[B-Greek] Pronouncing letter names

Trevor Peterson 06peterson at cua.edu
Fri Oct 3 05:33:58 EDT 2003


Blake wrote:

> I'm learning NT Greek from books, and while they tell you how to 
> pronounce the sounds the letters make, they don't tell how to 
> correctly 
> pronounce the letter name itself.

Some of them will give you the name of the letter written in Greek,
which should be enough to get the idea. Even transliterated names are
normally straightforward once you learn how to make the correct sounds.
The general answer to your question is, pronounce the names of the
letters like they're Greek words, not English.

> I'm an engineer, so I'm quite 
> familiar with all of the letters (via equations and formulas), but  I 
> suspect  engineering professors are the worst source for 
> correct Greek 
> pronounciation!

Probably so. I like to confuse scientists and math teachers by
pronouncing pi correctly :-)
> 
> What's the "right" way to prounce the letter xi?  "Zee" or 
> "zie" (rhymes 
> with pie)?

I'll get to the answer that applies to all of your examples in a moment.
First, let me comment on the other part of the name. As far as I know,
most systems will tell you that this letter is always pronounced /ks/,
like a medial English X. Don't change it to /z/ at the beginning of a
word.

> Does "chi" rhyme with "pie", or is it pronounced "key"?  

Again, let me be picky on the actual sound of this letter for a moment.
While some introductory texts do advise pronouncing this letter like
/k/, I would suggest that you work on trying early on to pronounce it
more correctly. One way this will help you is that you will know when
you say the word whether it's spelled with chi or kappa. But it's also
more accurate. Go with a German /ch/ sound. (I use the lighter sound
like you get in German ich or mich. Just position your mouth like you're
going to say /k/ and relax your tongue a bit to let the air slide
through instead of stopping. It should give a nice "white noise" sound.)

> Same with psi and phi?  I've had some profs say "fee", and some "fie".

OK, one last point about consonants, and then we'll get to your answer.
I would actually shoot for a little bit different sound on phi. Instead
of a regular English /f/, which is made with the teeth and the lower
lip, try it with just lips. Bring your lips together as close as
possible and still get air through. Force some air through them and open
up to end the sound. (Basically, what you would do for a regular /p/
sound, but without ever actually stopping the flow of air.)

Now for your question. Whenever the standard spelling of the Greek
letter contains I, it should be pronounced like a Greek iota, like the
vowel in "cheese." So it's ksee, pee, phee, psee, etc. And iota itself
should be pronounced more like Yoda and less like the English word iota
/eye-ota/. Again, the basic rule of thumb is to treat the names as if
they're transliterated Greek (which they are), and sound them out like
any other Greek word.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics




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