Sounds like something we should turn into a Wiki entry! I found a list here, which I borrowed from mostly for entries rather than pronunciation: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/fonts-faq/part5/

Here’s my take on pronunciation:

Benguiat: BEN-gat

Univers: oo’-nih-VAIR

Arnold Boecklin: AR-nolled BOKE-lin (the BOKE part is actually a German o with umlaut, but that’s as close as most English speakers will get)

Fette Fraktur: FET-uh FROK-tour

Peignot: pay-NYOH

Sabon: sah-BON (second syllable should have a nasal element, like bonjour)

Veljovic: VELL-yoh-vitch’

Zapf: tzopf

faq pronunciation

Another way to ’phoneticize’:

Fraktur: Frahk-tour
Zapf: Tzahpf

The correct pronunciation for the ’a’ in these is the sound of ’a’ in ’father’. (The sound of the English ’a’ in ’cat’ is not a part of German.)

I had a conversation with one of my professors about how to pronouce Kabel. I said it’s KAH-BUL. What’s correct? I’m glad OONIVAIR was on the list because I heard people at TypeCon pronounce it so many different ways.

Nice wiki, Paul.

This is cool.

>pronounce it so many different ways.

I think there is always a choice of trying to pronounce it as in the language or origin, or Anglicise (or Americanize) it. If you have studied the language or are good at foreign phonemes, then my view is go for it. But it is perfectly acceptable to do an Anglicized version. So Univers is also ’universe’, etc.

In the case where the phoneme exists in English, then I think it preferable to use it.

For example, we have the ’ts’ or ’tz’ sound, as in ’nuts’, though in English it never starts a word. And we have the ’a’ in ’father’, as well as ’cat’. So I think ’tzahpf’ (correct German) or ’zahpf’ (z as in zoo, a bit Anglicized) is preferable to ’zapf’, with the z as in zoo and the a as in cat.

Univers and Kabel also have very similar sounding English translations, so I think it is acceptable to pronounce them in an English manner. But would “Cavo” be OK for Kabel in Italian?

That Paul Hunt is johnny-on-the-spot with Wiki entries! Thanks Paul!

ChrisL

by all means, if the pronunciations in the wiki can be improved, please correct them. i just copy/pasted from one of the other pronunciation threads i found.

A musical troop from Bitstream performed a G&S style number at TypeCon, rhyming off a great long list of typeface names. Where can that be downloaded?

Funny, I was just wondering how to pronounce Herb Lubalin’s last name. (There’s a huge billboard near my house that uses Lubalin Graph.)

Loob-ALLEN?
LOO-ball-in?

> Loob-ALLEN?
> LOO-ball-in?

Funny you should ask.
I had to ask Ilene Strizver just to be sure, right before I gave the “Type & Design Education” presentation at TypeCon.

I always knew the pronunciation as LOO-BAAL-in (“BAAL” rhymes with the name “AL”).

But once I heard Ed Benguiat pronounce Herb’s last name as LOOB-AH-lin (as in lube-ah-lyn), which made me question since I never met Herb myself.

Ilene had worked with Herb Lubalin, and she said Benguiat was pulling my leg (again).

I said it’s KAH-BUL. What’s correct?

No, it’s rather BEL insteat of BUL. Just say the last part as in “cable” and you are fine.

Ralf

http://www.fonts.info

Thanks Ralf!
So then does it sound like the name of the Iraq city?

ChrisL

> So then does it sound like the name of the Iraq city?

I would think the font’s name has the stress more decidedly on the first syllable.

I would think the font’s name has the stress more decidedly on the first syllable.

Exactly.
It’s really pretty much like “cable” but with a tough German “KAH” syllable at the beginning.

Ralf

http://www.fonts.info

> So then does it sound like the name of the Iraq city?

Actually, Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan. Kabel is the typeface.

Sorry, my mistake.

ChrisL

another try:

The “bel” is pronounced very similar to the “ell” in the english “bell” (but not as short).

Combined with emphasis on the first syllable, it says:
Kaabel(l)

Thomas Phinney wrote:
Univers: oo’-nih-VAIR

I thought this myself until Typecon. Now I’m not so sure. Everyone, including Bruno Steinert (and, I think, Mike Parker) who worked directly with Frutiger for many years pronounce it like the English word “universe”.

