# Pronunciation: Götze, Kroos, Podolski, Höwedes…



## iezik

The sportsmen, politicians, movie stars and other known people bring plenty of new words into languages. Each language has rules: set of phonemes (with several possible phones) and phoneme sequences (let’s skip all the remaining rules). New words (as pronounced) can be either changed to rules of a language or  rules can be changed to accept new words. Or even both can happen at the same time.

I’ve assembled a list of some German football players and their German pronunciation. I know that IPA allows several ways to encode the same sound and I hope the encodings are consistent enough. I don’t have any voice recording with all the names pronounced by the same mouth. Any football fans listening to sport news in German, correct me if anything is wrong.

Boateng: boaˈteŋ
Götze: ˈɡøtsə
Höwedes: 'hø:vedes
Khedira: keˈdiːʁa
Klose: ˈkloːzə
Kroos: ˈkʁoːs
Müller: ˈmʏlɐ
Neuer: n'ɔɪ̯ɐ
Özil: ˈøːzil
Podolski: poˈdɔlski
Schürrle: 'ʃʏʁlə
Schweinsteiger: ˈʃvaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯ɡɐ

Now, the question: How are these words pronounced by journalists or fans in your language? Are any sounds adjusted, added or deleted? Does the stress move?


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## Frank78

iezik said:


> Özil: ˈøːzi*ː*l
> 
> Now, the question: How are these words pronounced by journalists or fans in your language? Are any sounds adjusted, added or deleted? Does the stress move?



Özil has a long i, at least in German, I don't know about the original Turkish version.

I've heard "Cruz" for "Kroos" on CNN.


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## Peterdg

In Dutch, we usually try to pronounce these names the same way as they are pronounced in the original language. Since German and Dutch are family, it isn't too hard for us in this case. With this, I don't want to pretend that a native German speaker would not notice a difference, though.

I didn't go over all of your IPA transcriptions (mostly because I'm not really an IPA specialist) but from what I did see, in Dutch we would probably pronounce "Müller" and "Neuer"  with a more pronounced "r" at the end than what most German people would do (I think). (I'm not a big sports fan, so I don't watch sports programs that often on TV, but with the recent world cup, I must admit I saw some).


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## berndf

Frank78 said:


> Özil has a long i, at least in German, I don't know about the original Turkish version.


No, the transcription is correct. The i is short but it is perceived as long because it has the quality of a long i. Genuinely long vowels exist only in stressed syllables.

You could say your transcription is phonemic and his transcription is phonetic.


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## ahvalj

I have never heard most of these surnames, but there is a standard procedure in Russian: they are transcribed and then read as if they were normal Russian words. In particular:
_Götze — Гётце/Gyottse — g'otse
Höwedes — Хёведес/Khyovedes — x'ov'edes
Müller — Мюллер/Myuller — m'ul':er
Podolski — Подольский/Podol'skiy — padol'sk'ij
__Schweinsteiger — Швайнштайгер/Shvaynshtayger — ʃvajnʃtajg'er_
(stressed vowels are underlined; palatalized consonants are followed by an apostrophe; schwas etc. usually found in the Russian transcription are features of Muscovite pronunciation: in St. Petersburg unstressed vowels normally sound much clearer so I don't mark them in a separate way).

The stress in the Slavic surname _Podolski_ (literally "from the downtown") is moved to its original place on the second syllable; in _Schweinsteiger_, too, since it sounds more natural for Russian ears.

Update. I have noticed, _Podolski_ is stressed on the second syllable in German as well.


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## Perseas

It depends on the level of knowledge of German language/pronunciation each possesses. I' ll try to transcribe the names of these German players using as basis the Greek Wikipedia ,which is indicative of how an average Greek pronounces these names.

