It's Pronounced AS-PER-GERS!

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I choose to pronounce it "azz-PURR-jurrs", I emphasize the second syllable and not the first. When I emphasize the first syllable, I hear "ASS-pur-jurs" and I suddenly think of "ASS-bur-gers", even with a "jh" sound and not a "gh" sound!

i just say arseburgers or if im at a dinner asp B GER

I cannot understand why beoble wish to bronounce a "b" as if it were a "p".

Admittedly, they are bhonetically close, put I'm sure is just makes life pasically harder, for not burbose.

Also, as Hans was German, the German bronunciation would pe correct.

No, he was Austrian.

Somewhere I read about one of his daughters who had gone in her father's footsteps as a pediatrist (or what it's called). Her name was Maria Asperger-Felder. (Not sure if she is still alive.)

Edition:
I found this on Tony Attwood's home page www.tonyattwood.com :

"In 2003, I was able to meet Maria Asperger-Felder, the daughter of Hans Asperger. We had a wonderful conversation about her father and I now have an even greater admiration for his work. Maria is a child psychiatrist in Switzerland and was eager to discuss the origins of her father's work, his personality and the children he assessed at the hospital and in private practice. In the same year, my personal assistant Meagan was able to complete a database on over 2000 children and adults that I have seen with Asperger's syndrome over the last eleven years."

Silly me. Replace German with Germanic, and it's what I was meaning.
Actually, would anyone who can speak German care to confirm the correct pronunciation?

I say 'ass-bur-jer' (ass not arse)... I know that isn't the correct pronounciation, but most of our English words, if you want to go on their root language we acquired them from, aren't pronounced correctly either. We all have accents to deal with and basic anglicisation - does it matter what the root is if the word itself is now also a part of whatever language we speak?

Except its not an English word. Its a Germanic surname.

Put it this way: Your parents named you something, and of course you inherited a last name as well.

For example, perhaps your name is Alan. That is definitely British in origin. Would you appreciate it if a friend consistantly called you Alain, which is the French form? Probably not, because thats not your given name, and its a measure of respect for them to use it correctly. Phonetically, it is well within the grasp of a French person to pronounce Alan correctly. Anything less is laziness, disregard and disrespect.

In short, you call people what they call themselves. And you spell their name the way they spell it.


In the off chance situation that your name really is Alan, Alain or one of the many variants.. I used my own name as an example. I dont mean to freak you out! It would be freaky coincidence, thats all.

It's a surname, yes, but it's become a noun in however many languages now that there's a distinction - when used as a surname, yes, by all mean say it properly. But when used in its noun form there shouldn't be such an issue.

(It's ok, name's not Alan, but is something equally Britannic!)

Well in German most S's are pronounced like a Z if they're single, like in seine and kase. But those are also followed by vowels, so I don't remember if it's different if it's followed by a consonant like in Asperger. Frankly I think the word is an anomaly, I can't think of any German words that have the S followed by a P. Perhaps as a surname, it's origin is from someplace other than German?

Anyhow I'm guessing it would be pronounced "ahz-pehr-gher" but I'll be honest, around our house we generally say ass burgers just to be comical.

So, leaky wee, you feel that disregarding both the original pronunciation and the explicit spelling of a word is what one should invariably support? I have no idea why people seem to think the mispronunciation is popular, even. You can hear it at Merriam-Webster, with the hard "g" and at Wiktionary with the soft "g". I tend to switch between the two, though I think the hard "g" is probably best.

Next thing, you'll probably tell me to pronounce "Cholmondeley" ad "Chumley", "Featherstonehaugh" as "Fanshaw"! and "Mainwaring" as "Mannering"! Huh!

I'm not saying that's the common pronounciation everywhere at all. But in New Zealand, that's how the majority pronounce it. I'm a kiwi, I speak with a New Zealand accent, so that's how I say it. It's a word used as a noun now - yes, it began as and still is used as a surname too, in which case that person can be as picky as they like - and used all over the world in different languages. When it's become adopted as a noun for something found all over the place it will be pronounced in different ways. The way I speak (with admittedly a strong south-coast-English hint too; my accent is somewhat unusual these days as I live in England!) is going to be different from the way you speak. Likewise, using your examples, even if one was to use the proper pronounciation of those english placenames it would still sound different depending on whether the person was from England or Wales or Tanzania. I say them 'properly', yes, but it will still sound different due to our different accents than a person local to them.

Tomaytoe, tomahto... as long as the word is identifiable does it really matter if we pick over nuances in people's accents? I just think there are far more important things to worry about than whether the American pronounciation is 'better' than the English pronouncation is better than the German pronouncation etc.

They were surnames, not place names. I was joking, and giving the correct pronunciations (and the written form of the surname that many families have switched to using - presumably in exasperation from have their surname mispronounced.)

If I am not sure how to pronounce a word, I find out. Sometimes I will go back to the source, as in I far prefer to say something like "Bruks'zell" for "Bruxelles", rather than the gloriously Anglocentric "Brussels".

Mispronouncing a word, because it sounds funnier that way, does not make sense to me.

I agree, I wouldnt mispronounce something because it sounds funnier. But often there are words that we don't pronounce the way they were originally said as they're borrowed from other languages - 'envelope', for example - the most wouldn't even realise were mispronounced at all, let alone from a different language.

I'm a linguist myself and I do understand the reasoning for saying things the way they should be said in their root language, but you need to give a bit of leeway for words that become adopted as part of other languages, and thus get said differently by different people around the world, even if they are all speaking the same language anyway.

This is becoming tedious.

A minority of people grossly mispronounce someone's name, therefore everyone else in the world should suddenly conform to those people's ignorance?

No, what I'm saying is that when a noun becomes adopted into a language and used globally (not just a regional word, for example... 'chav' would of course be understood as part of English in England, but people elsewhere who speak it probably wouldn't have a clue what it was) it will be mispronounced as people say it according to their accent and regional 'dialect'. It's like I can't really tell an American off for saying 'tomaytoe', even if it is meant to be 'tomahtoe', because that's just the way they would be inclined to pronounce it given their accent and the way in which they form words.

Tedious.

Why should the global users of the letter "p" have to modify their pronunciation of it to conform with your minority usage in this particular case? You, and some small number of people, wish to pronounce it as a "b", for the purpose of toilet humour. I see no reason why the majority of people, who can read, and are aware of the difference between the sound of a "p" and that of a "b" should be coerced into such illiteracy. The letter "p" is used in many other words, without changing it to a "b". It really has nothing to do with accents, formation of words or any other spurious excuse.

I'm tempted to start a campaign to pronounce "scone" as "parvenu". If I just repeatedly tell people that that is the new, world-wide way to pronounce it, I'm sure I can eventually get everyone to bow down and agree. Can't I?