How to pronounce Edinburgh

Short answer: say ED-in-bruh (/ˈedɪnbrə/) or ED-in-buh-ruh (/ˈedɪnbərə/), with the stress on ED. The ending sounds like British borough, not "burg". Oxford Learner's Dictionaries gives ED-in-bruh for British English; Cambridge and Collins list both. Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com and American Heritage put ED-in-bur-uh (/ˈedɪnbɚə/) first for American English. None of the dictionaries we checked lists ED-in-burg.

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Is it ED-in-bruh or ED-in-burg?

ED-in-bruh and the slightly longer ED-in-buh-ruh are one British pronunciation in Cambridge, with an optional vowel before the R. Here's every Edinburgh pronunciation the dictionaries list:

In 2022 the language-learning site Preply, using Google search data, put Edinburgh first among 68 holiday destinations, with "ED-in-berg" first among the wrong versions, the Edinburgh Evening News reported. Preply's 2024 update puts it 20th. The homebuilder Barratt London ranked it first of 103 place names worldwide, at about 230,400 pronunciation searches a year. Neither is a scientific survey.

Our advice: say ED-in-bruh or ED-in-buh-ruh. In American English, ED-in-bur-uh is fine too. Just don't end it with a G.

Why is Edinburgh pronounced "bruh"?

Because -burgh is the Scottish form of borough, from Old English burh, "fort" or "town". The burgh form dropped out of ordinary English in the 17th century but lived on in Scotland, according to the Oxford English Dictionary as cited by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. In British English it sounds just like borough, BUH-ruh, with a silent gh, and at the end of a long name it shrinks to "buh-ruh" or "bruh".

American English went the other way. General John Forbes, a Scot, named Pittsburgh in 1758 and, according to the Carnegie Library, probably said "Pitts-burro", like Edinburgh. In 1891 the U.S. Board on Geographic Names ruled that names said "berg" should be spelled -burg, and names that sound like thorough, -boro. Pittsburgh lost its H until 1911, and today Cambridge gives PITS-burg, H and all. Read Edinburgh that way and you get ED-in-burg.

The first part is older than English. Y Gododdin, an early Welsh poem about a battle around 600, names the fort Din Eidyn, believed to have stood on Castle Rock, where the castle is now. After the Angles of Northumbria besieged it in 638, English speakers swapped the Celtic din, "fort", for their own burh. Gaelic kept the Celtic word: Dùn Èideann, the source of Dunedin in New Zealand. No one knows what Eidyn meant, and modern scholars reject the story that it's "Edwin's burgh": the name is older than King Edwin.

How to say Edinburgh step by step

1. ED. Stress it, with the short "e" of bed. Not "EED".
2. in. Quick and weak, close to a plain N: Dictionary.com writes it "ed-n".
3. bruh or buh-ruh. A B, an R and a weak "uh", with no G and no strong beat. In Scotland the R is traditionally a quick tap of the tongue, as in the Scottish accent.
4. Put it together: ED-in-bruh. If that feels rushed, say "Edin" plus British borough: ED-in-buh-ruh.

Mistakes to avoid: a hard G at the end, a long E at the start and stress on the last syllable. If your language spells the city with a G, like German Edinburg, Polish Edynburg or Russian Эдинбург, drop it in English.

Practice in a sentence

• We took the train from London to Edinburgh: ED-in-bruh, not ED-in-burg.
• Every August, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe takes over the city.
• Musselburgh and Jedburgh end in "buh-ruh", just like Edinburgh.

Then try words with the same ending. American pronunciations from the Cambridge Dictionary; the Scottish towns, which it doesn't list, from Wikipedia:

For more place names people argue about, see how to pronounce Worcestershire, Oregon and Caribbean, or our list of 45 commonly mispronounced words.

What is Edinburgh?

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and home to the Scottish Parliament. According to American Heritage, it has been the capital since 1437. Every August it hosts the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which its organizers call the world's largest arts festival. Its old nickname is Auld Reekie, Scots for "Old Smoky", and the title Duke of Edinburgh, once Prince Philip's, now belongs to Prince Edward.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster — Edinburgh; Cambridge Dictionary — Edinburgh; Oxford Learner's Dictionaries — Edinburgh
• Dictionary.com — Edinburgh; Collins — Edinburgh, British and Webster's New World pronunciations; American Heritage Dictionary — Edinburgh
• Wiktionary — Edinburgh, burgh, Dùn Èideann and Embra; Cambridge Dictionary — borough, thorough and Pittsburgh
• Dictionaries of the Scots Language — Embro, Scottish National Dictionary
• Wikipedia — Edinburgh, Etymology of Edinburgh, Burgh, Scottish English, Scottish Gaelic phonology, Dunedin, Jedburgh and Musselburgh
• Wikipedia — Pittsburgh, Edinburg, Texas and Edinboro, Pennsylvania
• Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh — How to spell Pittsburgh (archived copy); Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation — the controversial spelling of Pittsburgh
• Edinburgh Evening News — Preply's list of mispronounced destinations, July 2022 (archived copy); Preply — most mispronounced places, 2024 update; Barratt London — the world's most difficult place names to pronounce
• Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society — about the Fringe