Now I’m just completely confused.

-Jon-

Perhaps we need a “pedantic” version of the pronunciation guide too. ;^)

or a “when in Rome” version?

ChrisL

I think most American designers pronounce “Univers” the same as “universe” (including me), but I do feel self-conscious sometimes about saying it that way around other type designers since I realize that Mr. Frutiger would not pronounce it that way. No one ever corrected me, though, so I assumed it was okay (and I still do).

A musical troop from Bitstream performed a G&S style number at TypeCon, rhyming off a great long list of typeface names. Where can that be downloaded?

As a matter of fact...

http://www.marksimonson.com/bitstream-song.mp3

(I have video, too, but it’s not worth the bandwidth.)

Priceless, thanks Mark! (BTW, I’m waiting for photos of the Restaurant Identity project I used Mostra on. I’ll send copies your way when I get them.)

>I do feel self-conscious sometimes about saying it that way

We Americans, bless us, want to show our respect for foreigners by trying to pronounce their names their way. The English tend to unapologetically Anglicize foreign names. (At least traditionally; don’t know whether that’s changed.) Either way is ok, in my view. The problem with typeface names is that they have been so little spoken that for many there is no standard way to Anglicize them, in the sense that you can look it up and get something authoritative.

So I say do what you are comfortable with—GAIR-a-mond or Gahr a MON (nasal ’on’), oo-ni-VAIR or universe—and enjoy the type!

Does anyone know how to pronouce Marian Bantjes last name?

I have an interview with F+W publishing on Friday, and I’d like to comment (positively) on the recent cover of Print.

This is perfect! Now I can win some debates with some fellow students:

Emigre Filosofia? Is it Feelo-Sophee-a or Philosophy-a?

Letterperfect Beata? Is it Beeta or Baytuh?

Letraset Aachen? Is it A-uh-ken, ah-ken, a-uh-chen, or ah-chen?

Ha! I should start betting now...

AH-ken. Just like the city it’s named after.

T

Aachen. Anglicized, as Thomas says. In German, ah-chen, with ’ch’ as in the composer J.S. Bach or the Scottish word for lake, ’loch’.

That Bitstream song, Mr. Simonson, is pure gold.

Can we have an Adobe — FontShop — ITC/Monotype sing off at the next TypeCon? I can already see how ITC/Monotype could potentially pull an all nighter :)

On the same note — sorry to veer off here — check this out, a song called, rather inapropriately, Kern That Bembo Tighter.

By the way, how do you pronounce Fountain’s Waldstein? ’Woldsteen’, ’Waaldstein’ or ’Vaaldstein’ as it is spoken in Germany (maybe)?

And... (now you’ve got me thinking...)

Walbaum: WAHL-bowm or VAHL-bawm (the German way)?

Goudy: GOW-dy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Goudy)

Barmeno: bar-MEEN-oh or bar-MEN-oh?

Berthold: BER-told or BEART (rhymes with “bear”)-hold?

Bodoni: bo-DOH-nee (I presume the Italian way) or bo-DONE (rhymes with “bone”)-ee?

Caslon: CAS-lun or CAS-lawn?

Fago: FAY-go or FAH-go?

Scala: SCAY-luh or SCA-lah?

Keivit: KYEH-vit?

Fenice: rhymes with Venice? or fen-EES

Univers: your pronunciations are very helpful, but I’ve always called it (erroneously, I suppose) YOU-ni-verz

And lastly, Comic Sans: KO-mic SANDS or ko-MEEK SAWN (nasally)... you know, lipstick on a pig and all...

I could go on all day!

Fenice: fay-nee-CHAY

I think it’s funny—it’s almost like it’s not a real typeface unless there is some confusion as to how to pronounce its name.

FRROW-ghee

:-)

ChrisL

“ko-MEEK SAWN”

I love this, it’s like Tarr-Szay. Maybe it will help the reputation of Comic Sans. If we put enough lipstick on this pig, who knows?

