It rhymes with "idle," that's the non-German way of pronouncing it. The Germans of Seydel and probably all other Germans as well, pronounce it "Zidle."
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
I can give you a definitive answer. I visited the Seydel factory in Klingenthal and talked to a dozen people who worked there.
They pronounce it "SIGH-dle." There's a strong stress on the first syllable. They half-swallow the second syllable, so that the "L" sound curls into the back of the tongue.
I've worked with these guys for years, Harper and Adam are correct. The accent is on the first syllable, so is the first syllable accented on idle. But as Adam pointed out, the first syllable is very, very accented. In the English-speaking world, you could set the official English-speakers' pronunciation with how Seydel USA pronounces it. THey say "SIGH-del" ---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
There's one key takeaway point from this thread: Seydel is NOT pronounced "sigh-DELL." If we can just keep that front and center, this thread will have served its purpose.
There was a German-language DVD Seydel put out on their 160 anniversary. I edited it for youtube and put it up, Bertram Becher has it on his channel now. Around 1:25, you can hear how "C.A. Seydel Sohne GMBH" is pronounced by Germans. If it wasn't instantly obvious from the tone, the guy playing harp is Igor Flach. Y'all might think it's cool, from viewing these scenes, to work on the line in a harmonica factory. It is just that cool! For about 5 minutes. Part of my training at HH was working on the line for about two weeks, so I could know what the hell I was talking about. It is the most mind-numbing, hair-pulling out, boring job you could possibly imagine.
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
The 's' is spoken like a 'z', and the 'ey' makes a long 'i' sound. The 'del' is like 'dle'. So if you want to be really acurate, it's like idle with a z added at the beginning, and a longer I sound. The accent is on the first syllable. I'm an american who's been living in germany for 7 years now, and speak fluent, almost accent free german. I understand the struggle of figuring out how to pronounce words. German is actually very easy to pronounce once you get a grasp of the sounds of the language. It pretty much always follows the same rules. There are hardly any words that break them, unlike english. ----------
I lived in Austria for a while when I was in college. My German had a definite southern twang to it. ---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
I used to pronounce it "Weltmeister", and later, "Bushman", but I think it's Seydel only now. BTW: Am I the only one who isn't enamored with the tone of stainless reeds?
