Jager and Yaw-ger

[Cattywompuss]

So I have a pretty decent audio book that I would recommend: Gun Smoke and Saddle Leather.

Funny thing in it though is that several primary source quotes from the first half of the 19th Century differentiate muskets and other muzzleloaders from "Yawgers".

The way I know it is actually written that way, despite being an audio book is that one of the quotes is from an primary source expeditionary character who actually says "Some of the men were armed with some of the old Jager rifle guns but which they referred to as Yawgers."

Until I read this book I never knew that the pronunciation differed anywhere. I have some familiarity with German, but it is of course modern and not at all related to shooting or hunting. I do know though from a lot of research(because of this book) that the word in German is currently pronounced Yay-gehr, not Yawger.

Anyone else ever heard it called a Yawger gun?

 

[Grenadier1758]

I've always said "Yay-ger". It's just my Swiss/German heritage.

 

[kje54]

So I have a pretty decent audio book that I would recommend: Gun Smoke and Saddle Leather.

Funny thing in it though is that several primary source quotes from the first half of the 19th Century differentiate muskets and other muzzleloaders from "Yawgers".

The way I know it is actually written that way, despite being an audio book is that one of the quotes is from an primary source expeditionary character who actually says "Some of the men were armed with some of the old Jager rifle guns but which they referred to as Yawgers."

Until I read this book I never knew that the pronunciation differed anywhere. I have some familiarity with German, but it is of course modern and not at all related to shooting or hunting. I do know though from a lot of research(because of this book) that the word in German is currently pronounced Yay-gehr, not Yawger.

Anyone else ever heard it called a Yawger gun?

Regional accent attributed spelling. It's nothing new. Standardized American spelling/usage (Orthography) while introduced in the late 1830s did not really take hold until the turn of the century (1900) and even then took a couple of decades of school application to become widely utilized.