Your life with ë

[Lummel]

Heh. I'd always assumed the pronunciation was Brontay, the diacritic over the e showing that the final e should be pronounced rather than silent. On the other hand maybe the family were a bunch of foreigners and brought the spelling of the family name over with them.

The internet being what it is here's a webpage with a few English speakers from the UK, USA and Australia recording their pronunciations of Charlotte Brontë.

[Happy Ent]

The internet being what it is here's a webpage with a few English speakers from the UK, USA and Australia recording their pronunciations of Charlotte Brontë.

Brilliant! (I may be weird, but gemmelo is bloody hot. And there’s a whole page of her saying marshmellow and plant-based and goldenrod other stuff. I have to take a shower now.)

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

I know it's is used to indicate that to vowels are pronounced separately despite being next to each other (naïve for example has two syllables) and I know what it does in German, but otherwise I really don't know. I guess I pronounce it "Bron-tay". How is it meant to be pronounced?

[Seli]

The ¨ is used to signify that vowels ought to be pronounced separately, in Dutch that is. Necessary because we can use multiple vowels to signify different vowel lengths as well as completely different sounds and diphthongs.

Added awareness of German usage makes things more complex.

[all swedes are racist]

Everyone knows the umlaut/diacritic is to "metal up" a word, so I pronounce Brontë with a prolonged falsetto wail and air guitar solo.

[Bronn Stone]

I just call her Bronn. It is a much cooler name.

[The Iceman of the North]

Hm, I would pronounce it with an "-eh" at the end, without any change in stress, but I see that Wikipedia use 'i' or 'ei' endings. I see that it's actually a fancy way of spelling Brunty, the Anglicized form of the Irish surname Ó Pronntaigh.

[eyenon15]

We Amurricans call shit whatever we want!!

What you say the name of your country is?? Fuck that noise, I'm calling it China.

[Happy Ent]

My guess for why Brontë is routinely rendered with the diaeresis is that her first name is Charlotte (where the final E is silent). So “Charlotte Bronte,” without any diacritics, would reasonably be pronounced with 3 syllables in total.

I’ve never seen “Montë Carlo”, for instance.

[Buckwheat]

My guess for why Brontë is routinely rendered with the diaeresis is that her first name is Charlotte (where the final E is silent). So “Charlotte Bronte,” without any diacritics, would reasonably be pronounced with 3 syllables in total.

I’ve never seen “Montë Carlo”, for instance.

But then, is it not Emily Brontë as well?

[Happy Ent]

But then, is it not Emily Brontë as well?

Goode calle. I stande correctede.

[The Iceman of the North]

My guess for why Brontë is routinely rendered with the diaeresis is that her first name is Charlotte (where the final E is silent). So “Charlotte Bronte,” without any diacritics, would reasonably be pronounced with 3 syllables in total.

I’ve never seen “Montë Carlo”, for instance.

The Wikipedia article speculated that their father changed the name from Bronty to Brontë to associate himself to Admiral Horatio Nelson (Duke of Bronte).

[Jo498]

Monte Carlo is not an English word so one is warned that the last syllable of Monte is probably not silent. Whereas Bronte (I do not even know how to get the diacritics on my keyboard...) is a fancy spelling of an English surname. I cannot think of an example but I am sure that I encountered similar names without the diaeresis where one had to be told that the last syllable was to be pronounced in a similar way.

(BTW I think the English pronounciation of Charlotte is uniquely ugly. It's not my favorite name in the French or German way but "Sharlet" is really the worst)

The badass pseudo-umlauts in heavy metal are probably one reason why English speakers often mess up German spellings by ADDING umlauts where they do not belong.

I find them somewhat confusing in Tolkien as well. I thought it said in the appendices that the convention for the Elvish names etc. was that they were to be pronounced roughly like Latin. But if this is true no diacritics are needed in Earendil because the first two vowels should be two distinct sounds anyway. As at the end of Galadriel which is usually spelled without them, I think

(For some reason I stressed Earendil, Isildur and Elendil wrong for many years; apparently all have the strees on the second to last syllable whereas I put it on the antepaenultima and the proper way still sounds slightly strange for me.)

[Mr. X]

I read "Brontë" as /BRONN-tay/ but have never really thought about it and probably read it that way because I've heard other people say it.

Same for me.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I find them somewhat confusing in Tolkien as well. I thought it said in the appendices that the convent heavy metaion for the Elvish names etc. was that they were to be pronounced roughly like Latin. But if this is true no diacritics are needed in Earendil because the first two vowels should be two distinct sounds anyway. As at the end of Galadriel which is usually spelled without them, I think

(For some reason I stressed Earendil, Isildur and Elendil wrong for many years; apparently all have the strees on the second to last syllable whereas I put it on the antepaenultima and the proper way still sounds slightly strange for me.)

I think Tolkien spells it Eärendil in order to make crystal-clear that it's E-ar-en-dil, not Ear-en-dil. Ditto Fëanor (Fe-an-or, not Fean-or). No-one's going to screw up Galadriel.

Curiously. despite Quenya being modelled off Finnish, Eärendil would have a different pronunciation in the latter than the former, since Finnish ä is a separate letter, rather than indicating a separate syllable.

[Horza]

I commend Happy Ent on opening this topic on a nice, general issue, unlikely to cause discord or rage-induced vehicle accidents. It is entirely neccessary that participants achieve a mutually respectful baseline understanding of the issues before progressing to the question of how to pronounce Spın̈al Tap.

[Theda Baratheon]

Oops. I've been saying Bronn-tay all these years.

[Happy Ent]

Monte Carlo is not an English word so one is warned that the last syllable of Monte is probably not silent. Whereas Bronte (I do not even know how to get the diacritics on my keyboard...) is a fancy spelling of an English surname. I cannot think of an example but I am sure that I encountered similar names without the diaeresis where one had to be told that the last syllable was to be pronounced in a similar way.

Zoë is an interesting example. The word has moved to the lower classes in Germany thanks to Friends (where, in the dubbed German version, Zoë’s name is pronounced correctly).

However, German orthography being what it is, some Germans pronounce the name [tsø:] (no English equivalent to /ø/ I can think of) intead of ['zo:i]. I saw an interview somewhere, where a German Zoe insisted her name be pronounced like that. The combination “oe” to a German is a alternative spelling for the umlaut (normally spelled ö), and the diaeresis over the e just confirms that to German intuition. Also, Z means something else to a German than to an Englishman.

So, [tsø:] instead of ['zo:i]. All sounds have been replaced! Amazing.

[Jo498]

Really amazing! I had not been aware of the "Zoe" as "Tsö" which is really terrible, much worse than Charlotte in American pronunciation. FWIW I do not think that "Zoe" even in proper English pronunciation is a fortunate choice for German native speakers. For me the more obvious pronunciation would be roughly "Tso-ä" and the name reminds one of "Zoo" in any case.

Is Feanor stressed "FEanor" or "FeAnor"? If the latter I have this one wrong as well...

[Jo498]

Oops. I've been saying Bronn-tay all these years.

So have I. It is comforting that this is confusing to native speakers as well.