Why Y is pronounced as "igrek"(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Why Y is pronounced as "igrek"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y
23 comments
Well, I'm from Baltic and I say Tesla Model igrek... We simply don't have a better way to spell out that char.
Our language usually reads chars as we write them so it is completely, totally out of touch to spell it "waai". Not tha t "igrek" makes any sense, but that is the name of the char...
And whatever word I explain how to write in english, Y will be "igrek". Because it is simple to understand. If I'd say "waay" when talking my native language, I'd just waste my time and will have to fall back to "igrek"
Our language usually reads chars as we write them so it is completely, totally out of touch to spell it "waai". Not tha t "igrek" makes any sense, but that is the name of the char...
And whatever word I explain how to write in english, Y will be "igrek". Because it is simple to understand. If I'd say "waay" when talking my native language, I'd just waste my time and will have to fall back to "igrek"
Brought back memories of taking french in middle school for me! I remember very little of that class, save the last few letters of the alphabet "w,x,y,z" as something like "double-vay, eex, igrek, zed" burned into my brain.
(Edit: I'm also learning quite a bit from the comments! "igrek" seems more common than I realized, and the american / english "why" pronunciation I grew up with may be the outlier!)
(Edit: I'm also learning quite a bit from the comments! "igrek" seems more common than I realized, and the american / english "why" pronunciation I grew up with may be the outlier!)
> “double-vay” in french
This thread has been a personal goldmine for me, as this just unlocked another memory lol.
When our elementary school started english classes, and we got an assignment to memorize the alphabet, I was getting help with that from my dad.
The twist was that he didn’t learn english in school, because during his time in school (less than a decade before USSR fell apart), kids were taught either french or german. He took both french and german at different points in time. And due to no internet and my less-than-perfect notes in class, pronunciation of some letters had to be “reverse-engineered”[0].
We didn’t make the mistake with W, because of that whole “double-u double-u double-u, tochka [aka dot], <the rest of the URL>” thing you hear on TV and elsewhere all the time when a website link is mentioned. But for V, I indeed got a bit embarrassed by learning it wrong and pronouncing it as “veh/vay” when reciting it in front of the class.
0. No internet access at the time, and english literacy among the population in our small city (that even most russian people have never even heard of, and if they did, still having zero knowledge about it) was pretty much non-existent at the time. Our republic (kind of an equivalent of a US state or an autonomous territory like Puerto Rico) had more than enough language-related problems to worry about already at the time to even bother with english at all, like the eternal fight over the importance/dominance of russian vs. tatar language. Which spilled into a lot of aspects of life, including politicians, parents, and schools having shitfights over legally mandated number of hours schools should dedicate to russian vs. tatar language classes.
This thread has been a personal goldmine for me, as this just unlocked another memory lol.
When our elementary school started english classes, and we got an assignment to memorize the alphabet, I was getting help with that from my dad.
The twist was that he didn’t learn english in school, because during his time in school (less than a decade before USSR fell apart), kids were taught either french or german. He took both french and german at different points in time. And due to no internet and my less-than-perfect notes in class, pronunciation of some letters had to be “reverse-engineered”[0].
We didn’t make the mistake with W, because of that whole “double-u double-u double-u, tochka [aka dot], <the rest of the URL>” thing you hear on TV and elsewhere all the time when a website link is mentioned. But for V, I indeed got a bit embarrassed by learning it wrong and pronouncing it as “veh/vay” when reciting it in front of the class.
0. No internet access at the time, and english literacy among the population in our small city (that even most russian people have never even heard of, and if they did, still having zero knowledge about it) was pretty much non-existent at the time. Our republic (kind of an equivalent of a US state or an autonomous territory like Puerto Rico) had more than enough language-related problems to worry about already at the time to even bother with english at all, like the eternal fight over the importance/dominance of russian vs. tatar language. Which spilled into a lot of aspects of life, including politicians, parents, and schools having shitfights over legally mandated number of hours schools should dedicate to russian vs. tatar language classes.
Thats also the standard way to pronounce it in Bulgarian, used often in math context as well of course.
We have the same pronunciation in Bulgaria. Our math classes also are calling it "igrek". :)
All: I posted this as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y#Name but HN changed it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y. To get the answer to the question in the title, see the "Name" section.
Fun fact, in France we have a real town called "Y", pronounced /i/, while the demonyms (names of inhabitants) are "upsilonienne/upsilonien" (in feminine/masculine form respectively.)
As you can guess these villagers will hate you with passion for not allowing a single letter city name in your address form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y,_Somme
https://www.tf1info.fr/societe/video-insolite-bienvenue-a-y-...
As you can guess these villagers will hate you with passion for not allowing a single letter city name in your address form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y,_Somme
https://www.tf1info.fr/societe/video-insolite-bienvenue-a-y-...
