D as in dovid

July 19, 2011 7:26 AM

Quick now: how would you pronounce the (Yiddish?) names Dovid and Elly?

Assume the one doing the pronouncing is not a speaker of Yiddish. And I'm not sure what Elly is short for, if anything.

posted by peachfuzz to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

'Dove-id'. Like the bird.
posted by gnutron at 7:30 AM on July 19, 2011

Best answer: As an American Jew raised in a religious community that uses a sort of Yiddish pronunciation of Hebrew words (e.g. "Shabbes" rather than "Shabbat"), I would say Duh-vid (emphasis on the first syllable) and Ehl-ee (emphasis on the first syllable.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 7:31 AM on July 19, 2011

And "Elly" as a female name could be short for Elisheva or Eliana (more likely Elisheva if it is a name given by Yiddish speakers) or Eliezer if it's a male name. There are other possibilities but these are probably the most common.
posted by needs more cowbell at 7:33 AM on July 19, 2011

I concur with needs more cowbell. (I have a cousin with an Israeli father named Dov, pronounced "Duhv.")
posted by restless_nomad at 7:35 AM on July 19, 2011

Is the one doing the pronouncing the (presumably Jewish) owner of the name, or a (possibly not Jewish) stranger attempting to pronounce a name they have seen written down?

I'd have said Dovid to rhyme with "Hobbit" and Elly to rhyme with Belly. (British and not Jewish). Now I have read this thread I figure my guess was wrong!
posted by emilyw at 7:42 AM on July 19, 2011

Doh-veed; in Hebrew David is DAH-veed. Dov by itself is the Hebrew word for bear. Elly could also be short for Elijah (Elly-ah-hoo in Hebrew).
posted by brujita at 7:43 AM on July 19, 2011

Response by poster: Awesome, you guys are the best.

Emilyw: it's me doing the pronouncing. These guys are my contacts for a project, I'll ask for their preference of course if necessary but I would rather not butcher their names right off the bat.
posted by peachfuzz at 7:49 AM on July 19, 2011

(American, former Orthodox Jew.)

I agree with needs more cowbell. Duh-vid (not duh-veed) and elly. I disagree with emilyw that Dovid rhymes with "Hobbit."
posted by callmejay at 8:18 AM on July 19, 2011

brujita: Standard Hebrew and Yiddish have very different pronunciations. Nthing needs more cowbell.
posted by vasi at 8:20 AM on July 19, 2011

For the last word in pronunciation of Dovid: Imagine bringing your dove to a Denny's. You tell the waiter, "The dove'd like a cup of coffee."
posted by holterbarbour at 8:20 AM on July 19, 2011

emilyw's description of Elly rhyming with "belly" is accurate though. Rhyming would have been an easier way to describe the pronunciation than what I did.

For what it's worth, a lot of Jews spell it "Eli" instead but still pronounce it "Elly." I had no idea that most people pronounced "Eli" as "eee-lye" until I was almost 20.
posted by needs more cowbell at 8:22 AM on July 19, 2011

I only answered because it sounded like the question was asking about how an uninformed person might guess the pronunciation.

Please disregard my guessing attempts altogether!
posted by emilyw at 8:23 AM on July 19, 2011

Dovid is a Hebrew name, not a Yiddish one per se. The Hebrew pronunciation is "da-VEED" and the Yiddish pronunciation would probably vary with the origin of the speaker more than anything else; Yiddish-speaking Jews from Frankfurt would pronounce it differently than speakers from Odessa. The Yiddish pronounciation of Dovid would be "DO-vit" with the D sounding more like a T to an English speaker, I would think, but Yiddish speakers might very well pronounce it more in the typical Hebrew way.
posted by clockzero at 8:30 AM on July 19, 2011

I work with a Dovid and we pronounce it "doe-veed," though he said that anything besides the standard pronounciation of "David" is fine. Left to my own devices I would have assumed "dah-vidd" like "Ovid."
posted by rhizome at 8:31 AM on July 19, 2011

In my California world, a couple of generations away from immigrant Yiddish speakers but still having lots of them around, Dovid would in fact rhyme with hobbit. Elly rhymes with belly.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:51 PM on July 19, 2011