van Gogh pronunciation?

Question

My entire life, I have always heard van Gogh pronounced "van-GO." However, in my art history class, my teacher pronounced it "van-goff." I decided to look it up to see how the Dutch would pronounce this name, since he was born in the Netherlands. At about 1:03 in a video I found, the correct pronunciation is given (vahn-hogh-- with a throaty sound for the gh in hogh). It is hard to type it out phonetically, so I will provide the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLTQv8RH1TE


My question does not have to do with the correct pronunciation, but rather, where my teacher heard her pronunciation of his last name. All I have ever heard has been "van-GO." Nothing else. I will accept the original pronunciation as the best, but will most likely keep pronouncing it "van-GO" because it is easier for me, and because every English speaker I have ever heard reference Vincent van Gogh pronounces his name the same way I do. When my teacher said "van-goff," it took me off guard, and I thought that either a) she got it wrong, or b) I figured that an art history teacher MUST know what she's talking about, so there must be some reason for this pronunciation; maybe it is the way it was meant to be pronounced! However, when I found the correct pronunciation, it showed that a) she got it wrong.

How could a college professor make such a mistake? And... Where on Earth did she hear this pronunciation?!

Answer 1

I agree with contributor 'Mark', it is in fact extremely difficult to pronounce. When I returned to the Netherlands from Australia I could half speak the language and was far behind in reading and writing. It took me 2 years to catch up, putting me far behind in my grades. First off, I had to learn how to pronounce all the Capitol Cities, many of them having similar pronounced style. Which-ever-way, it is accepted around the world as Van-Go in English speaking countries. Indeed, your teacher got it wrong, but don't worry about it, let it go. Flow in with her style in her presence and out of it, just go along with everybody else's easier way to pronounce same. Van Go was a remarkable artist, but as with many of them they did not do well in making a living out of their work whilst alive. He died relatively young due to mental health issues, painted and drew some 800 works and only ever sold one. PS, even printing in Van Go to check up on the artists birth date it came up with Van Gogh!

Answer 2

Vincent Van Gogh Pronunciation

Answer 3

The Dutch pronunciation of the name, which is presumably how Vincent and his family pronounced their name, is something like "Van Xkhoxkh," with the "xkh"s representing a gutteral fricative in the throat, like the the "ch" in the German word "mach." The Dutch guy in the video got it right.



Since English doesn't have this "xkh" sound, few English speakers can render the Dutch pronunciation correctly, and most of us don't even try.

Some people think it's more like "Van Gaw," with the final "gh" silent. That's neither Dutch nor English, it's just pretentious. Your teacher's version is a variant on this, perhaps influenced by the English name "Gough," which is usually pronounced "Guff" or "Goff."



Vincent Van Gogh lived in France for a substantial part of his adult life, and made most of his most famous art there. French doesn't have the "xkh" sound, either, and in most French words, the final consonant is not pronounced, so the French pronounced "Gogh" more or less like the English word "Go." I assume that's where we get that pronunciation.



But as long as people know who you're talking about, who cares?

Answer 4

VanGogh lived in London for a while, and a BBC documentary showed, a ledger that contained his credit account at some department store. It had his signature on it which was "Vincent van Goff". The narrator explained that van Gogh signed his name this was so that the Brits had no problem pronouncing his name. I'm not asserting that this was the correct way to pronounce it, its just a devoce that he used to enable people to address him with out difficulty

Answer 5

Is your art teach a native English speaker? If not, then she is using the pronunciation that she learned where she grew up. Americans differ widely in pronunciations of certain words or word usages, depending upon where they are from, and it isn't necessarily just due to accents. A pronunciation sounding like van-goff might indicate that she learned it from someone speaking German or possibly even British English. It isn't a mistake - it is just the way she is used to pronouncing his name. She probably thinks it is weird that all students pronounce it van-go, but has gotten used to it. As long as you recognize that van-goff is the same as van-go, just go (or goff) with it.

Answer 6

Van Go is an American abomination. In the rest of the English speaking World it is pronounced Van Goff.



The Dutch is much harder - both Gs are pronounced like the CH in loch, or the Ll in the Welsh language.

Answer 7

If you don't speak Dutch it's hard to pronounce the Dutch "g" (but then for some of us it hard to pronounce the "th" and especially in "three"). And Van Gogh is extra hard because is has two times a hard "g". So I think it's not a mistake but just another (english) way of pronouncing so you can say Vincent van Gogh his name.

Answer 8

First of all, don't assume that something is correct just because your college professor says so. An important part of college is thinking for yourself which you seem to be doing here. While not the original Duch pronunciation, Van-go is a perfectly acceptable anglicized pronunciation of his name. There are some sounds that are simply not used in some languages, so we use versions of names and words that are adapted to the way we speak.

Answer 9

I'll still pronounce it van-GO, no matter what.

Your teacher might figure the suffix of cough & rough have that F sound

so why not?,..or she heard some other teacher do it?

I don't know.

Everything else sounds pretentious to me.

Vinny van-GO for the win!

Answer 10

Haha hi. I see u also asked this in the painting section. It's veen-sun vahn gorv

Answer 11

van-goh