Vincent Van Gogh

[Octavius]

We have a debate, what is the correct pronunciation of the surname?

"van goff'

'van go'

'varn go'

as one site suggests: 'varn gich' or 'varn gach'

or are the Dutch g's like h's as in Ruud Gullet (Hulett)?

[Chillum]

I say it as in loch.

[Glossopswift]

Yep, I'd also go for the phlegmy sound as in 'loch'.

[kempie]

Van Gogh 

[Xollob]

For an authentic Dutch pronunciation you need a voiceless velar fricative (aka phlegmy sound) front and back. Have a look at the entry in Wikipedia.

[Peter Pedant]

After spitting and hoicking all over my monitor I agree with Bollox - [There's also a voiced one which i could neva do.] The consonants at the end of words are unsounded

Basically it is the ch in loch, but in Dutch it kinda sounded stronger.

The American say to a man: van go

[Peter Pedant]

sorry I have just been sweating over the arabic for victoria, that should be .....I agree with xollob

[RogK]

Xollob - pronounced (as with Xerxes) Zollob?

[kempie]

Did nobody read my link.

Speaking 'authentic Dutch' would mispronounce the name. Van Gogh was born and raised in Brabant. The dialect there uses the Palatal Fricative, giving a softer sound than the aforementioned Velar Fricative.

[Xollob]

Kempie, you sneaked your post in while I was writing mine. Had I read yours I would have remained respectfully silent. The author of your article has obviously spent more time thinking about this than the rest of us. Many thanks for the link.
RogK, although 'X' in the International Phonetic Alphabet is a velar fricative (see diagram in Kempie's post), I prefer the voiced alveolar fricative (as Xerxes). It doesn't make quite the same mess on the carpet.
And while we're on the subject, does anyone else think that "phlegmy" is just about the ugliest word in the written language?

[Octavius]

Kempies - that link is the one I refer to in my question - is it therefore pronounced in perfect Brabantian as....

VARN GICK

?

[kempie]

I would say it more like  van choch  with a short 'a' and 'ch' as in 'loch'.

[Octavius]

I think even in Amsterdam if I asked for the 'van chock' museum they would laugh at me....?

[Xollob]

Whilst I found kempie's link interesting, I just realised that we don't all go around pronouncing "Jimmy Tarbuck", for example, with a Scouse accent just because the gentleman happens to come from Liverpool.
Octavius, if you want to be taken seriously by the good burghers of Amsterdam, you could probably do worse than use the standard Dutch pronunciation (Wikipedia).
I think this is certainly preferable to the American variant "Van Go".

[acw]

In one of Bill Bryson's wonderful books (I think the one about travels in Europe) he mentions that the best way to get through a dull party on the continent is to find the Dutchman and ask him who painted "Sunflowers" and cut his ear off.  But remember to stand well back!!! :-p

[kempie]

Octavius - don't ridicule my last post just because you misread it.

I wrote 'van choch' which has 'ch' front and rear therefore sounding more like 'kok' than 'chock'.

[Aschenbach]

It must be hard in Holland if you've got a name like Greg G. Granger.

[brionon]

The correct form is ''Hello one eared stranger, have you come to paint the bathroom ?''

[alicia2727]

yes as in "loch" I'm Dutch so I should know

[alicia2727]

Oh and by the wau Ruud Gullet is also pronounced like "loch"

[Poppy]

The recent Channel 4 documentary - Vincent, The Full Story- pronounced it Goff which is really the best way to go about it.  When we say we're going to Paris on holiday we don't say "I'm going to Paree" like the French!  Likewise to make phlegmy sounds when pronouncing Van Gogh is simply unnecessary and a bit pretentious.  It is also now believed that Van Gogh himself pronounced it "Goff" but how anyone can be sure of this is a mystery to me!