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I searched for a thread about this but couldn't find one. Apologies if this has been discussed before.

I don't use Linux, but I've always believed the pronunciation was something like lin-ucks, with a short 'i'. In a college class recently though, a professor who DOES use Linux referred to if a few times as line-icks, with a long 'i'. I have no idea which one is correct.

Is there an official pronunciation? If not, how do you say it?

I'm sure Linus Torvalds has his own crazy way of saying it. Is it important how you say it? I call it 'Lie-nux' because it's a giant con on nerds.

Punarbhava wrote:I searched for a thread about this but couldn't find one. Apologies if this has been discussed before.

I don't use Linux, but I've always believed the pronunciation was something like lin-ucks, with a short 'i'. In a college class recently though, a professor who DOES use Linux referred to if a few times as line-icks, with a long 'i'. I have no idea which one is correct.

Is there an official pronunciation? If not, how do you say it?

Try this.

You'll come across an audio file and video with Linus Torvalds stating how he pronounces Linux. The audio file has him saying "lee-nucks" and the video has him saying "lin-ucks". Judge for yourself. (One or the other could just be an accent thing.)

A professor I had once for a Linux course would always pronounce it "line-icks". One time, he slipped and said "lin-ucks" like everyone else does and then immediately corrected himself, saying "Well, I should say line-icks." I don't care how you say it, but his pretentiousness was annoying considering that isn't even how Linus pronounces it. If you're going to insist on a certain pronunciation, at least pick one of the ways Linus pronounces it.

Why? It's not a real word. Next you'll say people calling it ooo bun two is evil too.

Stark wrote:Why? It's not a real word. Next you'll say people calling it ooo bun two is evil too.

I'm not sure how anyone can read what I wrote about how I don't care how someone happens to pronounce the proper noun and come up with what you're saying. Would you care to clarify what you're on about?

The worst pronounciation I ever heard was "gee-noam" for gnome. Germans tend to pronounce Linux as "lee-noocks", although when the same people speak english they will more often than not say "linicks" or "linucks". I guess its difficult to convey in a written medium, but while the "german" pronounciation is long and drawn out with much movement of the mouth, the "english" one is always spat out as if the speaker was giving an order.

Stark wrote:ooo bun two

Sorry, I'm not into Pokemon.

uh, stark, Ubuntu is a word. Sure it's not an english word, but that's hardly a requirement towards being a word.

As far as Linux, if parsed according to english spelling rules (yes, it does have them, you just don't know them save instinctively), as if it were a thing inherited from anglo-saxon or normand, it would be of course /laɪnʊks/. However, since it's parsed by the english-speaking brain as a foreign word because it's not a standard english word, but then anglicised by laxing the vowels, so you get /lɪnʊks/. Continental vowels, for those pronouncing it as if it were a non-anglicised foreign word, or for those who don't speek english, make it /li:nu:ks/ or /li:nʊks/. Torvalds and most everybody using a variant with the i: uses the latter as it's more comfortable for stress-timed languages, but I've heard the former for hyperforeign attempts.

Easy. All three pronunciations explained. And spelled in such a way that it actually can be determined what the hell is being written, since "PEE-WAH-NONG-TE" spelling is shit-tastic.

To correct myself: Torvalds appears to actually say /lɪːnɤks/, not that it matters- making that noise in regular english speech would get you odd looks.

Duckie wrote:Easy. All three pronunciations explained. And spelled in such a way that it actually can be determined what the hell is being written, since "PEE-WAH-NONG-TE" spelling is shit-tastic.

Only if you know what those symbols mean. For everyone who isn't a linguist, all that stuff you just said made the least amount of sense out of everything else in this thread.

nɪˈkiːtə ˈkrʊʃtʃɛv

WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN???

It's not really my fault if someone asks about an equation then doesn't know what a square root sign means, but I see your point. I should have included a link to an IPA chart.

oh, right: Just saying that didn't actually link to one. Duh.

Stark wrote:I'm sure Linus Torvalds has his own crazy way of saying it. Is it important how you say it? I call it 'Lie-nux' because it's a giant con on nerds.

It's not important, but I was curious.

The IPA pronunciation is helpful, but it doesn't really explain which one is more correct. I guess it doesn't matter anyway though; any of those pronunciations are sufficient so that people know what you're talking about if you're speaking to someone knowledgeable enough about computers to know what Linux is in the first place.

"Hello, my name is Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Lee-nuks as Lee-nuks."

Linus had the audio of that on his FTP site somewhere, all I can find right now is a ghastly Youtube animation, which sounds a bit more anglicized than what I remember anyway.