[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

I would like to mention I noticed the same thing with Upsilon. Psi U learns to pronounce it Yoop-Si-Lon while most greeks I have met pronounce it Up-Si-Lon

Right. Meanwhile, in Greek, the U is more like the German ü, so that it comes out sounding like a cross between OO-psi-lon and EE-psi-lon.

Originally Posted by pearlbubbles

Well, I guess that makes a lot more sense than pronunciation changing based on being behind a consonant or a vowel, lol. I wonder why different organizations choose the different pronunciations though...

Preference as to whether they wanted to use the American or Greek pronunciation. I've always imagined some good Greek professor telling the founders of Alpha Phi, "you know, the correct way to pronounce that letter is . . . ."

Originally Posted by thetygerlily

Awesome- thank you MysticCat! I didn't realize that all of the "eye" letters are "ee" in Greek, such as Pi and Chi. Now comes the fun part of remembering how everyone says it.

You can include in the "ee" letters I, which the sisters of Sigma Alpha Iota would tell you is EE-ota. (In Greek, it's actually closer to Yota.)

You'd be surprised how many names of Greek letters are not pronounced in Greek like they are in English.