Boateng: 'boateŋ
Götze: 'ɡetse
Höwedes: 'hevedes
Khedira: ke'dira
Klose: 'kloze
Kroos: 'kroos
Müller: 'miler
Neuer: 'noier
Özil: ο'zil or e'zil
Podolski: po'dolski
Schürrle: 'surle
Schweinsteiger: 'svain'staiger


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## iezik

The Slovene language doesn't have front rounded sounds /ʏø/ as phonemes, but these sounds are still rather known due to proximity with German. The mid /ø/ is usually pronounced, but /ʏ/ often changes to /i/ when speaking faster. |ng| is read as two letters and becomes /nk/. The schwa /ə/ at the end of words is converted to /e/ following the written form and absence of such sound at the end of words in the standard variety. The stress for Schweinsteiger also moves to the prelast syllable. The |r| is not vocalized, the ending -er is /ər/.

Boateng: 'boatenk
Götze: 'ɡøtse
Höwedes: 'høvedes
Khedira: ke'dira
Klose: 'kloze
Kroos: 'kroos
Müller: 'mʏlər or 'milər
Neuer: 'noiər
Özil: 'øzil
Podolski: po'dolski
Schürrle: 'ʃʏrle or 'ʃirle
Schweinsteiger: ʃvain'ʃtaigər


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## iezik

Perseas said:


> Müller: 'miler
> Schürrle: 'surle


Are then some letters ü pronounced /i/ and other /u/, depending on word? Are the other two possibilities 'muler and 'sirle also possible?


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## iezik

Ahvalj, thanks for detailed report. I still have few questions...



ahvalj said:


> _
> Höwedes — Хёведес/Khyovedes — x'ov'edes
> _



The Cyrillic letter |_ё| is often written as |е|_. Do you have an idea, which version,Хёведес or Хеведес, is more often used for writing? I was recently reminded that the number that Google reports as number of hits is not much reliable, so its preference for _Хеведес_ is not necessarily correct. Is the pronunciation also affected by assuming Хеведес/_Khyevedes _when written without diaeresis? Is the soft /l'/ in Podolski's pronunciation related to similar words that typically have soft consonant at this place?


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## ahvalj

iezik said:


> The Cyrillic letter |_ё| is often written as |е|_. Do you have an idea, which version,Хёведес or Хеведес, is more often used for writing? I was recently reminded that the number that Google reports as number of hits is not much reliable, so its preference for _Хеведес_ is not necessarily correct. Is the pronunciation also affected by assuming Хеведес/_Khyevedes _when written without diaeresis? Is the soft /l'/ in Podolski's pronunciation related to similar words that typically have soft consonant at this place?


_Е_ for the foreign _ö/eu_ was widely used in the past when typographies didn't bother to get enough separate types for _ё, _which has led to many mistakes like_ Геринг, __Геббельс _and_ Пастер _for_ Göring,__ Göbbels _and_ Pasteur. _Stalin insisted in the compulsory use of _ё _in the middle of the WWII to avoid toponymic confusion, but this was canceled after his death. With the arrival of computers, _ё_ is becoming more widespread and many people (me included) always use it. As I had mentioned, I never heard most of these surnames, so I can't tell if in this particular case the pronunciation implied by _Хеведес_ is widespread. Well, it may exist since laypeople often don't care, and sport commentators often have no idea (and no desire to learn) how to pronounce foreign names. I recall seeing the official Ikea catalogs of the 2008 and 2009 when the Swedish names of the furniture where transliterated as if they were written in English: the firm didn't bother to hire a Swedish translator for this market.

_Ль_ in _Подольский_ is automatic since Russian doesn't have _лск_ in inherited words at all and _Podolski_ is clearly perceived as a Slavic surname.


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## Angelo di fuoco

iezik said:


> The Cyrillic letter |_ё| is often written as |е|_. Do you have an idea, which version,Хёведес or Хеведес, is more often used for writing? I was recently reminded that the number that Google reports as number of hits is not much reliable, so its preference for _Хеведес_ is not necessarily correct. Is the pronunciation also affected by assuming Хеведес/_Khyevedes _when written without diaeresis? Is the soft /l'/ in Podolski's pronunciation related to similar words that typically have soft consonant at this place?



In Bielorussian the ë always bears the dots, Ukrainian doesn't have that letter, it has other ways to represent those sounds.
As to the preference: most newspapers and publishers systematically ignore the two points except in cases of ambiguity. However, this practice produces cases of hypercorrection where the phoneme represented by ë is introduced in words where it doesn't belong and is ignored in words where it should be - including names.

