It's Pronounced AS-PER-GERS!

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I noted that you gave an example of a word with a "p" in it that you pronounce as a "p" (even though it is Samoan, and quite probably is only written in roman characters as an approximation - see Chinese for more interesting examples - in Europe, Maltese can get quite carried away). You even choose to quote yourself giving that example. I didn't see the relevance the first time, as nothing in what you mentioned has any connection to accent. Quoting it seems a waste of space. I ask questions... you ignore them. I do not hear any sign of any other word where you choose to substitute a "p" with a "b". Why pick on this word?

My only guess at your mispronunciation is that you heard the "funny" way to say it, and that has sadly become the way you say it.

I cannot see why you are trying to justify your error.

You know it has nothing to do with accent, as I now must assume you are unable to give any other example of such a substitution of a "b" sound for a written "p".

When faced with a word you do not know how to pronounce, you really should be more careful to verify your pronunciation, before attempting to foist an erroneous one on others.

By all means, pronounce it as you do, when you intend it as a joke, though I find that joke to be in poor taste.

It's not ass-burger. Sora = speaks German and knows how to pronounce this word.

I give up on trying to write down the correct pronunciation. If I get to repair my laptop, I'm going to make a sound data or a video in which I say 'Asperger'. I do hope I can do that soon or else I'm going to ask a friend whether he can connect my mp3 player to her computer and send me the record.


There are two ways to pronounce it in German by the way, or, more exactly, the emphasis can be set differently. Either on the [a] or, the more official way, on the [per].

The second makes it sound like something to eat, like something a chocolate would be named...

But the g is hard.

I say Ass purr jers; like I say Broooj instead of Boogger for Bruges.

I see it as an anglicisation of the words and I don't see anything wrong with it.

Excellent Sora. So that would make the pronunciation given at Merriam-Webster (reasonably) correct?

And that given at Wiktionary is really incorrect, as it uses a soft "g".

Yes, the first one is very good. Of course the English pronunciation of the first [er] is different to the German one, but it is just naturally for an English-only speaker to say it like that.

Wow, I feel dumb. I just looked up what hard and soft Gs actually are, and I was totally confused. I thought the soft G was like Go and the hard G was like Giant, but I had it completely backwards. At least the word example I used was correct, even if my terminology was wrong. And I used to study linguistics too!! !

If I wanted to be a stickler, would the correct "er" sound be closer to "air"?

And Mage, I just assumed that when you had typed "And it it definitely the soft G sound in German, just like burger (but with a P)." that you had meant the opposite of what you said, until you got to "burger", which is unlike "burgeon" or "German", but similar to "Gertrude".

Interestingly, the OED gives the British and American pronunciation as identical, except that the British version pronounces neither "r" and the American version explicitly sounds both. That's quite typical. American tries to keep spelling more phonetic, whereas back here, we often preserve completely insane spellings.

To quote a German WPer (2ukenker) from a previous post on this subject:

This is how I learned German pronunciation (3 years).

Hmm... "hedder" is more like "hether" (with th as in "this"). Where did you learn the other pronounciation?

BTW English words are not pronounced the way they are spelled either!

(Or in Danish phonetics: "Englisj wørds ar not pronaunst de wæj dæj ar speld ajder!" )

I'm going to try to sum this up as I remember English phonetics - if there are any linguists, please take pity on my ignorance.

&c

What's going on here isn't a matter of substituting ps and bs. If the word is pronounced /'æs-pɚ-gɚz/ with the stress on the initial syllable, the /p/ in the second syllable will not be aspirated as it would be if the word were pronounced stressed, as if the word were /əs-'phɚ-gɚz/.

Now, the fortis lensis contrast in English is sort of an ambiguous mix of aspirant-voiced, although sometimes voiced consonants are partially devoiced. What this means is that the /p/ in the initial syllable stressed pronunciation will be very similar to an English /b/ - its just a function of English pronunciation rules (I'm also wondering if it isn't further effected by the fact that /sp/ also isn't generally aspirated even before stressed syllables.)

Furthermore, I want to guess that the combination ass-burgers will furthermore involve a degree of devoicing of the /b/. The overall effect of this is that most native English speakers will pronounce the two things almost identically where they aren't trying to affect a "proper" pronunciation.

The only way to solve this is to move the stress to the second syllable. And maybe there's a rule that I don't know about in English, but that just feels awkward to me.

Now, unless you can propose a situation in which two words are distinct on the basis of a /p/ /b/ substitution after a /s/ and before an unstressed syllable, I'm going to be so bold as to suggest that the two are not even distinct in that position in the English language.

Did that clarify anything?

I just kept repeating German 'er' and English 'air, haha and yes, that's comparison works, that's how it is pronounced.

I just realised that in the merriam-webster says that the first syllable is stressed. But I've been sticking to stressing the second syllable now since everybody in the clinic where I got my diagnosis said it like that. As I mentioned before, there are two versions that exist in Germany and I suppose unless one manages to ask Hans Asperger's daughter, nobody will know for sure which of the two versions is the correct one (if there is one).


Debating and even just explaining pronunciation over the internet must be the most difficult ever.

For the love of God, Lau, I DO NOT SAY ARSEBURGER!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!






Thank you and goodbye.

Come back when you learn to read more than the first line of somebody's post.

Haha, I can't for the life of me try and phoneticise Danish, you speak so strangely!

Learnt it when I was over there for a few months... stayed mostly in Odense and Roskilde, went to Holme-Olstrup, then back to Copenhagen. Lovely language (no, really... but I'm a language geek) and simple enough when written down, but it took me a while to get my pronounciation to an understandable level - thank God you all learn English or know a bit of it or I'd have been pretty stuck more than a few times! Beautiful country by the way, I'm heading back for a while this summer and can't wait!!




Lau, do you speak any other languages? Why do you pronounce any of the words you say how you say them? Why don't you speak with a Cornish accent? (Or if you do, why don't you speak with a Mancunian accent?) Why do you choose to speak the way you do?

Ok, last time I will explain the way I would say it as a kiwi.



ass
(as in the second syllable for 'asassination', or 'ass' as in a donkey - not arse)

pBUR
(with emphasis on this syllable, and where the 'p' hasn't been fully replaced by a b, but where in common speech it will sound to most other people closer to a 'b' sound than a 'p' sound. The p is still there, it's just harder to hear to the untrained ear. To me and other NZers the 'p' is more obvious, but to others - and especially you, Lau, from England, it will likely sound more akin to a b. How do I know? I live in England and come across this every time I say the word.)

Gizz (gers)
(With a soft 'g' sound, as in the second 'g' of the word language. Again, I say it 'gers', but I know to the majority of others that'll sound like a 'gizz'.)



What do I mean by people hearing things differently from how they're spoken? It's all to do with what you're hearing. Most people in the world can't hear the difference between a New Zealand and an Australian accent. But that's not to say the difference doesn't exist; it's there and it's as plain as day. But you just don't hear it as you aren't used to it.

Intriguing pronunciation. I'm not terribly familiar with english dialectology, but I'm very surprised that you pronounce the second syllable's initial consonant b-like yet it is stressed. Are you not aspirating it? Are you familiar with IPA? Would you be averse to writing it phonetically? I pronounce it exactly as I wrote it in my last post: /'æs-pɚ-gɚz/. Do tell

Alternate interpretation: do you pronounce the second syllable "sper" rather than having the s in the first syllable?