!
If I heard an American say "Gyor Yensen"
I'd hurl. Like when I'm listening to NPR, and they pronounce "Nicaragua" as "Neeekarrrrraaagwaaah".
If one is speaking English, I think it's perfectly permissible (nay, preferable) that an English pronunciation be used, particularly when it's a name that's common to our culture, such as "George".
You'd hurl? Really?
I was living in Denmark when I first became aware of some of these designers, so I heard the Danish pronunciations from the start and that's just what sounds correct to me now. I had to pronounce them correctly or my Danish friends wouldn't have known who I was talking about. Seriously---they'd get a blank look on their faces until I tried it in Danish and even then I could see them working to interpret what I'd uttered. Then they'd light up---"Yeah yeah [ja ja], Georg Jensen!" and the conversation would resume.
I think it's permissible to pronounce foreign words as English when in an English-speaking country. I don't think it's necessarily preferable. And I don't think that pronouncing foreign words correctly is pretentious or hurl-inducing.
(My 80-year-old mom tells a story of being laughed at by her high school classmates in rural Wisconsin in the 1940s for pronouncing "conquistadores" correctly in Spanish. They thought it should be "conn-KWIST-a-doors". Dunno if they hurled or not, though.)
Accurate (correct, original)
means a lot to collectors of art and design; why wouldn't it be the same with language ? I believe it shows respect for the owner of a name to pronounce it as he or she does. The same goes for the speaking of a "foreign" language; respect is shown in the attempt to mimic the pronunciation of a native speaker's home country or state, etc.
"Giving up," particularly in the absence of knowledge about the correct (original) pronunciation, as when we read a name but have never heard it spoken aloud, is perfectly understandable -- but hardly admirable, in my opinion. Sure, we English speakers call places by the English names they've been given (Italy, not Italia) and there's room for that in the scheme of things, surely. The same happens everywhere.
Personally, I like the music of exotic language on my tongue, but I can understand that not everyone might. I certainly can't claim to be bilingual. . .
I would think that the internet, with its audio capability now taken for granted, would be the perfect venue for an audio dictionary -- of words and names. Perhaps there's already one going ?
There are English words for...
There are English words for the names of countries and there are the names used in those countries, as someone said above. That's not the same thing as pronouncing an individual's name correctly.
LRF, there are audio pronunciation guides online for many languages but only for the basic sounds of letters and dipthongs. I found one for Finnish after arguing with a friend about how to pronounce "Iittala". It seemed pretty straightforward. I think it's pronounced "EE-tah-la". Saarinen would be "SAIR-ee-nen", I think, with a little roll to the R. Best guess after going over the written guide and listening to other words. I dunno about the first names, though.
I just happen to like language and I enjoy sitting around discussing stuff like this and learning new things. I've had a lot of fun with our Danish friends just talking about words and sounds of our respective languages. They laugh at my attempts to say words like "bøg" and "blå" and I laugh when they try to say "thirty-three". It's amazing how difficult it is to get certain sounds when you haven't grown up hearing them.
http://www.ddg.com/LIS/InfoDesignF97/paivir/finnish/pronunc.html
I'm also fascinated with...
I'm also fascinated with language and pronunciation. Working in such a large
city as NY, i have many co-workers with english as a second language.
My very simple name has many charming accented pronunciations. And i
always attempt to pronounce theirs as close as given. Some of the rolling r's
are difficult. Jan is Y-ohn. (like john) obviously calling him Jan would be silly.
Bad example.
I visit a small beach town when i can in the winter.
A quick click to their website (hasn't changed in years), opens with a sound
pronunciation. And a replay button 🙂
Troncones,
The sister destinations do the same. A town nearby, Zihuatanejo.
We always rent a house away from people, but always meet a handful of
travelers from everywhere. All seem to use the correct pronunciation.(or close)
Must be a sound translator on the web somewhere.
I have notice that many well researched articles include a written pronunciation in
the first paragraph. Always refreshing and i am often a bit off and like the
correction.
http://www.troncones.net/
Good stuff.
LTF, you may safely say NOY-tra for Neutra.
Guess I was lucky to be born into the MCM period, and living near New York with a bunch of modern-art people ?
I like it when news pieces include name pronunciations. I've almost never seen this in books, for some reason. . .other than dictionaries !
Maybe a design site could have a Name Pronunciation Glossary ?
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