9 ms·
U.S. Surnames with No Vowels
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- uranusjr 5y agoNitpick: These are names with no _vowel letters_; many (if not all, depending on how you define what a vowel is) of these letters are pronounced with a vowel.
- oehtXRwMkIs 5y agoHow do you pronounce anything without a vowel sound?
- henrikschroder 5y agoBrrrr, it's cold today!
- joe-collins 5y ago/bɜr/ That's a vowel in there.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoHmmm. Can be said without moving your lips or opening your mouth.
- meepmorp 5y agoYes, but it ends with /m/. Nasal stop consonants are articulated with an open velum, so they function as semi-vowels, as /l/ and /r/ do.
- hvdijk 5y agoThere are different ways people say "brrr" in English. Many of those ways have a vowel in, but not all.
- Asraelite 5y agoYeah, a nice example for this is "myrrh" because it's a full word, not something paralinguistic like brrr. It's one of very few examples of English words that can in certain dialects be spelled and pronounced without a traditional vowel.
- DonHopkins 5y agoPththth!
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoGenerally, with an added yet invisible vowel. Entire languages are written without vowels as we (with the latin alphabet/english speakers) would know them. (Hebrew and Arabic are the languages I had in mind).
- infiniteL0Op 5y ago
- adrian_b 5y agoA vowel sound is a sound that can form a syllable alone, without being combined with other sounds, like a consonant, or which can be the peak of sonority in a syllable composed of multiple sounds. In Latin & Ancient Greek, which are the origin of the grammatical terms that most people learn in school, only A, E, I, O and U could be used as vowels. Because of that, when most people hear about vowels, they think about these sounds. Nevertheless, in most languages there are also other sounds that can be used as vowels. Even in English, words like "listen" or "often" have 2 syllables and the vowel of the second syllable is "N". Another example is "people", which also has 2 syllables and the second vowel is "L". Among the English speakers, there are variations. In words like the previous examples, some speakers pronounce a short central vowel before the final "N" or "L", which remain consonants, but other speakers transition directly into the final "N" or "L" from the previous plosive, in which case "N" or "L" are the vowels of the second syllable. Like in English, there are many languages where the liquids (e.g. "L", "R") or the nasals (e.g. "N", "M") may be used as vowels. While English has restrictions for where such vowels may appear, other languages allow their use in much more kinds of sound environments. These kinds of sounds can be used as vowels when alone or when surrounded by sounds of lower sonority than them, because when they are pronounced there are also paths for the continuous expiration of air through the mouth or nose, even if they are more constricted than in the sounds more frequently used as vowels, e.g. AEIOU (i.e. like you can pronounce continuously AAAAAAAA, you can also pronounce for as long as you want LLLLLLLL or NNNNNNNNNNNN).
- timeon 5y ago> of these letters are pronounced with a vowel maybe in English but not in Slavic languages (at least not in western Slavic). "prst skrz krk" [ˈpr̩st] [ˈskr̩s] [ˈkr̩k]
- forehanddev 5y agoWestern slavic languages still use a version of the 'Close unrounded central vowel' implicitly in pronounciation, even though it is not represented in writing. An example of this would be words in Romanian (which has a character representation for this sound) that were adopted from slavic languages. E.g. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/b%C3%A2rlog#Romanian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/b%C3%A2rlog#Romanian
- ithkuil 5y agoBut southern slavic languages lost that and we really just roll that r and pretend that it's just a vowel.
- anotherboffin 5y ago> There's also a town in Yugoslavia with the name Srb and the surname could mean someone from that town. Interesting to see Yugoslavia being mentioned when the town is in present-day Croatia (as per the link in the post).
- vmception 5y agoRight after mentioning Serbia I’m thinking either the author had an old map (very common in the US) and has noticed this town before, or identifies as being from Yugoslavia from growing up there at one point (and adopting some identity politics that still separates Serbia), or thinks its synonymous to call the region yugoslavia like the region of nordics has its own name which would just be wrong
- dmurray 5y agoYugoslavia/Yugoslav/South Slavic is a handy name for the region and the language family. Unfortunately it's no longer a neutral name because there was a country with that name and using it might be seen as calling for reconstituting that country and in particular, uniting several nations under Serbian rule. I think these days we're meant to use "the Balkans" and understand by context that we don't mean Greece. But it's much less precise. That said, in this context "a town in Croatia" would have been correct, uncontroversial and more precise.
