How do you pronounce Asperger's?

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I've been interested, lately, because of two things. 1) My sister got bullied back in high school, and people were jerks about the pronunciation of Asperger's. As in "ass burgers." They thought it was funny. 2) I've noticed other people have different pronunciations. Such as "Ahs-burgers" or "Ass-bear-gers." (I would write these in IPA, but I feel like no one would understand me....)

I am both interested in the technically correct pronunciation, and the commonly accepted pronunciation in a given region.

I'll start. I have an American accent, with a mild Southern influence, and I definitely say "Ass burgers."

How about you? And what do you thing is commonly accepted?

I say "As-per-gers". Granted, I am anal about saying things correctly and phonetically unless there is a goofy rule to the word.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/audio.ph ... rome&text=\%3Cspan%20class%3D%22unicode%22%3E%CB%88%3C%2Fspan%3E%C3%A4s-%3Cspan%20class%3D%22unicode%22%3E%CB%8C%3C%2Fspan%3Ep%C9%99r-g%C9%99rz-\

I'm a stickler about pronunciation, spelling, and grammar. Etymology (the study of words and their origins) is 'my thing'.

The easiest way to correctly pronounce the first two syllables is to say them exactly the same way as you would say 'Jasper', but without the 'j'.

The most common stumbling block is on the first letter of second syllable. Most people lazily slaughter the "p" into a "b", resulting in 'burger" rather than "perger".

As you probably already know, AS is named for Hans Asperger (an Austrian pediatrician). The Austrians pronounce the "ger" part of his name with a hard G (as in; great, gate and growl). It is not pronounced as a soft G (ie; geriatric, generator, or giant).

The syllabic emphasis is placed on the first syllable. Thus, you get ASS-per-ger.

Just remember - There is no "burger" in Asperger.. It ain't fast food!

I recall a member here saying that the As is pronounced Az in Hans homeland, thats the way I would pronunce it to avoid the stupid insult.

remember that in german, the vowels are pronounced AW EH EE OH eUOO [umlaut]. and the Rs are lightly trilled and muted [soft] compared to the typically hard American R, so it might come out as AWShbuhguh.

Actually, you are absolutely correct, rapidroy!

In Austria, due to the inflection of their Germanic accent, it would be properly pronounced something a bit more like Ahz-pe-gu. The 'r' would be silent and the 'e' would sound more like what we know as a shortened soft 'u', sort of. Same applies to Hans, it'd be pronounced 'haawnce', not 'hands'. (English is sooo weird!)

I, also, don't particularly care for the 'ass' pronunciation because some people are so childish, they giggle and poke fun. ("Hahaha, he said ass!") Morons!

In fact, I actually wrote the phonetic 'az' pronunciation (just like you said) in my first draft of my post, but changed it in deference to American ways of sounding out words since the OP asking the question is from the USA.

Besides... if you think Aspies get teased now, think of the punches-in-the-noses we'd get if we tried to offer up the truly accurate (Austrian) pronunciation of the name to a general public that thinks Survivor and Big Brother is "reality" TV. (To you readers from elsewhere on the planet, those are both unbelievably low-brow amercian 'hit' tv shows.)

By the way, just for the record, it is absolutely not my intention to insult Americans by any of the above comments. I'm just calling a spade a spade. Hey, I'm an Aspie.... it's what we do!

I found this on thefreedictionary.com

[ˈæspɜːgəz]

I think this is its English version. Pretty predictable. I don't know how to say it in German.

Would you pronounce that, please?

Similar to this: /ˈəsperjərz/

I've read the "G" is pronounced as in "Get" (In english).

I say as-per-gers with a soft G I am not certain but I think most people in the UK say it like that, feel free to say If I am wrong It might just be where I live in particular

I think foreign names tend to be pronounced in more than one way in English and each way can be quite different from the true pronunciation in the original language. So is the right pronunciation of Asperger the Austrian German version? Is the 's' at the end of the word used only in English?

I found another one in Dictionary.com: /ˈæspərgərz/

Again this is an English version. Can anyone show us how to pronounce it in Austrian German?

I also wonder why the 'p' in Asperger is pronounced as 'b' by some people. To me "perger" sounds nothing like "burger". Or is 'p' meant to be pronounced as 'b'? I can understand why people are tempted to pronounce 'g' as 'j' in 'job' though.

@retep and the OP: I am a foreigner myself and I learned how to pronounce English words using IPA. So I find it a lot easier to use it than the "spelled" version.

EDIT: fixed a typo

Last edited by jk1 on 04 Oct 2013, 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i call it "hineyburgers"

I think it's only in english, because it is Asperger's syndrome (lit. Syndome of Asperger).


In german:
/ˈaspɛʁɡɐ/ (Asperger)
/ˈaspɛʁɡɐzʏnˌdʀoːm/ (Asperger-Syndrom)

I just say Autism, and I wish that the term Asperger's would die already. I see no reason to segregate myself from people elsewhere on the Autism Spectrum. I've said it before, but someone at that meeting should have stood up and said: "Wait a minute, are you seriously suggesting that we take a bunch of kids with social developmental difficulties and give them the label ass-burgers? Sorry, Hans, but no, just no."

In the UK and Australia. Its pronounced ua-sper-gers . Here in America we say "Ass-Burgers"