Pronunciation of Francisco Garrpe

I'm Portuguese. I have read the book but not watched the movie. I had never seen nor heard the name Garrpe in my life. It could be a surname that disappeared or transformed over time. It could as well have been made up, albeit that would be strange. Might just be extremely rare. It's also quite odd sounding (and looking) because we use two 'R's in a row always(!) between two vowels, never followed immediately by a consonant. Of course, naming conventions and orthography came much later than the period in which the story takes place.

Anyway, a Portuguese person would read it as two syllables: GA-RRPE. Normal 'G' sound (as in English, "golf", not "gel"), open 'A' sound, as in 'Ra', as in the Egyptian sun god Ra. The double 'R' sound could be as the French pronounce the 'R's or as the Spanish pronounce 'RR', as in 'burro' (depending on where you are in Portugal, you might hear the double 'R' sound one way or the other). The 'PE' at the end would sound as just a single 'P' in English (think "carp"), but the mute sound would linger on for a bit longer -- the final 'E' sounds almost like the noise you would make if you were punched in the stomach. Even so, because of the oddness of the double 'R' before a consonant, we would be very much inclined to read it as if it had merely one 'R'. In that case, it would be as the single 'R' in Spanish (think "puerta" or "cuerpo").

A Brazilian person would read it a bit differently. They would read that last 'E' as, well, how you pronounce the letter 'E' in English, as in A-B-C-D-'E'.

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My first exposure to Silence was through the audio book read by David Holt, who pronounced Francisco Garrpe as 'garp', similar to how it's spelt. In the movie, though, it seemed like everybody pronounced Francisco's surname as 'ga-ru-pay'. This sounds like a Japanese pronunciation, but even Andrew Garfield's character - who was supposed to be a fellow Portuguese - referred to him this way. I checked the pronunciation on Google, which gave me something along the lines of 'gare-pe'.

The name is listed in the film’s end credits (and the screenplay) as Garupe.

Some characters, such as Japanese villagers and samurai, speak their native language but with English subtitles; and, while the Portuguese priest Rodrigues speaks at times in "rough Japanese," his words are still uttered in English, not in Japanese with English subtitles. While some Japanese characters are understood to be talking with Rodrigues in Portuguese (which they’ve learnt from previous Portuguese Jesuits), they speak in English.

Differences in pronunciation occur not only because Japanese characters say the name in their attempts at Portuguese but also because Rodrigues says it both in his actual voice and in voice-overs, either in Portuguese or his “rough Japanese,” all of which is presented in English.

For instance, after his family has been burnt alive on Goto beach Kichijiro refers to Father Garupe as “Padre Gar-pay.”

After Garupe is drowned off Nagasaki beach, the Japanese Interpreter (speaking in Portuguese) pronounces Garupe four times as Gar-roo-pay, as does Rodrigues, also in Portuguese, once, in the same scene. At other times he twice pronounces it as Gar-roo-pee.

However, the first time the priest’s name is mentioned, by Father Valignano in his first scene with the two young priests, he pronounces it Garro-pee. As he’s Portuguese it could be supposed he used the correct pronunciation.

The varying pronunciations seem related to the different languages used by the speakers.

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It is because they changed his name in the film version, from Garrpe to Garupe, which was a good idea because although the surname Garupe is not real, it could exist (meaning it "sounds" portuguese so it could really pass off as a real Portuguese surname), whereas Garrpe would be a completely unnatural word in the Portuguese language.

Garupe would be pronounced exactly like Garoop with a rolling R.

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