Greetings,

I am currently reading a couple of books by the Orthodox liturgical scholar Fr. Alexander Schmemann. There is some excellent material in his books. Anyone involved in liturgy should read him.

Here is my complex and difficult question: Does anyone know how to pronounce is LAST name. No matter how I say it, and where I put the emphasis, it does NOT sound correct. Does anyone know?

Sh ME man
sh me MAN
Skme MAN
Sk ME man

This does not even take into account the first M may not even be pronounced.

peace

My guess is that it is a German name in which case "sch" would be pronounced like "sh" and I think the accent would be on the first syllable: SHME-mahn.

I believe that's correct.

According to OrthodoxWiki, Fr. Schmemann was born in Estonia to Russian émigrés. I don’t, however, know how that would affect the pronunciation of his name.

Depends on the locality.

Among native U.S. English speakers, I've always heard it pronounced SHMAY mn (no vowel between the m and n)

but then, we say "Thomas A-kwy-nus" and "Francis de Sayles" - whereas people with other first languages say them differently

Sometimes what the most people say is considered the most correct (for that locality)

Yes, but these are the same people who pronounce Neumann "NEW-mn" when it is closer to "NOI-mahn"

I would have guessed it was SHMEM-ən. (The second e being a schwa)

His name, however, is certainly not Estonian nor Russian. I would go for the German pronunciation presented above.

Greetings,

thanks for all the input. His books are very good.

ShMAY - mahn

sounds good.

I have also heard both: AU gusteen and au GUST een , and au gust EEN.

peace,

The best way to pronounce his name is to try and not pronounce it like he is an american.

ShMAY - mahn is wrong.

Sh-me[as in met] - mann

Happens to be the name of our parish, and we pronounce it uh-GUS-tin.....but then we're in NY, so who knows.

This is pretty much how I pronounce it. Besides that I most commonly hear AU-gusteen.

like the city in florida