Van Gogh goes or Van Gogh coughs? Is there a commonly accepted British English pronunciation?

Question

The question changed during the formulation from

What is the correct 'British English' pronunciation of Van Gogh?

to

Is there such a thing as a 'correct' English pronunciation of a Dutch name -- specifically of Van Gogh?

Failing that, is there at least a commonly accepted convention? For personal usage I'm interested in 'British English' variants including Irish English, but extra padding concerning US variants would not go amiss.

Wikipedia gives the correct Dutch IPA pronunciation as [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləm vɑŋ ˈɣɔx] and even has an audio file of same.

The solution might be to use the correct Dutch pronunciation, but it doesn't sit naturally with me. This answer on the ELU site made me think there might not be a definitive answer.

Another consideration is that there is often no one established “correct” pronunciation for foreign names in English. Usually for famous or well-known people, some kind of conventional pronunciation is established over time, but what that pronunciation will be is not always predictable. Some people try to pronunce names as close to the original language as they can. This means that it would be difficult to figure out how to spell these names if it was based on how English speakers pronounce them

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Google wasn't as helpful as I thought it would be. Several sites gave the correct Dutch pronunciation and noted that English native speakers (both sides of the Atlantic) pronounced it incorrectly. But then I found an ever so British perspective

Something that drives British people absolutely bonkers is hearing an American "mispronounce" the name of Dutch post-impressionist Vincent van Gogh. Pangs of rage fill up the collective consciousness as the nation retorts in one voice: "it's VAN-GOFF, not VAN-GO!"

Though not a big fan of the style of the piece, as an Irish English-speaker this is also the pronunciation I use. So can I assume in British and Irish English usage that Van Gogh rhymes with cough??

Answer 1

It may not be correct, but in my experience as a native south Londoner the name is pronounced GOFF. There's a recent meme showing the artist not being able to wear a face mask properly, as you see it hanging from his remaining ear.

This pronunciation has probably stuck due to its use in a lot of British humour. Consider this example:

The scene is the back yard of an art gallery. Two men come out of the gallery carrying boxes. Their delivery van has been driven away. "Where the van go?" asks one, "it's van goff, not van go you tart," says the other.

Answer 2

There's an interesting note on the Wikipedia entry:

The pronunciation of Van Gogh varies in both English and Dutch. Especially in British English it is /ˌvæn ˈɡɒx/ or sometimes /ˌvæn ˈɡɒf/. American dictionaries list /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/, with a silent gh, as the most common pronunciation. In the dialect of Holland, it is [ˈvɪnsɛnt fɑŋˈxɔx], with a voiceless v and g. He grew up in Brabant and used Brabant dialect in his writing; his own pronunciation was thus likely [vɑɲˈʝɔç], with a voiced v and palatalised g and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is [vɑ̃ ɡɔɡ(ə)].

I would have put this as a comment but it's too long and I didn't feel I should truncate it.

When I listened to the sound file file there, I was surprised it was so different from the 2 variants (van go and van goff) I've previously heard people debating.

I removed the cross-references from the quote but see original note at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh#cite_note-6

Answer 3

Here is the best round-up I have found on this issue:

CNN, Emma Reynolds

How do you pronounce "Van Gogh"? You're probably saying it wrong, according to insiders at the launch of an interactive exhibition on the artist in London. The "Meet Vincent van Gogh" experience on London's South Bank promises "breathtaking projections, interactive installations, state-of-the-art set-work and a compelling narrative" as it transports the viewer through the Dutch artist's life.

But the audio guide for the installation, created by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, has raised a few eyebrows because it gives the artist's last name as "Van Go," the typical American pronunciation. In Britain, people tend to say "Van Gof."

The guide's choice of "Van Go" sparked discussion at the news conference between the Dutch ambassador to the UK, Simon Smits; Adriaan Dönszelmann, managing director of the Van Gogh Museum; and the artist's great-grandnephew, Willem van Gogh.

Martin Bailey, author of "Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum," told CNN Style there are yet more variations on the name across the world -- and it even affected how the legendary artist signed his paintings. 10 most famous paintings in the world "There's an audio guide you go around with (at the London exhibition) and they pronounce it 'Go,' as they do in America," said Bailey, who writes a blog about Van Gogh for The Art Newspaper.

"English people say 'Gof,' the French say 'Gog' and the Japanese say it differently, too. The Dutch pronounce it with a guttural sound -- 'Khokh.'

"It is always very difficult to know how to pronounce -- it's not easy for someone English or American, we just don't have that sound. Then it sounds pedantic if you insist on the Dutch pronunciation." Van Gogh regularly traveled around Europe, moving to London to work as an art dealer when he was 20, and living in France. His paintings are all simply signed "Vincent," and the artist is often named as Mr. Vincent or Monsieur Vincent in letters and documents. "He always wanted to be 'Vincent' because the French and English couldn't pronounce his name," said Bailey.

Two stolen Van Gogh paintings are finally returning to public view after 17 years In a letter to his brother Theo in March 1888, soon after Van Gogh moved to Arles in France, he explained that "in future my name must be put in the catalog the way I sign it on the canvases, i.e. Vincent and not Van Gogh, for the excellent reason that people here wouldn't be able to pronounce that name." The Van Gogh Museum has even created a video in which it asks visitors from across the world how they pronounce Van Gogh.

So what are we to do if Van Gogh is simply too hard to say? Bailey has a suggestion. "I tend to do a slight fudge," he said. "Something between the English, French and Dutch."

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My advice is that if you can make the proper back-of-throat sound of that kh of the Dutch ending, please feel free to do so. :)

Answer 4

Is there such a thing as a 'correct' English pronunciation of a Dutch name -- specifically of Van Gogh?

This is one of the simpler questions. The convention is: The correct pronunciation of anyone's name is the way that they pronounce it.

There is no English, French, Russian, etc., pronunciation that can be described as "correct" - if it is not exactly as the owner of the name pronounces it then, regardless of the native language of the speaker, it is wrong or, at best, an approximation or a guess.

Answer 5

As in loch. English-born , as opposed to Scottish-born, people can learn to pronounce loch correctly with practice. As with any non native language speaker, sounds outside the native language have to be acquired with practice. Welsh presents the same problem for non native speakers.

Answer 6

Pronunciation should be correct, and it should be understood by your peers. These can be opposing demands. Correct pronunciation is useless if nobody else knows what or who you are talking about. In the case of Dutch words, I would add that you should pronounce a word in such a way that saying it doesn't cause you damage.

Goch pronounced the same way that a Scottish person would pronounce Loch (Ness, for example) comes reasonably close to the correct way (although many Dutch people would disagree). It's definitely not like the gh in laugh or cough - but then lots of English people would have problems with the ch in Loch, so "van Gogh" with the same gh as in cough will be understood correctly by many.

If Americans say "Go" like the gh in "though", that's slightly worse than the English "Cough" in my opinion - no consonant is worse than the wrong one, and I bet they get the "O" wrong as well.