"Neanderthal/ ~tal"

David Bergdahl dlbrgdhl at GMAIL.COM
Fri Oct 27 00:22:12 UTC 2006


German "th" = aspirated t, not the fricative (vd. or vl) so Neandertal is
the spelling for what it should be pronounced as.  The valley is just south
of Duesseldorf and the land rises quite steeply from the coastal plain.
There's a wonderful statue of Neandertal man out front; I have a picture
somewhere of me embracing him.  It's 1976--I'm the one with the orange
shirt!  (I've always felt a kindship with him b/c of my brow ridges)
-db

On 10/26/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      "Neanderthal/ ~tal"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wikipedia explains the two English versions thisaway :
>
>   "The term Neanderthal Man was coined in 1863 by Irish anatomist William
> King. Neanderthal is now spelled two ways: the spelling of the German word
> Thal, meaning "valley or dale", was changed to Tal in the early 20th
> century, but the former spelling is often retained in English and always in
> scientific names, while the modern spelling is used in German."
>
>   Certainly "Neandertal" has been far more common in my experience over
> the past twenty years or more, though I grew up spelling and saying
> "Neanderthal" with the "th". Is this the only English borrowing whose
> spelling (and to some degree pronunciation) has been changed to reflect a
> later change in spelling in the source language ?
>
>   I knew an anthro grad student once who derided my use of "Neanderthal"
> as "wrong."  I told him his use of "toolkit" was "offensive."  Then we beat
> each other up.
>
>   That last part is fiction. But he did say, somewhat sniffily, that
> "-thal" was "an incorrect pronunciation," even in English.
>
>   JL
>
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