Хеведес is not a word where you would easily guess the original pronunciation. Not using the two points means, for the average speaker: e is e, and since ë is stressed by default, the stress might shift to the second syllable. If you have heard the correct pronunciation before, you most probably will pronounce the first e as if it were written ë. If not, you most probably won't guess the pronunciation with ë that would be closest to the original pronunciation.

Google results quantity is usually correct, but it doesn't mean that the most often used version of a word is always the correct version or the version that would be correct following certains rules. So, in a nutshell: Хеведес most probably is the most often used version in writing. As to pronunciation: just watch a few videos on youtube and you'll see what is used most often.

The pronunciation of the Latin letter L is presumed to be closer to the Russian soft "ль" pronunciation rather than hard "л" pronunciation for most European languages except English and some rather unsystematical exceptions in other languages. Подольский also has the soft sign becaus you'll never encounter a hard л before the -ск- suffix in Russian: *Подолский just sounds wrong to a Russian ear, and is marked in red by Google's spelling check (while Подольский isn't).
However soft n before the same suffix is counterintuitive in Russian, but you'll find in the transcription of some transcriptions from Polish, where the soft n before -sk is the rule.


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## marrish

I'd like to add that "Khedira" in my language is pronounced xəzi:rɐ or xədi:rɐ (x for a fricative). It's very strange that although Dutch users formally adhere to the original pronunciations and at the same time there is the sound [x] in this language, they don't recognise KH to be the same and abide by the spelling as in that language.


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## Perseas

iezik said:


> Are then some letters ü pronounced /i/ and other /u/, depending on word? Are the other two possibilities 'muler and 'sirle also possible?



A person who is not familiar at all with German pronunciation would pronounce ü rather as /u/. After I checked it on google, most results are indeed with "'surle".

 Perhaps some few would say 'muler,  but the majority would say 'miler, as the word "miller" is more familiar to us (probably from English).


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## Angelo di fuoco

The problem with the KH digramme is that it isn't present in native Dutch words (or English, or French, or whatever language).


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## Ben Jamin

ahvalj said:


> The stress in the Slavic surname _Podolski_ (literally "from the downtown") ...


Does it really mean that in Russian? If so, it was not the original meaning of the name, which was certainly "a man from Podolia (Подо́лье), which means _Lowlands_"
The origin of the name is also, more precisely speaking, Polish, as Lukas Podolski is an immigrant from Poland.


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## Angelo di fuoco

I'd say it's "man from the Lowlands" (подолье).


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## ahvalj

Indeed, this is probable but I didn't even think of this etymology (the last time I read about Podolia was probably in the 90's): for me this surname was derived from the word _подол_ "the lower part of a city" (e. g. in Kiev). The district including Podol is called in Kiev _Подольский район_. There is also a city _Подольск_ near Moscow, again with the adjective _подольский_. Though, of course, the Central European surname most probably is derived from _Podole_.


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## iezik

Thanks all for replies.


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## Linnets

iezik said:


> Özil: ˈøːzil


In Italy this one is commonly mispronounced [øˈtsiːl] as the surname was natively German and not Turkish. However Wikipedia states his name should be pronounced (in Turkish) [meˈsut œˈzil], while, yes, in Germany is commonly [ˈmeːzut ˈøːzil].


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> schwas etc. usually found in the Russian transcription are features of Muscovite pronunciation


I'd beg to differ. Vowel reduction is a typical feature of the Russian city koine in general, even though the exact patterns may be different (e.g. стыдливое оканье). Moreover, even in the Central Russian rural dialects that do have normal okanye schwas are quite abundant, even though reduction is more selective.


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> for me this surname was derived from the word _подол_ "the lower part of a city" (e. g. in Kiev)


I am only aware of Podol in Kiev, and only because we studied its geography at school (from where I also know the original meaning of the word). That's not common knowledge at all, though. I suppose that an average Muscovite would immediately (and most likely erroneously) associate the surname Podolski(y) with the town of Podol'sk in Moscow Oblast (ultimately of the same etymology as Podol in Kiev, but again, for an average Russian speaker, who only knows _podol_ "hem (of a skirt)", it's obscure).


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