- infiniteL0Op 5y ago
- ggm 5y agoI grew up with a colourful "visit Yugoslavia" poster in my bedroom in the sixties. I still think about it. Happy smiling ethnic/folkloric dressed people. Thirty years later, at each other's throats.
- BerislavLopac 5y ago> understand by context that we don't mean Greece Or Albania. Or Romania. Or possibly Bulgaria.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mrjin 5y agoOh well, if you take a closer look, you will find why: most if not all of those with surnames look weird in English are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from a non-English speaking background. When they/their ancestors arrived, they most likely do not speak English at all or might be a couple of words, some of them might not even have a surname. When they arrived at the customs, they for sure needed something English on their papers. It would make sense to take what ever came to their mind at that moment as their surname. Such things can be observed in every English speaking countries I would say. As those surnames were actually picked randomly, and when they/their descendants moved again, they most likely carried that randomly chosen surname with them. And now it becomes quirks that lots of surnames of different spellings are actually exactly the same in their origin. Lots of descendants of immigrants no longer neither can read or write in their own language but English, some might be either able to read or write but hardly anyone can do both.
- hereforonep 5y agoNo , there are many surnames with multiple spellings in their native language. See e.g Danish Skov Skou Skog etc etc
- liversage 5y agoA famous case of this is the Danish man Victor Cornelins that was born in St. Croix but at the age of seven was brought to Denmark to become part of a human exhibition as a "negro kid" to attract visitors. His birth name was Cornelius which is not unusual in Danish so Cornelins must have been a simple writing mistake. However, this lapse is negligible compared to the racism he was subjected to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Cornelins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Cornelins
- forehanddev 5y agoThis particular problem, of matching misspelled immigrant surnames was the reason for development of phonetic matching algorithms. See https://stevemorse.org/phonetics/bmpm2.htm https://stevemorse.org/phonetics/bmpm2.htm
- cwmma 5y agoThere are plenty native English surnames that came about before spellings standardized leading to (in the case of my own) Metcalf, Metcalfe, Medcalfe, Medcalf, Midcalfe, Midcalf all being the same name. So even immigrants coming from places that have surnames can have lots of variety before taking into account there isn't always a single best way to write a name in the Latin script.
- durnygbur 5y agoI was certain it's about Czech surnames, yes it is.
- McNutty 5y agoTIL that "Ng" is pronounced "Wu" in Mandarin
- rwmj 5y agoAnother strange transliteration is the most common Vietnamese-descent surname Nguyễn, pronounced roughly as Win, n-Win or n-Yen (with the n being very quiet). I do wonder why these difficult transliterations were chosen over more obvious ones.
- zo1 5y agoTIL. Been reading that name as "N-Goo-Yen" for the longest time as I haven't spoke to anyone with that name yet.
- pessimizer 5y ago"Ng" is like the "n" in Frank, not the "n" in France.
- glandium 5y agoWhat I learned a while ago is that it's pronounced like gwen, but with the tongue deeper in the mouth for the g.
- jltsiren 5y agoIt's not a transliteration. Vietnamese is written using Latin script. Because the modern script is still relatively new, there is a strong correspondence between the written form and the standard pronunciation. And because Vietnamese is not Latin, many odd-looking compromises had to be made to represent all the sounds using something resembling the Latin alphabet. The situation with Chinese is similar. Pinyin is not a transliteration standard but a standard way of writing the Beijing dialect phonetically using Latin script.
- teddyh 5y agohttp://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-surnames http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-surnames
- iNerdier 5y ago‘In the U.S. the confusing haček is dropped from the z and one is left with just Smrz.’ What’s so confusing about a háček?
- timeon 5y agoMaybe that it was just dropped? Instead of using something like Smrzh. For example Slovenian surname Klobučar -> Klobuchar.
- vasco 5y agoThere's not many accents or variations from basic ascii in english, so anything squiggly is usually confusing. In my language we use a few accents and character variations and I often meet Americans who have never seen such character variations like ç and get confused. Perhaps the author had similar experiences.
- smcl 5y agoI think it's confusing to non-speakers of Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croat and Slovene because they may just not be 100% on how it should be pronounced. Quite a few names get mangled when used in US English even when the letters don't have háčky, čárky etc. Brett Favre becomes "Brett Farve", Weird Al Yankovic's surname is pronounced "Yankovik" (not "Yankovitch"), anything ending in "-owski" is pronounced "OW-skee" (instead of ov-skee).
