I learned how to pronounce J.M. Coetzee’s name correctly this morning. I’ve been saying “Coat-zee,” with the accent on the first syllable. But in my first class this morning, Davide, who is from S. Africa, corrected me with the proper Afrikaans pronounciation. The “oe” sounds more like the “e” in the French “je.” Actually, the first syllable of “Coetzee” sounds exactly like the French “que.” The accent is on the first syllable. The “t” is a really hard “t” followed by an equally hard “z.” And then it gets interesting. The final “zee” is pronounced as two syllables and sounds like “zee-yeh.” The closest I can get in an American English transliteration might be “Kut-zi-yeh.” Ack!
At any rate, I stood in front of my freshman comp. class explaining my research project on Coetzee’s Disgrace and Davide raised his hand and said, “It’s Kutziyeh,” and I got to have one of those phenomenally yucky moments of acknowledging how ignorant I am, even though, as I said to the class, I’ve got a blessed Ph.D. that is now almost two decades old; I’ve written plenty plenty academic papers; I speak German — and still, I was unable to correctly pronounce the name of the author about whom I am currently writing an academic paper. Phmeh. Ignorance. It happens. Important to acknowledge it, correct the mistake, go on, learn from the mistake. American arrogance is a good thing to take down many notches.
I enjoyed the writing we did. We wrote everything we knew about our research topics in five minutes. Then we re-read what we wrote and wrote down any questions, notes about gaps in our knowledge, places we wanted to investigate, observations about our work so far. I noticed I was focusing a lot on Coetzee himself rather than on the novel. I also am trying to do too much. And my original idea of reading Sindiwe Magona’s Mother to Mother alongside Coetzee’s Disgrace to get at the answers for why I feel so uneasy about the portrayal of Black S. African characters in Disgrace…well, that might not be the way to go. But I’m still not sure. Will have to see after more research and thinking.
October 25, 2006 at 3:56 pm |
I think you shouldn’t feel embarassed about the pronunciation mistake. It is a difficult name; obviously, since it took you a whole paragraph to describe it! Even at the end, I’m still not convinced that it is the correct pronunciation. Don’t sweat the small stuff! So what if you can’t say the guy’s name, you could probably tell a million more things about Coetzee than any other person in the class. Is the issue really that ego in your back pocket? I know, the credibility goes out the window as soon as the smallest inaccuracy is discovered, but if you really know your stuff, just move on to the next part. Besides, you could’ve easily said you were using the Deutch pronunciation. Take W.E.B. Dubois for example. My history teacher (and the book) insist on pronouncing it [du-boyz], but anyone who knows even the most basic French knows it’s really [du-bwah]. But does this minor difference lessen the quality of a well educated Ph.D.? I say not. At the very least, if you always remember that nobody knows everything, you will never be dissapointed in learning new facts. My father-in-law, who also has a Ph.D., handles new information like this, “Oh, really? That’s interesting, I didn’t know that.” It always makes me feel smarter to tell him something new, and NEVER makes me think less of his intelligence.
Final wurdz: The difference between Ignorant and Stupid was that Stupid knew better.
November 8, 2006 at 10:19 pm |
Don’t feel bad..we all have fallen short . You just happen to have gotten caught by the fallen short bug. However, you measure up high in so many ways that this very, very, did I say very, little mistake means nothing.
November 29, 2006 at 7:16 am |
Thanks for passing this on; I’ve been trying to figure out how to pronounce “Coetzee” for ages! And Checkerberry, your history teacher is right. I know the French pronunciation is “right” in a technical sense, but DuBois himself insisted it was pronounced “du boyz”.
July 11, 2007 at 9:14 am |
Thanks to you I finally discovered how to read Coetzee`s surname. Still a nightmare, though
Many thanks anyway.
Did you enjoy reading Disgrace??
July 17, 2007 at 7:09 am |
I didn’t like _Disgrace_ after my first read, but after several reads and lots of study, I’ve come to respect the novel. You might also be interested to listen to Coetzee’s Nobel Prize in Literature speech and the video of the banquet. One presenter there pronounces his name “Cutzee.” The videos are at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/
July 3, 2008 at 4:40 am |
Thank you for this information, I was browsing for the correct pronunciation and here i found your writing, ah! information like this do oodles of good to some body like me who has no clue whatsoever to proper afrikaans pronunciation
August 25, 2009 at 2:26 pm |
I had this the other week when I had the temerity to mention Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia to someone who actually knows things; I was still muttering under my breath two days later. Most unpleasant.
I have a few South African friends, anyway, so I know better than ever to try to say Coetzee in public.
August 27, 2009 at 3:32 pm |
Am a South African who is an English teacher, and was just wondering if anybody ever thought of asking a South African how to pronounce Coetzee!