ALCUNE NOTE SULLA PRONUNCIA DI COLERIDGE

Come deve essere pronunciato il cognome del celebre poeta Samuel Taylor Coleridge? In Italia si sente una pronuncia trisillabica Co-le-ridge, come se fosse scritto *Collar-ridge, con la vocale tonica -o- breve ed aperta (/ɔ/). Alcuni sostengono che questa pronuncia sia errata e che si debba pronunciare come un bisillabo Cole-ridge, come se fosse scritto *Coal-ridge, con dittongo sfuggente -ou- (/əŭ/). Io stesso pronunciavo il cognome come un trisillabo, e l'ho poi corretto in bisillabo. Con mio grande stupore sono poi venuto a sapere che gli stessi anglosassoni hanno la medesima confusione, e che anche tra loro vige una grande incertezza. Vi sono addirittura due pronunce trisillabiche, *Coaler-ridge e *Collar-ridge, e una bisillabica, *Coal-ridge. Le forme trisillabiche sono utilizzate persino da professori universitari. Qual è la pronuncia corretta? 

Dallo stesso Coleridge abbiamo queste evidenze contraddittorie: 

1) Parry seeks the Polar Ridge,
Rhymes seek S. T. Coleridge.
(Written in an Album)

2) Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S. T. Coleridge.
(Metrical Feet. Lesson for a Boy)

3) Elsewhere in College, knowledge, wit and scholarage
To friends and public known, as S. T. Coleridge.
(Notes on Field on the Church)

Sembra così che egli pronunciasse *Coal-ridge, *Coaler-ridge o *Collar-ridge a seconda delle necessità metriche, in due casi con il dittongo sfuggente -ou- come in polar e in whole, e in uno con la vocale breve e aperta -o- come in scholarage. 

Tutto ciò ha davvero dell'incredibile. Eppure esisteranno ancora oggi famiglie inglesi con questo cognome. Resta il fatto che nei paesi anglosassoni ogni famiglia ha un suo modo di pronunciare il proprio cognome: non è impossibile che cognomi che si scrivono allo stesso modo siano pronunciati in modo dissimile da famiglie diverse. Una gran confusione. Possibile che non si riesca a venirne a capo? 

Per risolvere la spinosa questione, mi appoggio a una nota presente nel libro Notes & Queries di William White (pagg. 136-137), consultabile in Google Books. La riporto qui per intero:  

PRONUNCIATION OF COLERIDGE (2nd S. xi. 69) - J.H. asks, "What is the correct pronunciation of the name Coleridge?" and, after showing that S.T. Coleridge made his name to rhyme with "scholarage," says, - "Here we have the highest authority for a trisyllabic pronunciation." But with this reasoning I cannot quite agree. "Coleridge" is a word which does not exactly rhyme with any other; and in the passage above cited, S. T. C. was exerting his ingenuity to make something like a rhyme to his name. There is another couplet by him, which might have been quoted as authority for a slightly modified trisyllabic pronunciatione; but here, in like manner, the writer was only trying, by stretching a point, to make a forced rhyme, which perhaps he had been defied to produce.   

"Parry seeks the polar ridge,
Rhymes seeks S.T. Coleridge."    

What J. H. wishes to know, I presume, is this: If S. T. C. had been asked his name, what would he have said? Cole-ridge, Cŏl-er-idge (scholarage) or Cō-ler-idge (polar ridge)? A gentleman, who was perhaps more intimate with S. T. Coleridge than any one now living, informs me that, in ordinary conversation, the poet would certainly have called himself Cōle-ridge, and would so have pronounced the word, if he had been officially asked to give his name. My informant never heard the word pronounced as a trisyllable, either by Coleridge himself or by his friends.
JAYDEE    

If the evidence of a Bristolian may be considered of any weight, I can attest that the poet's name has always been pronounced by those who knew him intimately at Bristol, Cōleridge (Coalridge.) I can speak from a knowledge extending back to upwards of threescore years. My father was his intimate friend, and received from him a copy of his first published poems. I was perfectly familiar whit all about him, and never heard him called otherwise than above stated.
F. C. H.