The American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United StatesMencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
General
The American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
Americanisms; English language; Names -- United States; Names, Personal -- United States
/u/-sound, and its German hard /g/ for an English /g/; it becomes
identical with the /berg/ of /iceberg/. The same change in the vowel
occurs in /Erdmann/. In /König/ the German diphthong succumbs to a
long /o/, and the hard /g/ becomes /k/; the common pronunciation is
/Cone-ik/. Often, in /Berger/, the /g/ becomes soft, and the name
rhymes with /verger/. It becomes soft, too, in /Bittinger/. In
/Wilstach/ and /Welsbach/ the /ch/ becomes a /k/. In /Anheuser/ the
/eu/ changes to a long /i/. The final /e/, important in German, is
nearly always silenced; /Dohme/ rhymes with /foam/; /Kühne/ becomes
/Keen/.
In addition to these transliterations, there are constant translations
of foreign proper names. "Many a Pennsylvania /Carpenter/," says Dr.
Oliphant,[17] "bearing a surname that is English, from the French,
from the Latin, and there a Celtic loan-word [Pg277] in origin, is
neither English, nor French, nor Latin, nor Celt, but an original
German /Zimmermann/."[18] A great many other such translations are
under everyday observation. /Pfund/ becomes /Pound/; /Becker/,
/Baker/; /Schumacher/, /Shoemaker/; /König/, /King/; /Weisberg/,
/Whitehill/; /Koch/, /Cook/;[19] /Neuman/, /Newman/; /Schaefer/,
/Shepherd/ or /Sheppard/; /Gutmann/, /Goodman/; /Goldschmidt/,
/Goldsmith/; /Edelstein/, /Noblestone/; /Steiner/, /Stoner/;
/Meister/, /Master(s)/; /Schwartz/, /Black/; /Weiss/, /White/;
/Weber/, /Weaver/; /Bucher/, /Booker/; /Vogelgesang/, /Birdsong/;
/Sontag/, /Sunday/, and so on. Partial translations are also
encountered, /e. g./, /Studebaker/ from /Studebecker/, and
/Reindollar/ from /Rheinthaler/. By the same process, among the newer
immigrants, the Polish /Wilkiewicz/ becomes /Wilson/, the Bohemian
/Bohumil/ becomes /Godfrey/, and the Bohemian /Kovár/ and the Russian
/Kuznetzov/ become /Smith/. Some curious examples are occasionally
encountered. Thus Henry /Woodhouse/, a gentleman prominent in
aeronautical affairs, came to the United States from Italy as Mario
Terenzio Enrico /Casalegno/; his new surname is simply a translation
of his old one. And the /Belmonts/, the bankers, unable to find a
euphonious English equivalent for their German-Jewish patronymic of
/Schönberg/, chose a French one that Americans could pronounce.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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