- parineum 5y agoThere are generally two choices for immigrants to any country really. You either keep the spelling of your name or you (try to) keep the pronunciation. These days I think the former is the standard but it definitely used to be the latter. Then there's Nguyen. I don't understand.
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoThere are generally two choices for immigrants to any country really. You either keep the spelling of your name or you (try to) keep the pronunciation. The first is the only realistic choice in a lot of areas - if you are going from latin alphabet to latin alphabet. I'm not even sure how to spell my name to get a Norwegian-speaking person to pronounce it correctly, honestly, though a few folks that know it is a common American name do well. Even then, I'd have to first change it on my American passport and documents first. It isn't worth the trouble at all.
- inglor_cz 5y agoAs of now, the longest vowel-less meaningful sentence in Czech is: Škrt plch z mlh Brd pln skvrn z mrv prv hrd scvrnkl z brzd skrz trs chrp v krs vrb mls mrch srn čtvrthrst zrn. The meaning of the sentence is: Stingy dormouse from Brdy mountains fogs full of manure spots firstly proudly shrank a quarter of handful seeds, a delicacy for mean does, from brakes through bunch of Centaurea flowers into scrub of willows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C4%8D_prst_skrz_krk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C4%8D_prst_skrz_krk I just walked around Brdy yesterday, but I didn't meet any stingy dormouse. They must be rare.
- adrian_b 5y agoIn reality this sentence is not vowel-less. It is vowel-less only from the perspective of the languages where "R" and "L" can be only consonants, i.e. they must always belong to syllables where another sound is the vowel (i.e. the peak of sonority). In Czech and in many other present or past languages, including in the Proto-Indo-European, "R" and "L" can be both consonants and vowels, depending on the neighbour sounds. While there are many languages where "R" and "L" cannot be vowels, in almost all languages "I" and "U" can be either vowels or consonants, also depending on their environment. There are languages where even "E" and "O" can be consonants in certain environments, not only vowels. There are also languages where the nasal plosives or even some sibilants may be vowels, not only consonants. In general, only "A" is always a vowel and only the non-nasal plosives are always only consonants. For the other sounds of intermediate sonority, it varies from language to language whether they are used only as consonants or only as vowels, or they may be used as either consonants or vowels, depending on the environment.
- dotancohen 5y agoAt my skill level in life, burgundy is red, Excel is witchcraft, and "Škrt plch z mlh..." is vowelless.
- dylan604 5y agoHow do we make "At my skill level in life..." the next viral meme?
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoAs a European, when I think of stereotypical 'American' surnames, it's often the European ones that are not common near me that I think of, particularly Polish names ending in -ski and Italian names ending in -i. I wonder if other areas in Europe do the same in reverse. (Though typing this out I realise that I grew up knowing a few people with a Polish and Italian surname that fits these patterns, so possibly that's why they stick out for me personally).
- dvh 5y agoKrc could be from Slovak "kŕč" - 1. muscle or stomach cramp, 2. Bulbous stem or root e.g. wine, 3. commanding verb to "duck" down
- forehanddev 5y ago> I'm not sure whether Srp is similar. The Serbian-language word for the Serbian language itself is Srpski (српски), but srp is also Slavic for “sickle”... Native speaker here, these are in fact two different words, since the change that happens in the root of the word 'Srb' that converts it to 'Srp' when the suffix 'ski' is added is called Consonant voicing or originally 'Jednacenje suglasnika po zvucnosti'.
- acadapter 5y ago>'Jednacenje suglasnika po zvucnosti' "equalizaton of consonants on [the basis of] voicedness"
- IvanK_net 5y agoThe letters R, L, M can create a syllable in the czech language, similar to vowels. All words in the article are single-syllable words. The word "srp" in Czech is a "sickle" - a tool for harvesting wheat: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srp https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srp From that, you get "Srpen" - "August", which is a "month of harvesting crops" (same in Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, etc).
- seanhunter 5y agoThe article mentions "Ng" as being Mandarin, but I know two people with the surname Ng who are both Vietnamese. Is this connected?
- DonaldFisk 5y agoIt says it's Cantonese, not Mandarin. There are many ethnic Chinese in Vietnam (Hoa), and many of them speak Cantonese or are descended from Cantonese speakers.
