Luhansk vs Lugansk

[anteallach]

Given that that's a train in Aachen itself how confident are you the English-language announcement was for the benefit of native English speakers and not (for example) speakers of another language who have expectations about the small quantity of English they do understand? Wikipedia says the name Aix-la-Chapelle is "traditional English", which aside from the Twitter joke about British English being "English (Traditional)" and American English being "English (Simplified)" I wouldn't be surprised to learn means "English as sometimes practiced in non-English-speaking countries because there isn't a groundswell of native English speakers to keep it up-to-date". Casually searching the BBC news website for "Aachen" gets me stories in and relating to Aachen, but searching for "Aix-la-Chapelle" gets me nothing relevant (e.g. low-Levenshtein-distance results for stories which contain the word "chapel") so I feel reasonably confident saying that at least in the UK (where I am) the consensus exonym is "Aachen".

I think it was just that whoever was making the announcement thought that the "traditional English" use of the French name was still more current than it actually is; on other occasions when I've been through there it's been called "Aachen" in the English announcements, as I'd expect. (There were also French announcements, in which it was "Aix-la-Chapelle", again as expected.) On the other side of the coin, I also once heard Munich called "München" (with what sounded like an English spelling pronunciation of that) in an English language announcement on a German train.

[Raphael]

On the other side of the coin, I also once heard Munich called "München" (with what sounded like an English spelling pronunciation of that) in an English language announcement on a German train.

Thank you for travelling with Deutsche Bahn!

[Raphael]

On the other side of the coin, I also once heard Munich called "München" (with what sounded like an English spelling pronunciation of that) in an English language announcement on a German train.

By the way, this reminds of how, whenever German soccer league team Bayern München gets mentioned in an English-language context, they're called "Bayern Munich". Shouldn't people either leave both parts of the name in the original German, or translate both parts of the name into English?

[zompist]

Obviously it should be Bavaria München.

[Richard W]

On the other side of the coin, I also once heard Munich called "München" (with what sounded like an English spelling pronunciation of that) in an English language announcement on a German train.

By the way, this reminds of how, whenever German soccer league team Bayern München gets mentioned in an English-language context, they're called "Bayern Munich". Shouldn't people either leave both parts of the name in the original German, or translate both parts of the name into English?

Perhaps the English pronunciation of München is as 'Munich'. The spelling of the place name just screams, 'You're gong to get me wrong!' to an Englishman. As an alternative explanation, perhaps Bayern and Bavaria(n) are just too different.

I'm fairly confident there's a German team whose English name is München Gladbach /mɜːnkən ɡlædbæk/. Is that any better for youʔ

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm fairly confident there's a German team whose English name is München Gladbach /mɜːnkən ɡlædbæk/. Is that any better for youʔ

Why would ü have the nurse vowel? Wouldn't /j/ + goose, as in muse, music, mule, mucus, mute be closer?

[zompist]

I'm fairly confident there's a German team whose English name is München Gladbach /mɜːnkən ɡlædbæk/. Is that any better for youʔ

Why would ü have the nurse vowel? Wouldn't /j/ + goose, as in muse, music, mule, mucus, mute be closer?

Wait till you hear how people say Goethe St. in Chicago...

[Raphael]

I'm fairly confident there's a German team whose English name is München Gladbach /mɜːnkən ɡlædbæk/. Is that any better for youʔ

Why would ü have the nurse vowel? Wouldn't /j/ + goose, as in muse, music, mule, mucus, mute be closer?

The city and team are called Mönchengladbach, with an "ö". Though the team at least is often colloquially shortened to "Gladbach".

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm fairly confident there's a German team whose English name is München Gladbach /mɜːnkən ɡlædbæk/. Is that any better for youʔ

Why would ü have the nurse vowel? Wouldn't /j/ + goose, as in muse, music, mule, mucus, mute be closer?

Wait till you hear how people say Goethe St. in Chicago...

Why would I be terribly surprised at that? It doesn't contain ü or ue.

[Travis B.]

I'm fairly confident there's a German team whose English name is München Gladbach /mɜːnkən ɡlædbæk/. Is that any better for youʔ

Why would ü have the nurse vowel? Wouldn't /j/ + goose, as in muse, music, mule, mucus, mute be closer?

