Re: OT: Another French name pronunciation question
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, January 30, 2004, 18:19 |
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On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 10:50:59AM -0500, Roger Mills wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > The name came up in the context of of Nicéphore Niépce, one of the
> > main contenders for the title of "inventor of photography".
> >
> Was M. Niépce of native French origin, or from ....where? It strikes me as
> a thoroughly strange name (spelling-wise) and one wonders if it's a French
> adaptation of something else.
I haven't found any detailed biographical information, but he was
born in Chalons-sur-Saone. His full name was Joseph Nicéphore
Niepce. Interestingly, I have run across different spellings of
the last name; some have no accent (while preserving the one in
Nicéphore, so it's not just ASCIIfication), while others have
the grave. But on what appears to be his official French website,
it's the acute.
-Mark
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