- ogogmad 5y agoI don't think truly vowel-less words can exist, unless the consonants can all be "held" like {rr, sh, th, zh, l}. If a consonant cannot be held, like {b, k, t, d}, then there has to be a vowel somewhere. When I say "ng", I say it almost like "oong", so there's a starting vowel. I can say it with an ending vowel like "nga". I suppose the consonant "ng" can be held, but it's hard to say it without pronouncing a vowel somewhere. Note: This opinion is not scientific.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Asraelite 5y ago> I suppose the consonant "ng" can be held, but it's hard to say it without pronouncing a vowel somewhere. It just takes a bit of practice. The surname Ng is pronounced without a vowel in Cantonese. It's true that you can't really have a stop-only word in isolation, but they can still exist with other words depending on how you define what a word is. You could consider "'d", the contracted form of "would", "had", or "did", to be a word in English. If you didn't, it would imply that "you'd", "I'd", "Mary'd" etc. must be words in their own right which is a bit ridiculous. A good example in another language would be 't and 'k in Dutch, since they're also written with spaces separating them.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- DonaldFisk 5y agoOne problem with these names is that they are difficult to shout.
- amelius 5y ago> 吳 belongs to at least twenty-seven million people Is it a coincidence that this glyph looks like a man, waving his hand?
- est 5y ago> Is it a coincidence that this glyph looks like a man, waving his hand? You are 99% close. It actually means a person speaks loudly with palm hand https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%90%B4 https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%90%B4
- zht 5y agowonder if it is a coincidence that it is more prevalent in cantonese speaking regions, where the dialect is far more tonal than mandarin due to its use of more tones
- innermatrix 5y agoThe author appears to mostly randomly choose from a menu of Slavic options, both wrt etymology and geography. For example “smrt” means “death” across Slavic languages, yet Czech is randomly chosen to be mentioned in the article. Similar problems with Croatia vs Serbia vs Yugoslavia are discussed in others’ comments.
- retrac 5y ago> For example “smrt” means “death” across Slavic languages Surely "Mr. Death" is a bit unusual in its own right?
- PufPufPuf 5y agoThere are 77 people called "Smrt" in the Czech republic: https://www.prijmeni.cz/Smrt https://www.prijmeni.cz/Smrt
- justsomehnguy 5y agoAfter "Vagina" as both the toponym and the surname?
- tiahura 5y agoI’ve always wondered how Smrt became a name. Was old man Smrt an assassin?
- hendrikrassmann 5y agoOf course there are only 100 people named SMRT left. The other ones died.
- BooneJS 5y agoI've seen Srb in southern Wisconsin and Smrz in central Wisconsin (ironically including Plover, WI)
- mjd 5y agoPlover, WI is on my list of places to visit. Maybe next summer! I am hoping to drive through there on the way to or from Neenah to see the foundry.
- rg111 5y agoThe doctor who is mentioned does likely belong to the Parsi community of India. The Parsis came from Iran to India to flee Islamic persecution. And they are among the "model minorities" in India. There are many famous people with occupational last names. But I don’t know why. Did they not have last names originally? Last name convention in India varies wildly. Bengalis, Marathis, Hindustanis go with the family last name. Many Muslims do not. They can choose among Ali, Sheikh, Mian, etc. South Indians often put their father's name as last name. Did Parsis have none? I wonder. Farokh Engineer [0] was a famous Indian cricketer. I have even heard of names like Daruwala (seller of alcohol), Screwwala (screws), etc. IRL. The wildest one that I have heard is SodaBottleOpenerWala [1]. Wala just means "having". So a seller of X would be X-wala [1a]. The Parsis are a influential minority who enjoy a good perception from the population. Homi Bhaba, FRS [2] was the father of Indian Nuclear Science. Sam Maneckshaw [3] was a legendary Field Marshal who helped liberate Bangladesh from Pakistan. Ratan Tata is the leader of Tata Group in India. They own Jaguar Land Rover brand. Parsis were, and still somewhat are in prominent positions of Bollywood, science, military, and definitely industry. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farokh_Engineer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farokh_Engineer [1]: https://www.sodabottleopenerwala.in/food/the-story-behind-wala-suffix-in-parsi-surnames/ https://www.sodabottleopenerwala.in/food/the-story-behind-wa... [1a]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallah https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallah [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha [3]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Manekshaw https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Manekshaw
- b0rsuk 5y ago
- seventytwo 5y agoAll this without discussion of how they’re pronounced?!
- PufPufPuf 5y agoFor the Czech ones, you can just use Google translate, it reads Czech pretty well.
- gondo 5y ago`Vlk` is also a Slovak word with the same meaning: "wolf"
- tamaharbor 5y agoF u cn rd ths, u cn bcm a sec & gt a gd jb w hi pa.