Eurythmy as Visible Singing
GA 278
Pronunciation
A, ‘ah’, as in father
E, ‘a’, as in mate
I, ‘ee’, as in meet
0, ‘o’, as in ought
U, ‘oo’, as in moot
Ö, ‘ir’, similar in birth
Ü,‘eu’, similar in feud
AI, ‘ei’, as in height
AU, ‘ow’, as in how
W, ‘v’, as in volume
The above are approximate English equivalents (for example, ‘a’ and is actually a dipthong). The vowels of German resemble Scots pronunciation of English, rather than that of some English as spoken in America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and so on. (The eurythmy gestures for the vowels, it should be noted, are archetypal gestures, standing behind local and national variations of pronunciation, including those of the German language.)
To avoid possible confusion in the text, phonetic spelling has been reproduced in italics. In Lecture 4, where a poem by Goethe is discussed, some German sounds are also given, with phonetic reminders as listed above.