"Neanderthal/ ~tal"

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:15 PM -0700 10/26/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>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.
>
Is it any more incorrect in "Neanderthal" than it is in "Blumenthal",
"Rosenthal", "Lilienthal", "Goethals", and so on, or (mutatis
mutandis) in names like "Morgenthau"?  Is it just that there are no
(or relatively few) Neandert(h)als around to protest our changing
their name compared to the number of extant Blumenthals and
Rosenthals?

LH

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