Mike Abbink could share the story of Kievit; it’s very sweet. Is he listening?.....

I’m afraid I’m only adding to the mess. My new typeface has a name that apparently nobody can pronounce when they first read it. Beorcana is not that strange when you realize it’s pronounced like Bjork, with -ana on the end: Byor-KON-uh. But my family and friends keep mangling the name when they say it. Maybe I should have named it ESPN. ;D

“my family and friends keep mangling the name”

LOL! Maybe that is why Eric and FontFont are so fond of those 3-letter font names?
;^D

ChrisL

“FRROW-ghee”

Is the r trilled, then?

;)

“Fenice: rhymes with Venice? or fen-EES”

“Ver - SAYCE”

Carl, Yes it is a rolled Italian r best pronounced with an audible croaking sound afterwards :-)

ChrisL

I think Fenice is actually Feh-KNEE-chey ... feh as in fed the dog ... chay as in pay.

I hope my earlier remark about pedantic didn’t offend anyone. I was just being silly. Obviously what I found as funny didn’t translate. :^/

I thought it was funny Tiff but that is how I am wired :-P

ChrisL

Carl, you were being funny. :^> I didn’t see your version until just now.

Wow! Feh-KNEE-chay? I would never have guessed. I suppose that’s why we need this thread after all. Beginning designers rarely hear the name spoken; they just see it listed in a font menu.

Two more that came up this morning:

Sabon: with or without a nasal ending?

Futura: FYOO-too-rah or or FYOO-tchur-ah or FOO-tchur-ah?

In fact, name pronunciation came up in a class today, where a guy apologized for pronouncing St. Augustine, AW-gus-teen (which is how the city in Florida is pronounced), rather than the more popular (in academic circles, anyhow), uh-GUS-tin. Naturally, I immediately wanted to create a font with that name to fit Mark’s Maxim above.

Futura: FYOO-too-rah or or FYOO-tchur-ah or FOO-tchur-ah?

None is right! ;-)
It’s Foo-TOO-rah.

Ralf

http://www.fonts.info

So it is spelled like Latin, yes? I wonder if Fenice, Scala, Fago are supposed to be spelled that way. No fuss. No accent.

By to by, is Mr. Abbink a member?

Since so much of this discussion is about Frutiger...

is it FRUIT-i-ger or Froo-tee-ZHAY?

If I may crash in: FRUIT-iger, the German way.

And a couple more on German: VAHL-bowm would be best.

KAH-bull is fine, and KAH-bell is possible — depending on Koch having a northern or southern German accent? But the a in Zapf is short by all means, actually closer to CAT: so, TSAPF.

Incidentally, the same should have applied for Bach, the English pronunciation is a little wide of the mark. Just in case someone might fancy naming a typeface after him. We already have Handel Gothic :)

A little Latin (or Italian?): Beata is Bay-AH-tah. Wonder if Futura should be Latin with a touch of German accent?

I’ll ask Mike—I have to touch base with him anyway.

Froo-ti-ger?

I’ve been wondering how to configure special German versions of fonts with low-riding umlauts on the A and U, and the answer may be to translate the name of the typeface, so that the regular western version is, say, Brown, but the German version is Braun.

As I pour another cup of jo from my Braun coffeemaker and ponder...:-)

ChrisL

mp3 of “das kabel”, meaning “the cable” - just try to cut “das” away.

i couldnt find one for “univers”.

maybe a little help in the case of frutiger: the german word “die frustration” (the same as the english word) has “fru” in it, pronounced similarly in frutiger.

Sorry for Frutiger’s Frustration, but U is long in Frutiger and short in Frustration. Same difference as between ’boot’ and ’look’. Or is it different in Zurich, Kesh? (Closer to Frutiger’s birthplace: my German is of the northern sort.)

I would have thought you glyph-loving people would jump at the chance to use IPA.
I’d hate to hear the average scot tackle LOO-BAAL-in...

You can listen to some typeface pronunciations in the MyFonts podcast: http://www.myfonts.com/info/typecast-podcast/

A.

