Talk:J. M. Coetzee

An older revision says "kut-SEE", the latest one says "kut-SAY-uh". So which one is it? Skinnyweed 23:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC) [reply ]

It's "kut-see(r)", rhymes with 'puts ear'. 'kut-SAY-uh' sounds like something from Lethal Weapon 2, a high water mark in the mangling of South African pronunciation.

I have changed the pronouncation to küt-ZĒ, per the US Library of Congress's Pronunciation Guide to the Names of Public Figures [1] and the way that it is pronounced in the introduction to his Nobel lecture [2]. This is also how it is listed in the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia [3]. Yinon 08:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC) [reply ]

On the subject of Coetzee's status as an African: J.M. Coetzee is a REAL African just as black Britons are real Britons and real Europeans. White Africans are very proud of and attached to their Africanness and have not had strong links with Europe for centuries. They would regard it as extremely racist if someone were to question their status as Africans- take it from white African!--100%RSA 23:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC) [reply ]

Pronounciation of the name: In South Africa Coetzee's surname is pronounced KOO-TZEE-UH. (I should know, since I am South African.) I wouldn't put credence in the pronounciation of some Swedes since they cannot claim to be arbiters of how South African should pronounce their names. Dakno 11:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC) [reply ]

Dakno is quite correct here and in the elaboration further on. There seems to be a lot of confusion over what is actually a very simple matter and I suspect a lot of discussion here is by people who aren't entirely familiar with Afrikaans surnames and the way they are pronounced (by both Afrikaans native-speakers and those South Africans for whom Afrikaans is not the native tongue). There is a fairly common Afrikaans familial name Coetzee. It is pronounced as Dakno transcibes and as the (sort-of) IPA gives. I have deleted the "alternative" IPA pronunciation given, as it applies to one of the other common Afrikaans familial names (Coertze, Kotze and there are variants) and not to Coetzee, which always has that rounded diphthongal ending.Brockle (talk) 14:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC) [reply ]

Seems to me that the transcription is not real IPA... It looks more like a mix out of IPA and other systems. I'm quite sure that the <-ee> is pronounced something like (SAMPA) [i@], as in Afrikaans, I'm not sure about the <-tz->. Some people claim that it's pronounced like /tS/ (English <ch>), but to me it looks more like /ts/. The German wiki site transcribes the name as [kuˈt͜sɪə], I'm not sure what the <?> is supposed to mean (a glottal stop?), but apart from that it looks much better than the transcription on this site. Can anyone help and solve the 'mystery'? Wathiik 11:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC) [reply ]

I was just listening to a sound file - http://core.ecu.edu/engl/whisnantl/4300/coetzee.htm - and it looks like there are two pronunciations, namely something like [ku'tSei@] and something like [k@'tsi(:)@]... Wathiik 11:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC) [reply ]

Wathiik says my transcription "is not real IPA." Of course, it is not IPA. Whoever said it was? It is a plain, child's English transcription of the Afrikaans pronounciation of the name. "Koo" as in "cooler"; "ts" as in "tsetese"; "ee-uh" as in "year" (without the "r"). That is how the name is pronounced in South Africa. Coetzee is a relatively common surname in South Africa. Even though Coetzee is not a real Afrikaner--at most he is an Anglo-Afrikaner or a bloedsappe--his surname is always pronounced the way it is in Afrikaans. There is no need to Americanize his name or to transform him into some weird Teutonic freak. I do not mean to be arrogant, but some people do know better. Dakno 17:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC) [reply ]

I was talking about this transcription here, which is (still) included on the site: (IPA: ['kutsé:]) Wathiik 15:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC) [reply ]

btw... what about the pronunciation with an English 'ch' in it? Is that an anglicized pronunciation? Wathiik 15:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC) [reply ]

This BBC article makes it clear how he pronounces his own name (kuut-SEE). Cordless Larry (talk) 11:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC) [reply ]

I agree that how the person pronounces his own name is what matters most in this article, not how it would be pronounced by a typical Afrikaner living in some particular location in South Africa, or by anybody else living anywhere else. And I think the BBC would be a more reliable source than some individual who claimed to have heard the author say his name somewhere. The referenced BBC page gives very convincing evidence in support of the pronounciation they recommend, including (they say) a written document from Coetzee himself specifying how he wants his name pronounced.

