by Anthony Barreiro » Tue Apr 02, 2013 10:19 pm
Chris Peterson wrote:500pesos wrote:Why oh why do astronomers insist on mispronouncing the Greek alphabet? It is not letter Nu, nor Mu. It's Ni and Mi (pronounced 'nee' and 'mee' as in the English words see, fee or bee).
And by the way, Pi is also pronounced 'pee', as in... pee, not 'paï' as in pie - but fine I guess it's too late to do anything about that, sigh.
You are making the mistake of assuming your pronunciations are correct. In English, they are not. Nu and Mu are the correct spellings of those Greek letters, and
nyu and
myu are the correct pronunciations. Just because they are pronounced one way in modern Greek doesn't mean that the pronunciations used by other languages are incorrect.
If you made a reference to Ni Scorpii, it is
you who would be incorrect and likely misunderstood.
Gentlepersons, there are many words and letters that are pronounced differently in different languages, idioms, and dialects. Context is everything. It's true that if somebody giving an astronomy lecture in the US referred to "Nee Scorpii" they would probably be met with blank stares. At the least they would need to clarify that in modern Greek that's how "Nu" is pronounced, and they would probably resign themselves to using the English (mis)pronunciations of Greek letters. It's equally true that a foreign astronomer living in Athens would need to learn to pronounce letters correctly in modern Greek in order to be able to communicate and get around.
Now that I've learned the Greek alphabet well enough to find my way through the Bayer star catalogue, I find it fascinating to learn that modern Greeks pronounce everything differently than I've learned. The world is infinitely more diverse than I will ever comprehend, and that gives me joy and hope.
(P.S. -- This discussion reminds me of
descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar.)
[quote="Chris Peterson"][quote="500pesos"]Why oh why do astronomers insist on mispronouncing the Greek alphabet? It is not letter Nu, nor Mu. It's Ni and Mi (pronounced 'nee' and 'mee' as in the English words see, fee or bee).
And by the way, Pi is also pronounced 'pee', as in... pee, not 'paï' as in pie - but fine I guess it's too late to do anything about that, sigh.[/quote]
You are making the mistake of assuming your pronunciations are correct. In English, they are not. Nu and Mu are the correct spellings of those Greek letters, and [i]nyu[/i] and [i]myu[/i] are the correct pronunciations. Just because they are pronounced one way in modern Greek doesn't mean that the pronunciations used by other languages are incorrect.
If you made a reference to Ni Scorpii, it is [i]you [/i]who would be incorrect and likely misunderstood.[/quote]
Gentlepersons, there are many words and letters that are pronounced differently in different languages, idioms, and dialects. Context is everything. It's true that if somebody giving an astronomy lecture in the US referred to "Nee Scorpii" they would probably be met with blank stares. At the least they would need to clarify that in modern Greek that's how "Nu" is pronounced, and they would probably resign themselves to using the English (mis)pronunciations of Greek letters. It's equally true that a foreign astronomer living in Athens would need to learn to pronounce letters correctly in modern Greek in order to be able to communicate and get around.
Now that I've learned the Greek alphabet well enough to find my way through the Bayer star catalogue, I find it fascinating to learn that modern Greeks pronounce everything differently than I've learned. The world is infinitely more diverse than I will ever comprehend, and that gives me joy and hope.
(P.S. -- This discussion reminds me of [url=http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/f/descpresgrammar.htm]descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar[/url].)