Van Gogh goes or Van Gogh coughs? Is there a commonly accepted British English pronunciation?

Question

The question changed during the formulation from

What is the correct 'British English' pronunciation of Van Gogh?

to

Is there such a thing as a 'correct' English pronunciation of a Dutch
  name -- specifically of Van Gogh? Failing that, is there at least a
  commonly accepted convention? For personal usage I'm interested in
  'British English' variants including Irish English, but extra padding concerning US variants
  would not go amiss.

Wikipedia gives the correct Dutch IPA pronunciation as  [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləm vɑŋ ˈɣɔx] and even has an audio file of same.

The solution might be to use the correct Dutch pronunciation, but it doesn't sit naturally with me. This answer on the ELU site made me think there might not be a definitive answer.

Another consideration is that there is often no one established
  “correct” pronunciation for foreign names in English. Usually for
  famous or well-known people, some kind of conventional pronunciation
  is established over time, but what that pronunciation will be is not
  always predictable. Some people try to pronunce names as close to the
  original language as they can. This means that it would be difficult
  to figure out how to spell these names if it was based on how English
  speakers pronounce them

Google wasn't as helpful as I thought it would be. Several sites gave the correct Dutch pronunciation and noted that English native speakers (both sides of the Atlantic) pronounced it incorrectly. But then I found an ever so British perspective

Something that drives British people absolutely bonkers is hearing an
  American "mispronounce" the name of Dutch post-impressionist Vincent
  van Gogh. Pangs of rage fill up the collective consciousness as the
  nation retorts in one voice: "it's VAN-GOFF, not VAN-GO!"

Though  not a big fan of the style of the piece, as an Irish English-speaker this is also the pronunciation I use.
So can I assume in British and Irish English usage that Van Gogh rhymes with cough??

gnasher729 · Answer

Pronunciation should be correct, and it should be understood by your peers. These can be opposing demands. Correct pronunciation is useless if nobody else knows what or who you are talking about. In the case of Dutch words, I would add that you should pronounce a word in such a way that saying it doesn't cause you damage.

Goch pronounced the same way that a Scottish person would pronounce Loch (Ness, for example) comes reasonably close to the correct way (although many Dutch people would disagree). It's definitely not like the gh in laugh or cough - but then lots of English people would have problems with the ch in Loch, so "van Gogh" with the same gh as in cough will be understood correctly by many.

If Americans say "Go" like the gh in "though", that's slightly worse than the English "Cough" in my opinion - no consonant is worse than the wrong one, and I bet they get the "O" wrong as well.

Liz Thompson · Answer

As in loch. English-born , as opposed to Scottish-born, people can learn to pronounce loch correctly with practice. As with any non native language speaker, sounds outside the native language have to be acquired with practice. Welsh presents the same problem for non native speakers.

Answered by Liz Thompson on December 11, 2020

Van Gogh goes or Van Gogh coughs? Is there a commonly accepted British English pronunciation?

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