u/RaisonDetritus

After watching “Dorothy’s New Friend”, I was struck by how immediately Barbara recognized Gutmann as a Jewish last name. I did some research on it and found out that it was commonly taken by Ashkenazi Jews as a surname. I’m familiar with how Yiddish is a descendant of Old High German, but there’s nothing about Gutmann that would strike me as recognizably Jewish unless one was already aware. I would just think it’s German.

Granted, I’ve known plenty of Jews, but I’ve never lived in a historically Jewish population center like NYC or Chicago. And how would the Mortimer Club have even found out about Mr. Gutmann’s name and ethnicity had Sofia not even mentioned it?

ETA: Apparently the spelling Gutman is more directly associated with Ashkenazi Jews than Gutmann is.

I just finished year two of college-level French, and I would like to start dabbling in older versions of the language, especially the troubadour/trouvère repertoire of poetry and music.

Is there a standardized way of pronouncing these varieties in the academic world? The only thing I really know is that the orthography is far less opaque compared to the modern language, so it ends up being more phonetic. I really just want to settle on a workably functional and natural pronunciation so that I can comfortably read aloud.

Any resources or advice would be great!