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Author: arcwell
Surnames:
Classification: queries
Message Board URL:
http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.indiana.counties...
Message Board Post:
Diane McInnes wrote back in 2000:
"The Rothrocks in White Co. seemed to have changed the pronunciation of their name in
the 1940-1950 time frame - when my mother was in school there, they tended to pronounce it
as "Rowthruck" (with a long 'o' sound, as in row your boat), but when we
moved back to Monticello in the 50's, they were (or at least younger generation) were
pronouncing it "Rawthrock", (as in raw meat) - probably the long-o sound was
more as the original German pronunciation (someone with a German language background
please correct me if I am wrong?!!)"
The older pronunciation ("Rowthruck") is closer to the German, but is not an
exact match. German does not have the "th" sounds as in the English words
"this" or "thin". German words written with "th" are
pronounced as if it were just "t"; in fact, in most words that used to be
written with "th" are now written with "t"--proper names being an
exception where "th" remains.
The variant form Rotruck preserves the "t" sound of the German; I don't
know how the "o" of the first syllable would be pronounced.
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