[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

You rang?

AOII Angel is indeed correct the name of the letter F is correctly pronounced FEE in Greek and that most GLOs use anglicized pronuncations of the Greek letter names. (Although off the top of my head I can't remember if there are any GLOs other than Alpha Xi Delta that use the Greek pronunciation rather than the anglicized. That's not counting, of course, those orgs that only use letters for which the Greek and anglicized pronunciations are essentially the same, like Kappa Delta. I say 'essentially" because in Kappa would be closer to Kahppa.)

The part that "isn't really accurate" is this:
There is an "I" sound in Greek; at least in classical Greek there is. I'm not sure how prevalent it is in modern Greek. As in most languages other than English, though, it is not represented by a single letter.

The sound we associated with I (eye) is a diphthong, or glided vowel -- two vowel sounds pronounced one after the other in the same syllable with no break in between. Pay attention to your tongue and mouth when you say "eye" (and say it slowly) and you'll notice that you start with the "ah" vowel and end with the "ee" vowel. (If you listen to a trained singer, you'll notice that he or she, if an "eye" sound falls on a longer note, holds the "ah" until almost the end of the note, only moving to the "ee" at the very end.)

In classical Greek, this diphthong would be represented by alpha (ah) iota (ee) together -- ai. Thus, while the letter iota alone does not indicate an "eye" sound, alpha and iota together do. (Or did.) So, for example, the Greek word for "and" -- kai -- would be pronounced like the common American pronunciation of the name of the letter Chi and would rhyme with the English "pie."

I completely agree with this. I was incorrect in saying there is no I sound...there is no letter that alone makes the I sound. It's interesting too that many of the sounds we associate with the greek letters are not the sounds used by Greeks. Our written out spelling of Greek letters are english not Greek. A is called alpha but not spelled out as alpha, etc. It's the name of the greek letter the same as A is "aye" in english. Thanks for the Greek lesson, MysticCat! I also miswrote about the Alpha Xi Delta comment. What I meant was they were the only other group with an I in their name that pronounces the name in the classical greek manner. Some of the americanized greek letters do sound the same as the classical pronunciations.