Keener pronunciation of Kühner
The Keener surname is pronounced kēnər in English, which may sound similar to the German pronunciation of Kühner (but without the ewww) to the Anglicanized. Kühner is trickier for native (American) English speakers like myself to pronounce correctly (primarily because of the Umlaut over the u), in spite of a year of German and a fluent German immigrant wife. So here’s a little something I found helpful on YouTube…
In 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that “[m]ere knowledge of the German language cannot reasonably be regarded as harmful” (Meyer v. State of Nebraska). So what are you waiting for? Es geht los!
“[W]hy should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our settlements, and by herding together establish their languages and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion?” — Benjamin Franklin (1751).
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