Having read an article in the September issue of Computer Arts Magazine (UK), I was amused to read Jason Arber’s comments regarding the name of my typeface Chevin. He reckons that – “my grandmother could think of a better name than this bizarre contraction of Chav and Kevin”.

I hadn’t thought of that when I named it – it’s actually named after the hill that overlooks the town where I live, as I couldn’t think of a name and looked out of the window and thought ’That’ll do’.

– See the time, effort and complicated tought processes we type designers put in to come up with a catchy name?

BTW it’s pronounced ’Shevin’ as in shout, not Chevin as in Charles. Oh, and while I’m at it; Houschka is pronounced ’Hooshka’, not as in house.

Nick Cooke

Here’s a nice one, picked from the Bitstream song: Eurostile. Looks easy but... ever noticed it’s stile with i, not y? That means it’s Italian. So (deep breath): AY-oo-roh-STEE-lay!

Nobel: NO-bull or no-BELL?

Hmm. Never thought of this, but if it’s named after Alfred Nobel, born in Stockholm, it should be... NOO-bull.

Someone with authorization needs to put a Pronunciation link at the Wiki start page.

I share SourisNoire’s surprise that no one is jumping at the chance to use those IPA glyphs. Here is my take. I added what I took to be the original languages in parentheses. Of course, in English pronunciation, these will all be appropriately anglicised. I myself anglicise the words heavily when speaking in English. I must say though that I have hardly ever had the opportunity to pronounce many of these names in real life.

I made no effort to reflect regional variances in pronunciation (e.g. the dozens of varieties of Swiss German). Please correct me if you find mistakes.

Akzidenz Grotesk [ˈak.ʦɪ.dənʦ ɡʁo.ˈtɛsk] (German)
Avenir [av.ˈniʁ] (French)
Benguiat [ˈben.ɡæt] (English)
Berthold [ˈbɛɐ.tolt] (German)
Enschede [ˈɛn.sxə.deː] (Dutch)
Fraktur [ˈfʁak.tʊɐ] (German)
Frutiger [ˈfʁʊ.tɪ.ɡɐ] (German)
Garamond [ɡa.ʁa.ˈmõ] (French)
Gill [ɡɪl] (English)
Goudy [ˈɡaʊ.di] (English)
Kabel [ˈka.bəl] (German)
neue [ˈnɔʏ.ə] (German)
Peignot [pɛ.ˈɲo] (French)
Sabon [sa.ˈbõ] (French)
Tschichold [ʧɪ.xolt] (German)
Univers [y.ni.ˈvɛʁ] (French)
Veljović [ˈve.ʎo.viʨ] (Serbian)
Zapf [ʦapf] (German)

I’m no swede but I say no-Bell.

Considering the font itself isn’t Swedish, I must admit NOO-bull would be overdoing things a bit... So that leaves us with the Dutch pronunciation in memory of S.J. de Roos, and plain Font Bureau English. Which wouldn’t make much difference.

Considering the font itself isn’t Swedish

That’s what counts?

What if I made a font called Tschichold. Should it be pronounced like an average Finn would?

Shouldn’t it? I suppose whoever designed the typeface and named it should know best. Which doesn’t mean you should pronounce the French word Univers with a German-Swiss accent... Just splitting hairs for fun, you know. Nobel is a household word anyway in any country so the font can follow local custom too.

Tschichold would be a problem to transpose into plain Finnish phonetics wouldn’t it (Sisold?)? But I know you’re good at languages and would get the German pronunciation right. Anyway, if you named a font after Tschichold, you would be infringing Presence Typo copyright. Unless the court buys the argument that your Tschichold is pronounced differently :)

Jongseong, I think you are right that pronounciation in many languages can only be done properly by using phonetic symbols—or by explaining which English letters you are going to use represent a specific sound or phonetic symbol.

However, as most people don’t know the phonetic symbols—I only know a few—I think it is just too complicated to try to represent pronounciation in original languages accurately. What those who contribute to the wiki could do very helpfully is to indicate an appropriate or acceptable English pronounciation.

For example if you ask Zapf, my guess is that he would find zapf, with the z as in zoo and the a in father an acceptable English variant. But probably z as in zoo and a as in cat less acceptable. If Dan can ask Zapf—who has taught to English speaking students so he would have dealt with the issue—that would settle it.

