Quote:
Originally posted by SATX*APhi
This is what I understand.....
If the Phi is the second letter of a Greek name, and the first letter of the Greek name is a vowel, and there is no third letter, it is pronounced FEE.
EX:
(VOWEL) (PHI) (NOTHING) = (VOWEL) (FEE)
When I say "vowel," I am referring to those letters that are vowels in the Greek language, not having a vowel at the end of a word (ex: alphA) like is quoted below.
Hope that helps!!!!!!!
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It's actually a lot simpler than all of this, as some others have suggested. The Greek pronunciation of the name of the Greek letter
F is
always "Fee." In Greek, the name of the letter is spelled
Fi. For it to be pronounced "Fie" it would be spelled
Fai.
F is
never pronounced "Fie" in Greek -- that is a North American, anglicized pronunciation.
In the same fashion, all of the other letters with an "i" in them are pronounced "ee" in Greek: Iota = "EE-ota" (or "Yota"); Xi = "KSee"; Pi = "Pee"; Chi = "Chee" (with a German or Scottish shounding "ch" like "ach" or "loch"); and Psi = "PSee."
The bottom line is that no GLO I've ever heard of uses the Greek pronunciation for the Greek letters that form our names -- even the Alpha Phi's use "al-fa" instead of "ahl-fah." We all used anglicized pronunciations.
The site that lauradav put in her post --
http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/h...an/grkphon.htm -- is very useful because you can click on the pronuncations and hear them. Click on all of the letters and you'll find some surprises, such as "Beta" is pronounced "Veta" in Greek and "Mu" and "Nu" are pronounced "Mee" and "Nee."