tl;dw: the Swedish and Finnish pronunciations use the same "i" as "Linux", but Torvalds doesn't care if people use the English one.
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I first started using Linux in 1995 (I think it was kernel 1.2 or something), and this was being argued over (or at least discussed) even back then. The conclusion was that Leenus doesn’t care how you pronounce Leenux.
And he pronounces it Leenooks
You’re exactly correct. That was my best approximation.
That was very enlightening, the Spanish pronunciation is actually more close to that than the English one, so I feel very validated as an Spanish speaker. Thank you. Also didn't knew that he wasn't from an English speaking country.
Except it doesn't in Finnish, where Linus Torvald is from. Linus and Linux is pronounced the same except for the final consonant.
So his name is really Lin-us and not Line-us?
I believe I saw a youtube clip of him saying his name and Linux that way, yes.
Yes.
Source: I'm Norwegian but I used to know an irate IT finn named Linus. A separate irate IT finn named Linus, that is.
I'm Italian and I pronounce both "i"s in the same way. Why is English so strange?
In this particular instance, the Great Vowel Shift is to blame. What caused that is up for debate.
In general, English is so strange because it's a mongrel language, incorporating words from a variety of other different languages.
Blame the French.
Hey, we pronounce both the same, too. Sorry English, that's on you and you alone.
The real debate is whether it's sudo or sudo.
I know it means "super user do" so should be pronounced "sue doo", but it just grates on my ear. To me it will always be "Sue dough"
akshully
It's "substitute user do", and defaults to root
IIRC
So it should be pronounced "suh doo"?
I'll have fun annoying people with this pronunciation, thanks!
It's really confusing because "pseudo" pronounce the same way, means not real. So it's like you only kind of have admin access but really there's a lot of systems you can't change. Except that's not the case, and you have full access.
Yeah but you're not really root, you just have permission to run things as root ;)
That's my flimsy justification for pronouncing it like pseudo, anyway.
I have no source to back this up so maybe I came up with this in my own reality, but I thought it was related to, pseudo = pretended.
Ah, yeah, that fucked me up too few months ago, there are several videos on the subject. I think it's a problem with words that are created as written first, and then got pronounced, in second place, like most tech lingo. As a non-native speaker those are always the hardest to speak correctly, and even english has no real consensus.
I've heard a lot of people pronounce it "Line-ux" lately. I hope it doesn't blow up into another Gif vs Jif debate.
Edit: and if it was supposed to be pronounced jif it would be spelled "jif", regardless of what Steve Wilhite says.
There is nothing to debate, Linux is just Linus with an x at the end and should be pronounced as such.
Though sometimes I wish Linus had claimed it was pronounced laynaxe just to fuck with people. Too bad we already know: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c39QPDTDdXU&pp=ygUpbXkgbmFtZSBpcyBsaW51cyB0b3J2YWxkcyBhbmQgaSBwcm9ub3VuY2U%3D
Y'know the gnome/Guh-nome debate? I intentionally pronounce it Zhnome to fuck with people.
Linux is just Linus with an x at the end and should be pronounced as such.
Agreed. The Swedish/Finnish pronunciation of Linus is "Lee-nus" and not "Lai-nus", hence the correct pronunciation of Linux is "Lee-nux".
I’ve always pronounced it Linux. Who pronounces it another way?
I've always pronounced it as "Linux". And then, one day I heard it from a native English speaker pronouncing it as "Linix", and I still keep hearing that everywhere, but I just cannot fix my brain anymore. To me it always remains "Linux".
English doesn't make sense because it's been influenced by so many other languages. I'm not sure of the etymology of Linux and Linus, but I would guess that they have different roots.
English is such as mess that you actually have spelling contests to prove it. Try that with most other languages, and it’s going to be exciting for all the first graders who just learned the alphabet. Anyone older than that will be bored to death in the contest.
As a kid, I was so confused by (dubbed) cartoons' portrayal of spelling contests as some serious, non-trivial thing. Then I learned English and finally understood.
I thought of that meme when making my original comment lol
They do have different roots.
One is % sudo su –
And the other is Canadian directly. Ask his parents their nationality to find better roots.
“English is not a language, it's three languages wearing a trench coat pretending to be one.”
For more fun, right about the time the printing press came into widespread use and English spelling became standardized, the language was in the middle of the Great Vowel Shift.
You don't pronounce it "line-ux?"
No, I pronounce them Lee-nukes and Lee-noose.
Well he named it, didn't he? It's his own pronunciations.
Quick recap.
So, Linux is Linux because a set of events that lead to it being named after Linus.
It wasn't uncommon at this time for Unix systems to be named after their relevant creator or platform like this. HP-UX, PC-UX A/UX etc.
Linux would probably be seen as LIN-UX or LIN/UX, it may not seeing as Linux is not Unix, but that's just speculation.
Linux in its proper reading would be Linus Unix, but that doesn't make any sense Linux is Unix-like, but it was made in a vacuum without access to Unix source or even Unix systems at all near the beginning.
Interesting! Do you happen to know where the -UX suffix convention came from?
It's the same in Swedish so I never realized it's pronounced differently
Thats a real Tough trough though is really gets wound around the wound