Wouldn't Steyr end in an R sound even if it's a very soft R? I know it's been a long time since I studied German but it seems to me it would be there.
It would be, but Steyr is Austrian, and Austrians speak crappy German.
there is as much, possibly more regional dialect differences in other languages as there is in American English. Americans who have not traveled enough (and with their ears open) or studied the other languages can rarely tell the differences. And the same is true in reverse for non English speakers here. I'm sure our regional dialect differences must drive them nuts. Heck, it drives some of US nuts and we live here!
Even though Luger is dead there are lots of other Germans named Georg, and they say it "gay-org" In proper German the letter "e" is pronounced as "a" in English and its the "a as in hay" sound not the "ah" sound, unless at the end of a word where it can be "ah", but usually isn't
.
OR its in the middle of a word without another vowel next to it... The "e" in Gewehr is the short "meh" sound. See how simple this is??
"Th" is almost always a silent or barely breathed "h" so all you hear is the "T". "ei" is always "eye" and "ie" is always a long "e" sound, unless its from Yiddish origins where they spell it stein but say it "steen"...
We do similar and more complex stuff in English, too, especially with people and place names.
How do you say "Worcester"???
The people who live there say "Wuster" (or more commonly the yankee "Wustah"
)
Some folks who live there will tell you they live in Baaston, others will say Boston....
If you say it "right" you're not wrong, but you might not be understood by people who say it wrong. Say it wrong and the people who say it right will think you're an idiot, or worse...