# Pronunciation of Murphy in foreign languages



## francisgranada

Is it admissible to pronounce _Murphy _as /'m*a*:rfi/ in English?

For me it is rather /'m*ə*:rfi/ or /'m*ə*:fi/ or something similar. Maybe /ə/ does not correspond to the exact IPA representation of this sound in general, however in my opinion, for a foreigner who doesn't speak English at all, the pronunciation of "u" in _Murphy_ may resemble the German/Hungarian/etc.  pronunciation of the letter *ö*.

Why this question?
I often hear the name _Murphy _(mainly in context of the so called_ Murphy's law_) pronounced in many languages as  /'ma:rfi/. However, In case of  languages where the ö-like sound does not exists (Slavic, most of Romance) I'd expect rather  /'m*e*:rfi/, like - for example - _Röntgen _is pronounced typically  /'ren(t)gen/ in these languages.

P.S. The quality of "r" is not relevant from the point of view of the question.

Thanks in advance


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## ahvalj

The title question doesn't quite correspond to the one in the text. Well, assuming the former takes precedence, in Russian in the last decades the English CərC is transliterated through CʲorC, e. g. Murphy becomes _Mʲorfi_ (Закон Мёрфи — Викицитатник), _Heard > Xʲord_ (Хёрд, Эмбер — Википедия), _Turner > Tʲorner_ (Тина Тёрнер — Википедия) etc. _Röntgen_ became _Rʲent'gʲen_ first because the stress is on the second syllable, and second because when _е_ and _ё_ were not distinguished in normal writing, people simply didn't know how to pronounce the unknown words and for the foreign loans assumed it was _е _by default. With the growing awareness of the English pronunciation and with the popularity of _ё_ in the computer era, the situation has changed (and even Mireille Mathieu from the soviet _Ma'tʲje_ has become _Ma'tʲjo_ (Матьё, Мирей — Википедия), though poor _Goebbels_ and _Göring_ still suffer with their _ʲe_'s).


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## Hulalessar

The Standard Southern English pronunciation is as you have transcribed it, though some may prefer to write it /ˈmɜːfɪ/. I cannot think of any dialect where it would be /'ma:fi/.


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## Dymn

To start with:
Murphy - Forvo

In Spain, as far as I know, people pronounce it "just as it is written" (i.e. /ˈmurfi/). I think Spaniards aren't much sensible toward foreign pronunciations, at least compared with other Europeans.

As for how we pronounce /ɜː/-/ɝ/ in English (a different topic), I think the spelling plays an important role. I personally perceive the closest correspondence for the sound in Catalan is /ər/. However I think Spanish influence and the schwa never appearing in stressed position in Catalan make learners use different vowels. Catalans may pronounce _burn_ either /barn/ or /bərn/, _bird _as /bɛrt/ or /bərt/, and _word _definitely as /wort/.

I'm not sure about Spaniards who don't speak Catalan but they are more likely to stray from central vowels, also being influenced by the spelling. If they were to pronounce _Murphy _based on pronunciation rather than spelling, they would say /ˈmarfi/ and not /ˈmerfi/ in my opinion.


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## apmoy70

In Greek it's [ˈmerfi]
Murphy's law: «Ο νόμος του Μέρφι» [o ˈnomos tu ˈmerfi] (lit. "the law of Murphy")


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## bearded

Italians say 'marfi' (on the other hand most of us pronounce also 'barton' for Burton..). Apparently, we have decided once and for all that the ''difficult sound'' (plus r) must be pronounced a:r . This wrong conviction is unfortunately confirmed by some existing exceptions in English, where we would expect the ''difficult sound'' and there is a: instead, like in sergeant, clerk... I'm talking about uneducated Italians, of course - although 'Richard Barton' is a long-established pronunciation on our TV.


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## Hulalessar

Dymn said:


> I think Spaniards aren't much sensible toward foreign pronunciations, at least compared with other Europeans.



I think the French can give the Spanish a run for their money.


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## Stoggler

The British are hardly renowned for pronouncing non-English names well.

I used to work with a Swedish lass called Ida (pronounced /ˈiːda/ or /ˈiːdə/ - the latter hardly difficult to English speakers!) but despite her telling the same individuals how to say her name, they would still say /ˈɑiːdə/.


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## Nino83

As bearded said, in Italy we say ['marfi], for both Murphy's law and the Irish stout beer Murphy's. 
In Scottish English it is /'mʌɾfi/ ['mɐɾfi] (similar to the Italian one), while in traditional Dublin and West/South-West Hiberno English it is ['mʊɹfi].


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## francisgranada

bearded said:


> Italians say 'marfi' (on the other hand most of us pronounce also 'barton' for Burton..).


Yes, and perhaps also 'tarner' in case of Turner. First I've noticed this kind of pronunciation only in Slovak and Czech, but later also in Italian and some other languages (as far as I remember, also in Spanish and Polish) - that's why my question. In Hungarian we say 'mörfi'.


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## Red Arrow

Here in Flanders it's pronounced the same way as how an American would say it.


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> ... In Scottish English it is /'mʌɾfi/ ['mɐɾfi] (similar to the Italian one) ...


Thanks for the information. However, it doesn't explain (of course) neither e.g. the Italian nor the Slovak pronunciation as the Italians and Slovaks were never exposed to the Scottish English. So a hypothetical question could be weather the pronunciation with "a" instead of   "ə" (or similar) has a common origin or it's rather an independent "solution" in different languages ... (I think rather the latter is probable).


