Louis Weichmann

[STS Lincolnite]

(02-08-2015 12:34 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(02-08-2015 09:40 AM)Rogerm Wrote:  In German, "ei" is always equivalent to the long "i" in English, whereas, the German "ie" is the same as the English long "e."

But there's no English equivalent to the "ch", is it? How would you have described this sound, Roger? (I didn't know, so I recorded.) Am I guessing right that this is the main difference and maybe like a "k" in English?

Yes, like a "k'. That is always how I hear it when "Americanized". I am just getting ready to put up a more lengthy post on the spelling and pronunciation. Should be up in a few minutes.

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Alright, so this thread has now migrated to the subject of my article (not yet submitted) on Weichmann. The correct spelling and pronunciation of his name. I will do a somewhat abbreviated synopsis here and if Laurie thinks there is still value in a marginally expanded and cited version for an article submission to the Surratt Courier I will do that as well.

Firstly, whenever deciding what is correct, I think “correct” needs to be defined. For correct spelling, I think it is simple. Whatever Louis Weichmann used and prefered himself. In all his correspondence, the authorship of his book, etc. he uses Weichmann. It should be noted that there is a variant that appeared on his business school letterhead that had only one “n” at the end. I suspect (as did Floyd Risvold) that was a printers error that LJW never bothered to have corrected. I propose the correct spelling as far his surname goes is Weichmann because that is what he preferred. Nothing really new here I don’t think.

For pronunciation, I also think “correct” would be what was individually preferred. As we move forward with pronunciation, it should be noted that LJW’s family name was actually spelled Wiechmann. This is evidenced by its use by all his other family members (father, mother, sisters, brother). It is also spelled that way on their headstones - as well as LJW’s headstone. I suspect that LJW's surviving family spelled it that way on his headstone as it was their preference and the true familial spelling. So that would indicate that the historical, familial pronunciation of LJWs parents, who were German immigrants, would be (as Eva’s audiofile indicates) “Veekmun” – a phonetic interpretation with a "long e” sound in English. It had been my suspicion that the "long e” sound was maintained when they moved to America but that the “v” sound at the beginning changed to a more English “w” sound. So now we have a pronunciation that would sound (phonetically again) like “Weekmun”.

This suspicion was confirmed for me when I found the 1870 census record for LJW and family. Yes, LJW appeared twice in the 1870 census as did his wife Annie. I am attaching a cropped image of that portion of the census. As you can see, the census taker wrote the surname in a phonetic fashion as “Weakman”.

So to summarize, I propose the following:
1) The correct spelling of the surname is Weichmann as that is what LJW seemed to prefer.
2) The correct pronunciation of the surname is the phonetic “Weekmun” as that is what the evidence supports as the preferred pronunciation of the family (and by extension LJW) once they moved to America.

So this begs a final question. Why did LJW change the spelling of his surname? I suspect that due to the pronunciation with a "long e” sound it was commonly misspelled (relative to the original Wiechmann) "Weichmann" because in American English, the “We” would me more familiar as a “long e” sound. It was misspelled all the time so he just went with it (I know from my own family history this was a common practice in the 19th century).

Roger as to your earlier question about what LJW's middle initial stood for, I wasn't able to find anything concrete but I suspect it may be Johann or John after his father.

What do you all think?