How do you pronounce your Greek alphabet?
 

I'm no greek and nor do I speak greek, but I encounter enough greek letters every day in mathematics and science. Interestingly people's pronounciation of the letters seem to differ, and when questioned some don't have an opinion of what is correct and some do. One of my old physics teacher was so sure that tau should be pronounced like 'taw' not 'tao'. What I don't to get is, they sound completely and utterly different to how it is actually pronounced in Greek. For example 'tau' is pronounced 'tav'. So how did all this debate come about in the first place? I could understand that because different languages have different sets of phonemes so it is difficult to reproduce exactly those in a language you don't speak. But you are talking about HUGE differences. Another example is 'beta': some say 'bay-ta' some say 'beeta' while the Greek's say 'vita'. The famous 'pi' is correctly pronounced 'pee' not 'pai'. 'chi' is a misleading spelling but the correct pronounciation is not 'kai' but more like 'khee'. It just escapes me how we have managed to reinvent their pronounciation and not be able to agree on it! Any thoughts?

Mathematicians are mathematicians, not greek scholars.
Nor do they care about how it is really pronounced. All they care about is what it represents.

You could read up on it your own. Like, using google or something.

There were some jokes about physics professors, and how they pronounce shit like assholes. Because of frats or something.

But they're just letters. And there seems to be a few interpretations (2+) of how to pronounce the letters when using them in different contexts.

My professors confuse me when they say the same symbols differently :
egs.
Theta = "thEEta" or "thEYta"
Mu = "moo" or "miyoo"
Phi = "fee" or "fAJ"

I don't think there should be confusion for alpha, omega, sigma, or any symbols of the sort.

It seems that almost no one in the U.S. pronounces Greek letters correctly when talking about fraternities and sororities. Phi Mu Alpha (mine) is correctly pronounced something like "fee mee ahlfa." Al-fuh bey-duh gayumma deyulta epsilon, zeytuh, etc. is what I usually hear. Any use of Classical Greek or Modern Greek really throws people off, it seems.

What next, are we going to have a puh-tay-toe vs. puh-tah-toe poll?

People pronounce things wrong because they're stupid. Or things get said differently because of geography. Or there's more than one correct pronunciation. Whatever the cause, it doesn't justify a thread.

Closed. :)