An example of the difficulty of doing phonetics is your phonetic version of German names. You use the ’schwa’, the upside down e that represents a sound* common in English and Hebrew. However, if I’m not mistaken the schwa is isn’t officially part of German. So using it to represent German names is already ’Anglicizing’ them. Of course there are many dialects and pronounciations of German, so it may be accurate in some, but I don’t think in official ’high German’. Perhaps some German speakers who know phonetics can enlighten us on contemporary German pronunciation. —But it is an endless discussion, as this thread shows.

*In English, the schwa is the sound of the ’e’ in ’the man’.

The schwa is perfectly OK in Kabel and Neue, but in Akzidenz I rather think the stress is on the end, like this [ak.ʦɪ.ˈdɛnʦ ɡʁo.ˈtɛsk]. I may be proved wrong by a genuinely German forum-goer.

Typing in IPA is fun, but isn’t it awfully time-consuming? I cheated for this post, it’s all copy-pasted, thanks Jongseong.

MHSmith, you’re probably right about the stress being on the end in Akzidenz. That’s why I probably should have had a disclaimer that I don’t speak German (or Dutch or Serbian for that matter)—it’s all educated guesswork.

I happen to be interested in pronunciation issues because when I write foreign proper names in Korean in the hangul alphabet, I have to know approximately how they are pronounced so I can transcribe them correctly. And I’ve found there is just no entirely satisfactory way of communicating pronunciations in writing, especially when different languages are involved. Things like regional variations in pronunciation in both the source and target languages, the degree to which the pronunciation should be adapted to the sound system of the target language...

So it’s a hopeless task. But I’m used to the IPA (most dictionaries I have use modified versions of it), and they are certainly fun to type.

By the way, I did study Swedish in university and ’no-BELL’ sounds like a perfectly good approximation of how Nobel would be pronounced in Swedish.

Fascinating. I wish I knew more about Asian languages and scripts. But there’s plenty of fun in our own little regional variations in the use of the Latin alphabet. About Nobel, shouldn’t the O sound like a long OO even without receiving the stress? I admit my notions of Swedish are recent and vague. And about source and target languages, I have realised after a moment that my own proposals for pronouncing fonts were biased by British usage. When I say a cat, it may sound more or less like Zapf, but a Texan would disagree with my transcription.

Time for bed now in our corner of the world.

«MHSmith, you’re probably right about the stress being on the end in Akzidenz.»

for the e, i’d rather say the sound like the e of “dentist”.

but you’re right, im pronouncing frutiger like i’d do in swiss-german, not high-german, where the u gets alot more emphasis than in swiss-german. i pronounce the u closed if that makes sense, and yes, there are so many swiss-german accents anyway. i grew up in zurich which has a short and un-melodical sound while frutiger grew up in the mountain region near berne (interlaken iirc), which features a very melodical sound.

About Nobel, shouldn’t the O sound like a long OO even without receiving the stress?

Yes, you’re right. According to my dictionary, it should be [nʊ.ˈbɛl], so the O sound is similar to the English long OO in quality, although not in quantity, as it is short, not long. I just meant it’s a lot closer to ’no-BELL’ than to the word ’noble’.

A couple more before this thread dies out completely. Don’t think they’ve been mentioned yet.

Poppl Exquisit is Ex-kvi-ZEET.
And R. Excoffon’s Chambord is Shom-BORE (in case someone decides to digitise it).

Its the first time I understood the acronym “rofl”.
(I never ever thought about the problems you guy might have to pronounce german words, sorry).

But I like your olympic thinking: important is to be part of it, right?

Best regards from Germany
(I am joking and its phantastic from you guys to try to understand the difficult pronounciation of german words)

Georg

Ooo ooo... here’s one... Carolingian as in Carolingian scripts.

Pronownce the “Car” like they do in Boston” then “row” as in boat then Lingion.

ChrisL

Send a list with all german font names and I read and speak it to a wave file to be downloaded on my website.

I see it seems to be important for you.

Okay: Where is the list?

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin
“Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben?”