There used to be a census-designated place* in Alaska named Y, but some years ago it was renamed to Susitna North. The Alaska Y got the name because two significant roads (by Alaska standards) formed a "Y" intersection there.
* In the US system, a CDP is lower ranking than a town or village... basically it's an inhabited place few people that isn't large enough to have a local government.
* In the US system, a CDP is lower ranking than a town or village... basically it's an inhabited place few people that isn't large enough to have a local government.
In Polish Y is pronounced "igrek" always when we talk about letter "y", but in words it is pronounced differently.
(just like in English "C" is pronounced differently than it normally in words, where it usually is the same as "k").
(just like in English "C" is pronounced differently than it normally in words, where it usually is the same as "k").
Now we finally know how to pronounce ycombinator ;)
You may be joking but as a French I've read the domain as "igrek"-combinator my whole life :)
You must be one of the handful who pronounce "Mu Torrent" correctly and not as "You Torrent" for uTorrent as well.
You surely mean "Micro Torrent".
I’ll do when they will be bold enough to use μTorrent everywhere in the project and the branding material, until what they will get the same /y/ pronunciation we French speaker generally attach a lone -u- letter in a word.
And when I say generally, I mean unlike what we do in every word appearing in the sentence "un guai Hun fou de kung fu et de guns qui bugua dans un pub en ayant y quis de l’eau."
And when I say generally, I mean unlike what we do in every word appearing in the sentence "un guai Hun fou de kung fu et de guns qui bugua dans un pub en ayant y quis de l’eau."
microtorrent?
And words with y in it is the most cumbersome to explain to different people... the worst would be ycombinator... as I would have to repeat and say that "igrek" as for the english kind of "i" character.
Why?
;)
;)
Because Y is one of the "i" sounding vowels (as in "tin", "thin", not as in "line", "pike") vowels in the ancient "grec" (french for Greek) alphabet, and the name carried through latin and stuck when people were literate in the classics.
(And France being a major power at the time that math and science developed quickly, with French as a "lingua ...franca" for a large area of the world, helped carry the name to some science domains too).
(And France being a major power at the time that math and science developed quickly, with French as a "lingua ...franca" for a large area of the world, helped carry the name to some science domains too).
> with French as a "lingua ...franca" for a large area of the world
Fun fact—lingua franca is often assumed to refer to French, because French was the most prominent lingua franca until English, but it actually originally referenced a pidgin (mostly simplified Italian) used for trade in the eastern Mediterranean. At the time people in the East often referred to all Western Europeans as Franks, so lingua franca mostly meant "the language used by westerners".
Fun fact—lingua franca is often assumed to refer to French, because French was the most prominent lingua franca until English, but it actually originally referenced a pidgin (mostly simplified Italian) used for trade in the eastern Mediterranean. At the time people in the East often referred to all Western Europeans as Franks, so lingua franca mostly meant "the language used by westerners".
And in French, “i” is pronounced as English “e”, when naming the letter. And many adjectives of this sort follow the noun in French—this pattern may be familiar to English speakers from the names of French foods, e.g. “beef bourguignon”, or, further anglicized, “beef burgundy”.
So the French name for Y is basically “Greek I” but you say it like “eee-greck”.
So the French name for Y is basically “Greek I” but you say it like “eee-greck”.
So its not pronounced igrek, but named igrek. What's up with a wrong editorialized titel?
No, the title is correct, some places pronounce it igrek.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/igrek
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/igrek
Your own link states that igrek is the noun for the letter y. Not the pronunciation of y.
Always found it weird that y was "wye" in English but "igriega" in Spanish. Thanks for this!
Came here to post this. What a mind blowing random realization about a question I've passively had my whole life.
So in Spanish it basically means "greek e"? Nuts.
So in Spanish it basically means "greek e"? Nuts.
It's more "greek i", where the pronounciation of "i" in Spanish is similar to that of "e" in English.
Saying how something is pronounced with plain letters can be a bit confusing for those who don't already have an idea of pronunciation so here's the Wiktionary page with an attempt at IPA and a recording https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/igrek
> In Dutch, the letter is either only found in loanwords, or is practically equivalent to the digraph IJ.
I speak dutch and I don't understand why in Unicode a special character for IJ exists.
I and J are separate letters on Dutch keyboards and typewriters.
If you write them by hand, it's exactly the same as when you write an i followed by a j.
I could understand that a ligature in some fonts could exist, but not why a Unicode character does.
Also, there are many such Dutch sounds made by two letters (ei, eu, ou, oe, etc...) and those don't get their own Unicode character either (and that's good). There's nothing special about ij I see that makes that one warrant different treatment.
I speak dutch and I don't understand why in Unicode a special character for IJ exists.
