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Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

shawn — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:40:33 -0000

well nevermind that one lol

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

shawn — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:39:58 -0000

off the point but steff-fen would be spelled stephen, not steven.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

shawn — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:39:11 -0000

i agree, the new show Goode Family kills me it has a character named ubuntu but its pronounced uh-bun-too. kills me every time, i want to smash the t.v.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Dom — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:53:19 -0000

What about local pronunciation? I'm Australian, and I say rout-er, day-ta and zed-bra. The difference here is that this is a foreign word, that has been given an explicit pronunciation (oo-boon-too)

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

JP — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:10:37 -0000

Linux

http://video.google.com/vid...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

BCBGMAXAZRIA could use some sp — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:28:36 -0000

"To all the people who talk about this as a regional dialect issue - this doesn’t apply to proper names! Linux is LIH-nux no matter where you go."

Uh ... what? How about Stephen? It can be pronounced Stee-ven or Steff-fen.

Anyway, I emphasize with the author in a way. Take karaoke for example -- While it's officially in the English dictionary as kar-ee-OH-kee, it drives me insane to hear it pronounced that way. In Japanese, it's roughly "kah-rah-oh-keh".

So who knows? Maybe if there's enough people saying "you-bun-too", that'll end up being the official pronunciation listed next to the term "Ubuntu" in the dictionary.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Sam — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:49:25 -0000

To all the people who talk about this as a regional dialect issue - this doesn't apply to proper names! Linux is LIH-nux no matter where you go.

My wife's name is Lauren (LAW-ren), yet some people try to say LOR-en. This is a completely different name (Loren). Wash-Warsh is regional. LIHnux-LIEnux is ignorance.

As far as "polluting" Digg/Reddit/etc... geez you people have your heads up your asses.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

TrentG — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:44:20 -0000

This is all the fault of the people who choose Ubuntu as the name for the distro. If they had chosen something that sounded like it matched the spelling, and something at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing, not only would we not be having this conversation, but the distro would be selling a lot better too.

Seriously, do you really think Windows would have been dominant for so long if it had been called "Podigak"?

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

thginot — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:01:07 -0000

Great post. Nice to know what the Ubuntu site has to say.

Too bad about the flames, reminds me of "Back to School", Whoever did write this doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut!

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Adstiger — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:02:50 -0000

Where is my comment? I just posted it. Who delete it???

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Blaine — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:23:57 -0000

Excellent article Daniel.

You have defended your points beyond sufficiency. It's incredible how many people are too inconsiderate and lazy to pronounce "names" the way the owners request.

People who won't take the trouble to speak correctly do give an impression of being uneducated, inconsiderate or lazy when surrounded by people who generally do take the trouble.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

bbm — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:00:10 -0000

I think there's a slight flaw in the arguement: the way "oo-boon-too" is pronounced in American is still different to how it's pronounced in English (or isiXhosa even).

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Alan Pope — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:28:36 -0000

Someone just pointed this post out to me. I'm the guy mentioned in comment #2. I pronounce Ubuntu "oo-bun-tu" and I flat out don't care if you don't like it.

Grammar, spelling and pronunciation zealots are just as bad as operating system zealots, they don't further the cause, they just get peoples backs up.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Andrew — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:51:24 -0000

Don't know if this was mentioned but what's the big deal on how you say it? My brother and I say it one way, but our friends say it different, but all that matters is that we USE it. Isn't that what Ubuntu is here for in the first place?

My brother and I are "you-bun-tu" guys.

We have friends that go every which way on the pronunciation.

Just my $.02 on the subject.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

aksn1p3r — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:54:47 -0000

As a South African, I'm glad the world didn't Americanise or Anglicize the word Ubuntu! :) It means togetherness

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Gabriel — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 03:37:31 -0000

As for OSX: Roman digits are used for ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd...), not cardinals (1, 2, 3..). So, very sorry, even Apple is wrong - it should be called Mac OS Tenth!

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Gabriel — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 03:29:24 -0000

This is all about the attitude of translating/naturalizing/translittering (does the latter exist???) words in our own languages.

I am Italian, and I live and work in the Netherlands - and at the very beginning finding the way the same acronyms and words were pronounced was really funny.

It all began with a "SCOOSIE" (it meant SCSI) - in Italian people tend to say "SCUSIE". On a "SRVER" pronounced as the word "Surfer" would have been. Then it was the time for "EEAFA" (ee-afa), meaning Java. And now, the new operating system from Microsoft is often called "FISTA" (in german, dutch and many other anglosaxon languages, V is pronounced as F). Anyway - it's Fista time, now: it seems a porn movie title :)

To keep it short: yes, it's quite true - the English language is not so rich of sound, and the words have a pronunciation. But I would start worrying about that when vocal control becomes mandatory...

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Bjørn from Norway — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:13:06 -0000

As a norwegian I say u-bun-tu, pronouncing the "u" like in english "flu". Here, we also say lih-nuks with the stress on the "i", but a short "i" and not quite as Linus Torvalds say it, with a long "i". About the pronounciation for Linux, I've seen another interview with Torvalds where he's saying "linn-iks". That's also how I hear other english/americans say it.

But I very much agree with the article author that we all should try to say names in the original language, at least people's names. It has something to do with respect for the person and we show that we care. Then you get respect back.

Names on things aren't equally important to say in their original pronounciation. In fact, I'd never heard Linux as "linn-iks" before I heard Linus Torvalds say it in that interview, but now I know how to say it in America. It's important if I want to be understood. Simple as pai. :)

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

rjones — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:56:41 -0000

And while we're on the subject, there are two...count 'em...two "r's" in February and the first one isn't silent!!

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Palooka — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:07:31 -0000

It's Oh Es Ex.

When it's referenced in media or print, specifically when a version number, it is always typed "OS X 10.4". Even on Apple's website, 10.5 is referred to as "OS X 10.5 Leopard".

Here's a reference.

http://arstechnica.com/revi...

It's not "Oh Es Ten Ten Point Four". That's redundant and stupid. It's "Oh Es X Ten Point Four". The X was used as an indicator that Apple had jumped on the Unix bandwagon.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Peter — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:35:43 -0000

Three cheers for proper pronunciation.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

anon — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:34:46 -0000

omg, have you nothing better to do?

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Leo — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:39:23 -0000

That's like all the geeks who insist that people say "MON-GA" not "MAYN-GA" or "ON-EEMAY" instead of "ANN-EEMAY." Haha!

Of course, I'm playing devil's advocate because I'm a stickler for pronunciations also.

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Pas — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:25:39 -0000

Well, it's hard for the uber-educated US citizens, but the rest of the world just doesn't need FAQs on pronunciation :) And those of them that have access to these intertubeZ and can write (a bit), they are just emphasizing on this :)

Re: This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

PGC — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:23:09 -0000

I like how the Digg crowd just rolled right in and brought the level down to theirs. Ha.