Marseille!--How is it Pronounced?

[AV82DV8]

Hi All,

To our German members, what is the correct pronounciation of Hans-Joachim Marseille's last name?

Always curious,

Fred

[Yves Marino]

As you pronounce the name of the french city (in French of course).

[ChrisMAg2]

I deleted my original message, as I have found out it would lead to wrong conclusions. I meant something else and that is not of importance for this thread.
I appologise deeply, if somebody felt insulted by what I had written.

[Graham Boak]

As in Gdansk/Danzig, you mean? Or a lot of other examples in Eastern Europe? I'm afraid that statement doesn't seem to stand up.

However, no matter how the city Marseilles is pronounced, this is not necessarily a guide to the pronounciation of the name Marseille. I understood it was pronounced Mar-sy-le, but cannot claim that as definitive.

[Andy Mac]

Hey Fred - pronounced ' mar-say '.

Andy.

[Primoz]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

As in Gdansk/Danzig, you mean? Or a lot of other examples in Eastern Europe? I'm afraid that statement doesn't seem to stand up.

This and other examples in Eastern Europe are quite different as - unlike Marseille - one can't always tell which name is "original". There were many ethnic minorities especially in Eastern (and Central) Europe and they had their own toponyms (including German names). But it must be very annoying to non-German readers of English translations if such exonyms are not translated. Names like Steinamanger (Szombathely), Fünfkirchen (Pécs), Lüttich (Liège) etc. etc. are absolutely normal in German books but are out of place in English translations.

[Graham Boak]

Most of the examples you quote are actually completely different names, rather than merely variations. However, I don't think this is true of Danzig/Gdansk. Here is a case of one root name with two linguistic variants, like Cologne/Koln or London/Londres.

I assume that this kind of variation is rather uncommon in any language, as few foreign city/town names would go into common usage.

[Artist]

In an interview with Johannes Steinhoff, he pronounced it 'Mar-say' as Andy Mac states Robert

[Primoz]

Graham,

Maybe I didn't put it clear enough, I wanted to say that your comparison Marseille – Danzig/Gdańsk is out of place because Danzig/Gdańsk is one of many cities and towns in the Eastern half of Europe that have (or had) a mixed population (including Germans) (there are many many others like Brno/Brünn, Ostrava/Ostrau, Olomouc/Olmütz, Wrocław/Breslau, Opole/Oppeln, Kraków/Krakau, Maribor/Marburg etc., the names Pécs and Fünfkirchen also have a common root but it's a rather complicated story).


It's interesting to note that there are many German exonyms for Italian cities (like Rom, Mailand, Turin, Genua, Venedig, Neapel, Mantua, Padua) but very few French cities and towns have special German names (except in Alsace and Lorraine, of course). To put it short – the city of Marseille has no (different) German name.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Primoz

It's interesting to note that there are many German exonyms for Italian cities (like Rom, Mailand, Turin, Genua, Venedig, Neapel, Mantua, Padua) but very few French cities and towns have special German names (except in Alsace and Lorraine, of course).

I think the reason with Northern Italy at least is that a big piece of it was once in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and hence places evolved Germanic variants: hence Brunico/Bruneck and Bolzano/Bozen. There are still German-speaking minorities in some of these regions, I believe.

IIRC the full version of "Deutschland ueber Alles" has a verse about Germany stretching from the Baltic to the River Etsch (i.e. the Adige)

BTW, Marseille is only a French corruption of the Roman name of Massillia (which is probably a version of whatever the local Gauls called it etc.).