I and J are separate letters on Dutch keyboards and typewriters.
If you write them by hand, it's exactly the same as when you write an i followed by a j.
I could understand that a ligature in some fonts could exist, but not why a Unicode character does.
Also, there are many such Dutch sounds made by two letters (ei, eu, ou, oe, etc...) and those don't get their own Unicode character either (and that's good). There's nothing special about ij I see that makes that one warrant different treatment.
Dutchie here, it is (I believe) a separate letter in the Dutch alphabet in some situations, and in some cases is sorted accordingly after X and before Z.
In Dutch crossword puzzles for example the IJ takes up a single square but others such as OE or UI are not.
https://onzetaal.nl/taalloket/ij-plaats-in-alfabet
In Dutch crossword puzzles for example the IJ takes up a single square but others such as OE or UI are not.
https://onzetaal.nl/taalloket/ij-plaats-in-alfabet
I can't really say why, but that's not the only ligature in Unicode. (œ actually is one too.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)#Ligatures_i...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)#Ligatures_i...
œ is not used in Dutch, while oe is. The o and the e are never stuck together like that. In French œ does happen and they indeed are stuck together like that there.
In Dutch when handwriting you just write an o followed by an e as you always would, while in French you really learn a different symbol when handwriting it and I wouldn't be surprised there are French words with an o followed by an e without using œ [edit, found one: moelle].
In Dutch when handwriting you just write an o followed by an e as you always would, while in French you really learn a different symbol when handwriting it and I wouldn't be surprised there are French words with an o followed by an e without using œ [edit, found one: moelle].
Not saying specifically for the case of this codepoint in Unicode, but an often correct answer to this is "backward compatibility". Unicode integrate a large amount of wild characters that are there so you can consult this old document with handmade charset made in the 80s or even before.
Ok so I'd say the most interesting part of this one is that Y was used to print the letter Thorn, and I, for a second got to think it was the reason why Thou became You, but nope. See : https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/348961/connectio...
Because Y is one of the "i" sounding vowels (as in "tin", "thin", not as in "line", "pike") vowels in the ancient "grec" (french for Greek) alphabet, and the name stuck when scientists and college educated people were literate in the classics and France was a major power with French as a widespread "lingua ...franca"?
Actually this letter (y) looks like the calligraphic writing of the greek letter psi (ψ) https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/img_auth.php/7/7d/Greek... (i am greek and I always write psi like y)
My favorite thing about this link was seeing that the letter Y evolved from a bird hieroglyph! 𓅱𓅱𓅱 (your unicode support may vary)
Reminds me of school in The Netherlands. We called it either what’s in the title, or literally “Griekse IJ” (meaning greek y).
I had never heard 'igrek', but I had wondered why it was 'ypsilon' in German. Good to know!
In Croatia it's "ipsilon"
That would be its ancient Greek name.
It was one of several "i" sounding vowels (like english has: i as in bin, e as in be, y as in gym, etc, roughly sounding the same).
"Y" has "i psilon" meaning "high i" (literal) or "slim/bare i" (referring to how it was pronounced).
It was one of several "i" sounding vowels (like english has: i as in bin, e as in be, y as in gym, etc, roughly sounding the same).
"Y" has "i psilon" meaning "high i" (literal) or "slim/bare i" (referring to how it was pronounced).
Psilon in this case means plain or simple (as opposed to compound or two-letter), as in spelled with one letter, because when the name was coined in the Koine Greek period, υ was pronounced /y/ like οι (but not like ι as in Modern Greek yet). Similarly, epsilon (ε) was pronounced like αι (as it still is).
In Estonia it's both Igrek and Üpsilon. That said, the letter is not in Estonian alphabet and is considered a "foreign letter".
Also in Portuguese!
[deleted]
Given how many languages use a variation of "igrek", how did it become known as "Why" in English?
In French we also say "igrek" (with a soft "k")
Wait, am I the only Frenchman who pronounces the k??
I pronounce it as well, it is just soft ("igreque") and not hard (like the "c" in "d'accord")
Huh... even there, I'm not sure I see a difference between the two. Hmm.
Why it's called "wai" in English?
Upsilon is pronounced “oo”. Make that sound and relax your mouth at the end and you get “oo” + “eye”, which is very close to “wye”.
Or say, “Not the usual I, but the ooh I” enough times and the end sounds like Y. (Warning: I am not a linguist.)
Or say, “Not the usual I, but the ooh I” enough times and the end sounds like Y. (Warning: I am not a linguist.)
[deleted]
The last time I heard it pronounced as “igrek” was in middle school trigonometry class in Russia. Which was roughly 15 years ago. The only context i’ve ever heard it pronounced that way in ever was in russian math classes.
Still not sure why I am bringing it up, but thanks for the post, legitimately appreciated.