-stein names: -stine, or -steen?

[Joel S. Berson]

I have the impression that (American?  English?) reversed the
pronunciation of the two vowel forms, so that
      "ei"  German "aye'' became English "ee"
      "ie"  German "ee"  became English "aye"
(generally speaking).

I think this impression goes back to my high school German teacher,
who used this formula to induce the proper German pronunciation in us.

Joel

At 1/11/2006 05:36 PM, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
>Subject:      Re: -stein names: -stine, or -steen?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>This interchange has mystified me for years.  (BTW, Rodgers and
>Hammer__?  I've heard both pronunciations).
>The German word for 'stone' was not 'stin' (I think you want a long
>vowel), but 'stein', most likely pronounced something like English
>'stain.'  Maybe Yiddish developed from a German dialect that
>smoothed the diphthong.  But the diphthong was original in Germanic.
>Middle High German /ei/ remains in Yiddish, but spelled <ey>, so, we
>should expect 'shtine.' I don't know much about the history of
>Yiddish and nothing about its dialects, but I'd be curious to know
>whether '-steen' is found in European Yiddish or only American
>Yiddish.  Maybe '-steen' is some sort of American development, based
>on spelling pronunciation.  I think I may have come across
>mispronunciations of German names before.
>Fritz Juengling
>
>
> >>> mspahn at LOCALNET.COM 01/10/06 08:35PM >>>
>It has been explained to me (correct me if this understanding is wrong)
>that both the Yiddish and the German word for "stone" was
>originally "stin", but that in German there was a vowel shift
>to the "stine" pronunciation, while the Yiddish pronunciation
>remained "steen".  That is why a name like Bernstein is
>pronounced sometimes German-style as "Bern-stine"
>and sometimes Yiddish-style as "Bern-steen".
>
>In any case, "Ram-steen" is an unambiguously wrong pronunciation
>for the purely German word "Ramstein".  The TV cop show
>'Law and Order' is set and filmed in New York City, which
>has a high Jewish population.  My guess is that the actress who was
>called upon to pronounce the word "Ramstein" pronouced it
>following the pattern of Jewish surnames spelled "-stein" but
>pronounced "-steen".
>
>-- Mark Spahn  (West Seneca, NY)