How do you pronounce "Asperger's?"

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I first heard of Asperger's last June 21, when my supervisor taunted me by telling me that I had "Ass Burgers." She had only heard about it probably the same day, from a psychologist who works in the same place and who told her that I had Asperger's.

Is the A pronounced the way that most North Americans pronounce the short a? Or is it more of an "ah" sound?

The "p" should be pronounced as a "p", rather than a "b", shouldn't it?

And, is the "g" a hard "g", as in "go", or a soft "g", as in "cage"?

It does seem weird, to have been considered as weird or eccentric my whole life, or as a "dork" in my younger days, suddenly to have this revealed to me when I am 48. I had no idea that I was this obvious.

Anyway, what is the correct pronounciation? I hope that it really isn't "Ass Burgers"

I believe English-speaking people usually pronounce it ass-perg(g as in gun)ers. Hans Asperger is roughly pronounced Hunns Ahspairger in German.

Hard or soft "g" in the German? I've never studied German.

I don't know if I can explain this, since it's German and while I speak German too, I don't know phonetics. I also don't know how monolingual English speakers would pronounce it.

You got it right, The p should be pronounced as a hard p, the g hard like in [g]ate or [g]o. You may want to note that German is a hard and guttural language and that this becomes very obvious is the word Asperger. Emphasis is also on the r, it's not silent.
In German you say it like As-per-ger. Three defined syllables. Some put emphasis on the "As", but I wouldn't advice this to English speakers, because of the word 'ass'.

I doubt I have explained this well, sorry.

I really should learn phonetics.

Edit: Looks as if I was too slow, Fedaykin already explained it well.

Last edited by Sora on 02 Oct 2007, 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

assburger from the NYT article

ahs'-purgers sounds so much classier than ass-burgers.

aspergers, as in "purge" ?

Asp-ergers? At least that's how my shrink pronounces it but he's German.

Ed Almos

Really unfortunate name, isn't it?
I think I'll just say I have nerditis.

"Ass Purgers?" That sounds worse than "Ass Burgers."

Sometimes I like to give it a South American twist by pronouncing aspergers as ass-pear-jers
because it makes me feel like a big man.
lol kidding man... although I do sometimes like to call it that.

The A is much like the a in 'ash',
the 's' is rather normal,
... 'Asp' is much like the english, 'asp'
the 'per' sounds much like the 'per' in 'perish'
and the 'ger' is similar to the 'ger' ending in words like burger

Great, now we've got that sorted. Which syllable is stressed?

ASPerger?
asPERger?
asperGER?

I think it's the initial "a", the antepenultimate syllable, which is stressed.

I pronounce it the way that it looks.

I've been wondering about that too. I always thought it were pronounced as ASperger, but after watching "Mozart and the Whale" and the "House"-episode with the autistic boy I saw that in both they pronounced it AsPERger in German. Doesn't make much sense to me though, for I'm sure no one would pronounce a German (or Austrian) last name like that.