Your GLO's Alpha Phi Chapter: Alpha FEE or FIE
 

I am a member of Alpha Phi (FEE) and was just thinking. To those of you who are members of other GLO's who name your chapters in Greek letter sequential order (Alpha Chapter, Iota Beta chapter, etc.):

How do you pronounce your Alpha Phi chapter? Is it FEE or FIE?

For example, I ran across the Tri-Delta collegiate chapter listing and they pronounce it FEE.

Our fraternity pronounces our Alpha Phi chapter 'fie'. Though 'fee' is the proper pronunciation in Greek. :)

i may be wrong in this but I believed the correct way to pronounce the Phi after an Alpha is always a fee at least that's what I was told, so I guess that may answer the question for sigma kappa "fee".

Yes, that's how "we" (Alpha Phi) pronounce it. I wanted to see how other GLO's prounced their Alpha Phi chapter name. I forgot which sorority it is, but I remember there is one that pronounces their Alpha Phi chapter Alpha FIE.

Alpha "Fee" Alpha
 

I always wondered if the rule changed if there is another vowel after the "fee" - case in point, no one calls AFA A "Fee" A. ;)

look at Alpha Phi Omega... phi is pronounce fie not fee.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that there is no rule one way or another on how to pronounce "phi." (The one about it being "fee" after following a vowel just doesn't hold water -- Alpha Phi Alpha or Alpha Epsilon Phi being obvious examples to the contrary.) "Fee" is the Greek way of pronouncing it and "fie" is the more American pronunciation -- individual GLOs or chapters choose how they want to say it. Same with Xi -- it is pronounced "zie," "zee," or "k-zee" depending on the chapter.

I am an alumnae of the Eta Phi (Fee) chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha. I was told that Phi is pronounced fee when it is the last letter in a Greek name.

We have no Alpha Phi chapter here but by the grace of GC I have learned to prounce it as "fee". Alpha Sigma Phi however here, prounounces it "fie"

We never had/will never have an Alpha Phi chapter, since only the 4 chapters that participated in the reorganization are given the honor of starting with Alpha. So we don't have to worry about it. :p I'm pretty sure every other chapter that ended with a Phi has pronounced it "Fye."

I honestly don't know. I will have to check that out.

I heard that the reason Alpha Phi was pronounced FEE is because it is the last of two letters. Otherwise it would be A E FEE instead of A E FEYE.

I think we use "fie"

There have been a million and one threads on this over the years but here is a post of mine from a year or so ago that discusses the pronunciation of "Phi"

Here is a link to that thread.

I didn't want for this to turn into "the proper way to prounce phi." I know there are a million and one threads about that. What I AM asking is how other GLO's refer to their "alpha phi" chapter, if they have one.

There is NO rule about the pronunciation changing depending on which letters precede or follow, or whether the GLO has 2 or 3 letters. This is completely false.

The stories about "my GLO founders knew a Greek professor and were told phi is pronounced phee after a consonant" are urban legend. Your founders would have no need of a greek professor in 1872 since they would have already been well schooled in the greek and latin classics. It's quite possible a professor helped with selecting mottoes, but they certainly would not need to educate students on proper greek pronunciation.

The correct greek pronunciation is always phee. The Americanized pronunciation is phye. Simple as that.

wptw

My chapter advisor is from our Alpha Phi chapter (which has since shut down). I'm pretty sure she says "FIE," but I will ask her when I see her (if I remember!).

I didn't know Alpha Phi pronounced the Phi "fee"! That's cool, because Sigma Alpha Iota has a similar thing. Iota is NOT pronounced "eye-oh-ta" but "ee-oh-ta". So, what IS the "correct" Iota pronunciation? Now I'm curious! :p

The Phi is a very important letter to us, and is in every one of our chapter names (like Iota Chi Phi, my chapter). We pronounce it "fie."

Not like it matters much, but in some of my engineering classes, when phi is used as a variable, most of the professors pronounce it as "fee," which really used to irk me at first.

ETA: Also, if you think about it, saying Alpha FIE as opposed to Alpha FEE just doesn't sound right... at least to me. But then, saying Iota Chi FEE or Alpha FEE Alpha sounds pretty wrong.

I think that for GLO's at least, it's just a matter of preference.

"The Greek letters have both a Greek and an English pronunciation. “Modern Greeks” do not adhere strictly to the pure Greek or the accepted English, but often combine the two forms in the same name for the final effect in sound rather than phonetic correctness.

(Greek) (English)
A Alpha Alpha Alpha
B Beta Bayta Beeta
G Gamma Gahmma Gamma
D Delta Delta Delta
E Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon
Z Zeta Zayta Zeeta
H Eta Ayta Eeta
Q Theta Thayta Theeta
I Iota Iota Iota
K Kappa Kahppa Kappa
L Lambda Lahmbda Lambda
M Mu Mew Mew
N Nu New New
X Xi Zee Zi (eye)
O Omicron Omicron Omicron
P Pi Pee Pi (eye)
R Rho Rho Rho
S Sigma Sigma Sigma
T Tau Tow (as in owl) Tawe
Y Upsilon Oopsilon Upsilon
F Phi Phee Phi (eye)
Z Chi Chee Chi (eye)
Y Psi Psee Psi (eye)
W Omega Omayga Omeega

(Taken from National Panhellenic Conference Manual ofInformation)"

wptw

Methinks the National Panhellenic Conference Manual of Information of information needs to be revised, at least as far as correct Greek pronunciation is concerned.

In Greek, Iota is pronounced along the lines of "yota." (If one says "EE-ota" like SAIrose suggests, but moves over the "EE" very fast, one ends up with something more like "yota," the "I" being a glide.)

In Greek, Mu and Nu are pronounced more like "Mee" and "Nee." (See "Upsilon" below.)

In Greek, Xi is pronounced "KSee," not "Zee." Similarly, Psi is pronounced "Psee."

In Greek, the "U" at the beginning of Upsilon is more along the lines of the "u" in the French "tu" or the German umlaut "ue" (or "u" with two dots over it, which I can't do in this post.) The tongue is held in position to say "ee," while the mouth is in position to say "oo."

AXPGoBot is right -- for GLOs, it's all a matter of preference and tradition.

To answer the original question, DG at UBC is "Alpha FYE" chapter.

As for the men's NPHC fraternity: Alpha FYE Alpha, it would make sense to me that it's FYE, since Alpha Phi Alpha is a men's group.
Kind of like: amigo for men, amiga for women. Capische?
Fye is masculine, Fee is feminine.