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[Surname] Muir
by Ember (nsi) (guest)
7/16/2009, 4:45 PM
Does anyone know how to pronounce the surname Muir? I found it in my family history and am wondering. It's not in the database here, but another site said it's Scottish. There's no record of where my family members with this name are from.Thanks so much.
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- Katica (earthnut)
7/17/2009, 8:11 PM
It's pronounced Myur, or like Mee-ur smooshed into one syllable. (ur like urn) It's Scottish. A famous bearer is John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.
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- Marc (picard)   +3
7/16/2009, 6:06 PM
Muir is pronounced myoor. You'll find the first bearer of that name in the US at http://awt.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=elefuntz&id=I0700.
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- Lethe (reniannen17)   +2
7/27/2009, 12:57 PM
dittoMyoor, not myur as Katica believes ;) It's quite simply the Scots word for Moor, and is found in place-names all over the place (I live in a suburb called Muirend).I believe it's not intuitive for an American to pronounce as you say e.g. dooty instead of dyuty.

This message was edited 7/27/2009, 1:03 PM

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- Marc (picard)   +1
7/28/2009, 8:16 AM
In North American English, the glide is only deleted after alveolar consonants like /t d n l s/ so that words like mew, pew, cue are always pronounced myoo, pyoo, kyoo.
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- Lethe (reniannen17)
7/28/2009, 2:42 PM
ah, ok, thankswasn't sure if it was the same
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