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> However, it doesn't explain (of course) neither e.g. the Italian nor the Slovak pronunciation


I agree. I was replying to the following question.


francisgranada said:


> s it admissible to pronounce _Murphy _as /'m*a*:rfi/ in English?


Until some centuries ago the /ʌɾ/ pronunciation was the norm (the Scottish accent is pretty conservative).

Anyway these words were borrowed only during recent times, so it cannot explain foreign pronunciations, that, probably, follow the current spelling.


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## Nawaq

in *French* it is /mœʁfi/ (same as in _cœur_, _sœur_), no schwa.



Hulalessar said:


> I think the French can give the Spanish a run for their money.



depends on who you ask i'd say, younger people are more aware of foreign pronunciations (and so try their best) than some other people (someone with knowledge in foreign languages will also be more aware of it), some others just francize foreign pronunciations when the sound(s) used in the name etc doesn't exist, like Spanish jota for example, many pronounce it as a typical French R or as an approximant, some others say it _correctly_ (because they know how to do the sound) and some even say it as a very hard H (very rarely though...) oh well, all that to say that it's improving !


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## MidnightCharm

In Spain I've heard either _/Moorphy/_ or /_Marphy/_, never _/Merphy/_.


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## danielstan

Romanian does have the sound /*ə*/  (noted with 'ă' in our alphabet), thus we pronounce /'m*ə*r-fi/  (with a tough 'r', as we don't have the English 'r' in our language).
I guess this may explain why other Romance languages (not possessing this difficult sound /*ə*/) are pronouncing  /'marfi/ or /'murfi/.

I also remark Dutch (and its Flammish dialect) do have the /*ə*/ sound.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Swedes as a rule don't struggle with English names such as Murphy, it's common enough, and we expect the first syllable to rhyme with the first syllable of RP 'murder'. A Swede with no knowledge of English (rare breed nowadays) would probably go for /mɵrfʏ/ or even /mɵrphʏ/ by adapting to Swedish phonetic rules. 

However, Irish names such as Ciarán or Siobhán are usually out of our cognitive reach - impossible!



Stoggler said:


> a Swedish lass called Ida


I know one of these, she reinvented her name in England to Eeda when she got fed up! She still suffered the ending schwa (it should be /ˈiːda/ ) but thought it was asking too much of the English to end a word or a name with a vowel other than schwa!


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## utopia

In Gaelic Murphy is  (Ó) Murchú - (sound like Morochu).


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## Penyafort

In the case of Spanish, there is usually a difference between Spain and Latin America. Latin Americans usually try to imitate the original English pronunciation. Most Spaniards don't, even those who are fluent in English, because doing it sounds somewhat snobbish to the Spanish ear. This is why DVD/CD is said differently in each continent, or why Spain is, as far as I know, the only country to name the band U2 in Spanish.

This said, the English -u- in modern Spain is usually read as a simple Spanish a, while in Mexico they tend to pronounce it as a Spanish o. So a surname like Trump is heard as Tramp in Spain or Tromp in Mexico. This is why Murphy usually has up to three different pronunciations in Spanish (Murfi, Marfi, Morfi) depending on the speaker.


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## Apollodoros

francisgranada said:


> Thanks for the information. However, it doesn't explain (of course) neither e.g. the Italian nor the Slovak pronunciation as the Italians and Slovaks were never exposed to the Scottish English. So a hypothetical question could be weather the pronunciation with "a" instead of   "ə" (or similar) has a common origin or it's rather an independent "solution" in different languages ... (I think rather the latter is probable).



I think it has to do a lot with orthography and the simplification that any 'u' in written English is pronounced as 'a' in Slovak, as the sound represented by 'u' in English seems to be closest (but definitely not equal) to plain Slovak 'a'. Slovak is pretty poor on vowels, only five. 

Extending this, this is one of the typical markers of Slovak accent in English for me. Few Slovaks will go the extra mile to imitate vowels that they don't find in their mother tongue.

Maybe the situation is similar in Italian, both with simplified pronunciation of all written u's as 'a' and a generally simple vowel repertoire (no schwa at least).

How do you pronounce it in Hungarian?


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## francisgranada

Apollodoros said:


> How do you pronounce it in Hungarian?


Mörfi (see my post 10#).


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## merquiades

If a foreigner cannot pronounce Murphy the English way,  I would suggest first Mörphy, then Merphy.  They strike my ear as less bad than Marphy.


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> If a foreigner cannot pronounce Murphy the English way,  I would suggest first Mörphy, then Merphy.  They strike my ear as less bad than Marphy or Morphy.


This is exactly what I meant in my original question with the following:





> ... In case of languages where the ö-like sound does not exists (Slavic, most of Romance) I'd expect rather /'m*e*:rfi/, like - for example - _Röntgen _is pronounced typically /'ren(t)gen/ in these languages.


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## ilocas2

Murphy's law - In Czech it's pronounced rather with short a, not long a.


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## Red Arrow

merquiades said:


> If a foreigner cannot pronounce Murphy the English way,  I would suggest first Mörphy, then Merphy.  They strike my ear as less bad than Marphy or Morphy.


If Mörphy isn't possible, then I would go for Marphy (~British) or Merphy (~American).


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