The problem is that the IPA as currently given here (Dutch pronunciation: [kutˈseː] ) does not match the BBC's "kuut-SEE" (the "uu" sounding like the "oo" in book), so it's wrong to give that BBC reference in support of that IPA pronunciation. [kutˈseː] would be transcribed into child-speak (in the US anyway) as "coot-SAY" (pronouncing the first syllable like the bird or like the first syllable in cootie). A better IPA transcription of the BBC pronunciation would be [kʊtˈsiː].

Although I'm reluctant to jump into the middle of this issue, I'm going to change the IPA so it at least matches the BBC reference attached to it. I'm also going to change the link to the IPA subset for English rather than Dutch, since [ʊ] evidently doesn't occur in Dutch phonology. Besides, Coetzee writes primarily in English, evidently speaks primarily English (since he chooses to live in Australia), and this is the Wikipedia for speakers of English, not Dutch or Afrikaans.--Jim10701 (talk) 15:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC) [reply ]

Thanks. When I added the BBC reference, I didn't change the IPA because, to my non-expert eyes, it looked right as it was. I'm glad you've corrected it though. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC) [reply ]

May I please mention that Coetzee himself uses the monophthong in the pronunciation of his name? He says it like "kuut-zee," with "kuut" rhyming with "foot." tylerweston 16:05 PM EST, 6 March, 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 21:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC).[reply ]

No he doesn't! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd7rc_vxiRk Paxsimius (talk) 15:49, 31 January 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

The error in the IPA in this English Wikipedia article has attracted much attention from Japanese fans of Coetzee because of a blog entry by Kubota Nozomi, a Japanese translator of Coetzee's works. She published an image of a letter from Coetzee himself, who complained that the IPA of his name should be [kutˈseː]. As far as I found, there is no concrete evidence to support the IPA notation of [kʊtˈsiː] except BBC's a bit vague phonetic description, and Coetzee's pronunciation in the video shown above corresponds with the IPA notation [kutˈseː]. I think we should change the IPA notation. --saebou (talk) 06:48, 22 May 2017 (UTC) [reply ]

According to Afrikaans phonology, Help:IPA for Afrikaans, and Mid front unrounded vowel, the standard Afrikaans IPA notation of the sound of [eː] is [ɛː], and [eː] is an allophone. If [kutˈsɛː] is more suitable in Afrikaans IPA, it can be adopted, though I think the author's notation is acceptable. --saebou (talk) 16:21, 24 May 2017 (UTC) [reply ]

@さえぼー: No. The sound you're looking for is [ɪə] (traditionally transcribed with ⟨eː⟩). That [eː] you're talking about is traditionally transcribed with ⟨ɛː⟩ and is a completely different vowel. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:04, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

I am not sure why you changed the pronunciation into "[kutˈsɪə]", though the BBC source in the footnote says "that vowel can also be pronounced as a monophthong (kuut-SEE), especially by those from the south of the country, and this is the pronunciation that the author uses and prefers the BBC to use too". If the IPA notations should follow the author's own pronunciation of his name, the source does not support "[kutˈsɪə]".

Furthermore, do you have any source explaining that "[ɪə]" is traditionally transcribed with "⟨eː⟩"? In his own letter, Coetzee says the IPA of his name should be [kutˈseː]. --saebou (talk) 12:20, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

Afrikaans phonology#/ɪø, ɪə, ʊə/ mentions the realization of /ɪə/ as [eː] being "partially outdated", citing Lass (1987:117–119) and Donaldson (1993:8). Sounds like Coetzee is adopting a traditional Dutch pronunciation. Nardog (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

@Nardog: Nowadays it might be completely outdated. if [eː] for /ɪə/ was allowed in modern Afrikaans, then /ɛː/ wouldn't be so consistently realized as mid or close-mid (just like /ɛ,ɔ,ɔː/ are), otherwise they'd merge.

