"Walter de Gruyter": Dutch or Deutch?

August 4, 2008 8:11 PM

What's the excruciatingly correct pronunciation of Berlin-based academic publisher Walter de Gruyter? [w] or [v]? What about their subsidiary, Mouton de Gruyter? Bonus points for IPA.
posted by ormondsacker to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

The name is most certainly of Dutch origin. But apparently the original person was employed by Frederick II of Prussia in 1749. So a german pronunciation is also fine.
The german pronunciation will be easiest for an anglophone. Something like Wahllter de Groiter.
The dutch pronunciation is harder because the 'g' and the 'uy' have no equivalent in english.
posted by jouke at 9:16 PM on August 4, 2008

Sorry, since when was a German W ever pronounced as anything other than V? Are you sure about that one, jouke?
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:56 PM on August 4, 2008

The w in Walter is pronounced like a v.

Your biggest difficulty will be getting the r right. It's a soft r. But yeah, "de Groiter" or "de Groyter", like "toy", is right.

Mouton is not German at all, so if it were up to me I would attempt a French pronunciation. But that is beyond my expertise.
posted by creasy boy at 12:18 AM on August 5, 2008

Heh, ubu, to me as a dutchman a 'v' and 'w' in German are very distinct sounds; the first is a fricative, the second almost a plosive but with no overpressure.
But I understand why that's the kind of direction anglophones get since the english 'w' is more like a vowel. So the advice to pronounce like english 'v' is a close approximation. It also explains why anglophone comedians generally do such bad german impressions.

I've heard from ormond that the person who will be using this speaks german. So I guess we don't have to try to explain german pronunciation through text.
posted by jouke at 4:02 AM on August 5, 2008

Ubu meant that a german W sounds like an english V, duh.

What he was pointing out was that your non-IPA pronunciation guide should have been written:

Wahllter de Groiter

For completeness, I'd tweak that to:

Wahl-tah deh Groy-teh

Pronouncing the R sound at the end of words is the #1 dead giveaway of American Trying To Speak German. If you can get past that one error (errah?) then you've accomplished a lot.
posted by intermod at 5:29 AM on August 5, 2008

Best answer: Oh, fer crying out loud, brain fart.

Vahllter de Groiter

Vahl-tah deh Groy-teh
posted by intermod at 5:30 AM on August 5, 2008

Response by poster: jouke is right - I'm asking this on behalf of a friend who speaks decent German, but has no idea how to handle a German company named after an eighteenth-century Dutch immigrant and a French sheep.

creasy boy - that answer sounds promising - have you encountered the company itself?
posted by ormondsacker at 5:38 AM on August 5, 2008

Best answer: I've probably heard the name "de Gruyter" pronounced a bunch of times, although I don't remember it specifically. I've definitely been in colloquiums here where we're discussing de Gruyter books. I'm almost certain you ignore the Dutch origin and speak it like it's German. As for Mouton -- I'd never heard of that subsidiary, but since there is no German pronunciation of "Mouton", then yeah I'd try the French pronunciation with a German accent insofar as that's possible. I'm guessing at the very least you wouldn't pronounce the n at the end. Germans also drop the ending on "Cousin", after all.
posted by creasy boy at 6:05 AM on August 5, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks all, and thanks to jouke for the offer.
posted by ormondsacker at 10:53 AM on August 5, 2008

Possibly related: two threads that deal with the question of whether one should approximate the native pronunciation of words and names from a different language than the one being spoken.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:36 PM on August 5, 2008