Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Did they ever call themselves "Bronte", rather than "Brontė"? You can't just ignore the diaeresis (ie "ė" rather than "e"); it's what makes the word two syllables rather than one! "Bronte" would be a one-syllable word with a silent "e" on the end.
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First of all one of my hobbies is genealogy so I looked at this from that point of view. Apologies for using the abbreviation CCED - that's the Clergy of the Church of England Database and there are details there of Patricks ordination and appointments.
All Patrick's ecclesiastical records show Bronte, he was baptised as Brunty and his father was Hugh Brunty Names morph over time and I would imagine that when Patrick arrived at Cambridge the spelling Brunty became Bronte, though he still pronounced is as one syllable - Brunty.
I have not had the opportunity to examine the originals of his daughters' baptism records, just their transcriptions. Unusually (as the incumbent) he would be in the position to control how his name was recorded in the records and it appears he was content with a simple "e" at the end, however if I can source an image of the original Parish records that might show something different.
Perhaps later the use of the "ė" commenced as people were expected to pronounce the name as they saw it written, rather than the earlier "write what you hear" approach.
I have just checked the image of the 1851 & 1861 censuses and there the name Bronte has some form of diacritical mark over the final "e". In both cases transcriptions into machine readable text miss out on this mark.
In 1841 the final "e" is unadorned in Patrick's name and his daughters Emily Jane and Ann (each being written in full and not "dittoed" as so often happens).
I think what is more significant is the change from the "u" in Brunty to the "o" in Bronte.
The change from a "y" to a "ė" looks to be an attempt to convey a pronunciation but to disguise the more "earthy" origin of the name, the reference to an umlauted "i" also seems to point in this direction.
We will never know just how they referred to themselves in terms of how they spoke, all we can do is examine the records over time and interpret them. What is clear is that the literary sisters name is and will ever be Brontė.
BobC