Pronunciation of Wieseltier

March 23, 2005 1:20 PM

I am a great admirer of the writings of New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier, but I am shy about recommending him to friends because I can't pronounce his name. How do you pronounce Wieseltier?
posted by shambles to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

It sounds German to me, so in any ie or ei construction the second vowel is hard: ie = ee ei= I. Weesel - teer. The w is more like a hard V. That's my guess. The literal translation is weasel-animal.
posted by princelyfox at 1:27 PM on March 23, 2005

I think Princelyfox got it, but you can confirm the correct pronunciation in a '60 Minutes' interview with Wieseltier found as an extra in the DVD of Shattered Glass.

A simply outstanding movie, BTW.
posted by mojohand at 1:55 PM on March 23, 2005

NPR interview with Wieseltier.
posted by hilker at 1:58 PM on March 23, 2005

If you're using strict pronuniation guidelines (a la Siebs), it would be veezel-teer (veezel rhymes with weasel!), but I don't know where this person is from, so he may not be using the Hochdeutsch pronunciation (that's the standard).
posted by abbyladybug at 3:28 PM on March 23, 2005

what abbyladybug said. in my experience, most Americans with German names are pretty happy when one uses the correct pronounciation (but then, I also say Bern-schtuin instead of the more widely used (in the US of course) Bern-steen, so I may be a bit of an extremist
posted by matteo at 4:25 PM on March 23, 2005