Though the pronunciation the source recommends is [kutˈsiː], with [iː] being a regional (non-standard) realization of /ɪə/. It's not useful to mention it here. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:37, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

As the above discussion suggests, "how the person pronounces his own name is what matters most in this article, not how it would be pronounced by a typical Afrikaner living in some particular location in South Africa". There are many people who pronounce their own names a bit differently or in an old-fashioned way, such as Caitlin (Cat-Lynn) Moran. If the author says the old-fashioned or regional way is correct, we should follow his own explanation. This article is for the novelist J. M. Coetzee, and not for explaining general pronunciation of names in South Africa. Perhaps it is possible to make a section about the pronunciation of his name and explain the newer pronunciation, but we should follow the author (or BBC) in the first paragraph.--saebou (talk) 12:52, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

Any transcription in a language-specific template like {{IPA-af }} must follow the key it links to, in this case Help:IPA/Afrikaans – see WP:PRON. I for one don't think it would be unreasonable to add a note like "His own pronunciation is [kutˈseː] . For English, the BBC recommends the approximation /kʊtˈsiː/ kuut-SEE.", though. Nardog (talk) 12:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

@さえぼー: This [iː] is nothing more than a phonetic variant (allophone) of /ɪə/, rather than a different phoneme. We use rather broad IPA on Help:IPA/Afrikaans which we should follow. You're making a newbie mistake by thinking that IPA enclosed within phonetic brackets is by definition fully narrow. It's not. In fact, it rarely is, especially on Wikipedia. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:57, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

@Kbb2: In videos the vowel in his own pronunciation sounds more like [eː], not to mention he uses /eː/ in his own transcription. I think the BBC was simply using "EE", which represents English /iː/ in their own respelling scheme, as an approximation to [eː]. I don't think it's regional as much as it's traditional. Nardog (talk) 13:25, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

@Nardog: (edit conflict) Hmm, that's true. I've fixed the IPA. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:33, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

It seems to me that regarding the author's own written explanation as an allophone of /ɪə/ is original research. Both the author and BBC says the name is pronounced as a monophthong. How about making the first explanation "(Afrikaans: [kutˈsɪə], regional pronunciation preferred by Coetzee: [kutˈseː], or the English approximation /kʊtˈsiː/ kuut-SEE)" with the BBC footnote? --saebou (talk) 13:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

@さえぼー: It's not. See Afrikaans phonology. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:33, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

Rather, the very fact he uses /eː/ (with slashes) supports our transcribing it as [ɪə], because that's the phoneme we transcribe as [ɪə] according to our Help:IPA/Afrikaans key. Nardog (talk) 13:50, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

OK, and I would like to argue that the description in this version should be maintained, not making the author's explanation in the footnote. --saebou (talk) 13:57, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

I don't know about that because some people really seem to dislike cluttering the lead with IPA notations. I personally think the current version is better, but perhaps moving the Afrikaans notation to the note too may be even a better option. Nardog (talk) 14:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

If it is possible to move the Afrikaans notation to the note in order to avoid the long explanation, I will agree.--saebou (talk) 15:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

@Hijibo: Actually, see this article. It goes into more detail about the role of the BBC Pronunciation Unit and why it's not only necessary but inevitable that some anglicization has to take place in order to allow words of foreign origin to be pronounced by those not familiar with the original languages.

Also, from your latest edit, it seems like you thought the note was indicating that the BBC's recommendation was an approximation to the modern Afrikaans pronunciation as opposed to Coetzee's own pronunciation. But it's actually the opposite. The description at the end is about /kʊtˈsiːə/ , not /kʊtˈsiː/ . Nardog (talk) 04:52, 20 June 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

I think the fact that JMC changed his citizenship and residence is important, and worth mentioning in the introduction. Iterator12n ^Talk 00:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC) [reply ]

He lived in Africa for many years. Why did he leave? It seems as though he tried to convince the public that Australia's excellence attracted him. It may be possible, however, that there was something about Africa that repelled him.Lestrade (talk) 13:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Lestrade[reply ]

I think that this is now dealt with sufficiently in the article, following some recent editing. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC) [reply ]

In Slow Man, Chapter 7, Coetzee’s protagonist thinks that a person might immigrate to Australia because they were "sick and tired of strife" and were "in quest of a better, more peaceable life". He wrote, "And if a better, more peaceable life is not to be found in Australia, where is it to be found?" This passage is a possible clue as to Coetzee’s emigration from Africa.173.61.95.154 (talk) 16:52, 28 July 2019 (UTC)DaShawn Cubbins[reply ]

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I think he should be described as one of these in the lead (per WP:ETHNICITY). --Thedarkknightli (talk) 15:38, 5 October 2022 (UTC) [reply ]