Wait till you hear how people say Goethe St. in Chicago...

Pronouncing German <oe> with /ɜr/ is an atrocity. (I do understand how many British people do this, though, because their /ɜː/ is often really more like [œː]...)

[Ares Land]

By the way, this reminds of how, whenever German soccer league team Bayern München gets mentioned in an English-language context, they're called "Bayern Munich". Shouldn't people either leave both parts of the name in the original German, or translate both parts of the name into English?

We do the same in French. I think it follows the same structure as Real Madrid. Bayern is taken to be the club name. You even hear le Bayern de Munich.

[Raphael]

Why would I be terribly surprised at that? It doesn't contain ü or ue.

Neither does Mönchengladbach.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Why would I be terribly surprised at that? It doesn't contain ü or ue.

Neither does Mönchengladbach.

It was mistranscribed with ü when I was expressing surprise at the pronunciation. I'm used to ö having the nurse vowel.

[Richard W]

Why would I be terribly surprised at that? It doesn't contain ü or ue.

Neither does Mönchengladbach.

It was mistranscribed with ü when I was expressing surprise at the pronunciation. I'm used to ö having the nurse vowel.

Where is the mistranscription? There's a principle of English law that one's name is the one is known by, not the one you'd rather be known by. If you search with Google, you'll find a great many references to the name spelt with u umlaut. The change of spelling has not been universally accepted.

Getting back towards the topic, we aren't in any great hurry to call Rome 'Roma', or even to go back to calling the Germans Dutch.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Neither does Mönchengladbach.

It was mistranscribed with ü when I was expressing surprise at the pronunciation. I'm used to ö having the nurse vowel.

Where is the mistranscription?

First I see this place I haven't actually heard of before spelled with "ü", and express surprise at an indicated English pronunciation with the nurse-vowel (I think reasonably; usually German ü is pronounced in English with yod + goose), then people tell me it's a typographical error, and the word should have ö, which would appear to indicate that the initial spelling was a mistranscription. It seems there's more to the matter than I'd understood, I guess, but given the context, I think that imagining the ü-spelling was a typographical error is also reasonable.

[Linguoboy]

Wait till you hear how people say Goethe St. in Chicago...

Why would I be terribly surprised at that? It doesn't contain ü or ue.

Alas, since they switched to recorded announcements on mass transit I rarely hear the classic /ˈgoːθiː/ pronunciation anymore (and I never heard the fabled trisyllabic variant in the wild, I just remember being smirkingly told that people said it this way).

Speaking of exonyms, it's always fun to look at foreign renditions of "Chicago" since they almost never come close to approximating a local pronunciation. (I'm especially amused by how many get suckered in by orthographic <ch> and begin with an affricate.) Foreign renditions of "Missouri" and "Maryland" are almost as amusing.

[Ares Land]

Speaking of exonyms, it's always fun to look at foreign renditions of "Chicago" since they almost never come close to approximating a local pronunciation. (I'm especially amused by how many get suckered in by orthographic <ch> and begin with an affricate.) Foreign renditions of "Missouri" and "Maryland" are almost as amusing.

I have something /ʃɪˈkɑ.ɡoʊ/ which I got from When the Levee Breaks, of all places.

I think I do better with Missouri because of various spelling pronunciation like Mizzourah or Mizzerah.

[Travis B.]

In the dialect here in southeastern Wisconsin, Chicago is /ʃəˈkɔɡoʊ/ [ʃɘˈkʰɒːɡo(ː)], but people who realize /ɔ/ (except before /r/) as [ɑ] such my mother (who is from Kenosha) realize it as [ʃɘˈkʰɑːɡoː] (but note that these people do not have the cot-cought merger as the same people realize /ɑ/ as [a] except adjacent to /kw gw r w h/).

As for Maryland and Missouri, I personally have /ˈmɛrəˌlɪnd/ [ˈmɛːʁˤəːˌʟ̞ɘ̃ːnt] and /məˈzɜri/ [mɘˈzʁ̩ˤːʁˤi(ː)].

[Linguoboy]

I think I do better with Missouri because of various spelling pronunciation like Mizzourah or Mizzerah.

Except for that's probably a minority pronunciation in Missouri itself.

[Travis B.]

Question for you guys - how do you pronounce Milwaukee?