LL-L "Names" 2009.08.19 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 19 August 2009 - Volume 01
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From: Hellinckx Luc <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com> Subject: LL-L "Names"

Beste Ron,

Please bear with me going on some more about the status of my surname in the
USA, or rather about my constant wonderment about such.
I've started working with a new crowd of people. Again, without needing any
coaching, everyone that grew up or at least spent a lot of years in this
country pronounces my surname perfectly: [hɑːn] ([hA:n]).

There's an awful lot of people with a German surname in America, so some
exposure to German sounds is not that strange in the U.S.

Other native English speakers do not, with the exception of an Englishman
who studied some German and a South African who knows Afrikaans as a second
language and has also come across this name before. The two (East Coast)
Australians, one New Zealander and one Irish person (Belfast of non-Scottish
background) asked me how to pronounce it and still say either [hæːn]
([h{:n])

Maybe they compare it to their native dialects in which [ɑː] may not
feature. Some coastal Dutch dialects do this as well, so called "knijpen" of
[ɑː] > [æː], the Hague for example and Katwijk if I remember well.

or (in the case of the Irish person) [haÃùÀên] ([ha_r:n]).

The guy/girl may have wondered: "What on earth can be the phonetic value of
something inserted between an "a" and an "n"? Not merely something mute to
lengthen the sound, the person may have thought, otherwise it would have
been "Hawn" or "Haun"...mmm, that "h" resembles a long "r", so let's give it
some voice: "r".

The Irish person (with whom I work together most closely) did not even have
a clue which country of origin my name and accent signal ...

Viewed from a distance, what is striking in German? Maybe the length of
words...the use of "k", where English uses "c". A short surname with half of
the letters being "h", does not readily qualify as German for a layman.

As mentioned earlier, Americans seem very familiar with my surname and tend
to find it less remarkable than people in Germany do.

 People in Germany? Really???
 Or people in Europe?
In order to get a better pronunciation among the "Islanders", it may be a
good idea to change your surname into either "Mr. Haun" or "Mr. Hawn".
However, diminutive would be "Mr. Hawny" then...mmm, maybe an unwanted
side-effect *s*. Is it "überhaupt" legally possible to change a surname in
the U.S.? Here in Belgium it is, but it does cost you some money.
Kind greetings,
Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Names

Thanks a lot for your response, Luc.

The guy/girl may have wondered: "What on earth can be the phonetic value of
something inserted between an "a" and an "n"? Not merely something mute to
lengthen the sound, the person may have thought, otherwise it would have
been "Hawn" or "Haun"...mmm, that "h" resembles a long "r", so let's give it
some voice: "r".

A woman in her 40s that came here from Northern Ireland five years ago.

We are not talking about an /r/ here (and her dialect is rhotic, BTW) but
about the SAMPA substitution for an IPA diacritic indicating that a vowel is
raised. So it's a vowel that is slightly higher than [a:]. I noticed that
she says "f*a*ther" and "Belf*a*st" with this phonetic value, so it is
indeed her equivalent of [A:].

People in Germany? Really???

Well, I might have to take this back when I consider German
speakers' assumption that the name means "rooster" (though this is not its
etymology) and you get the occasional "joke" about it.

Is it "überhaupt" legally possible to change a surname in the U.S.? Here in
Belgium it is, but it does cost you some money.

Yes, it is, and it's pretty easy. Also, you can change it to pretty much
anything. Yes, there's a process, and it involves a fee. However, I could
have done it for "free" when I became a US citizen (which I didn't consider
because my original name is registered in two other countries).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle,

•

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