4 ms·

This definitely unlocked a memory from childhood that I entirely forgot about. The last time I heard it pronounced as “igrek” was in middle school trigonometry

This definitely unlocked a memory from childhood that I entirely forgot about. 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.

jve 3y ago
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"
TFortunato 3y ago
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!)
- filoleg 3y ago
  > “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.
seer 3y ago
Thats also the standard way to pronounce it in Bulgarian, used often in math context as well of course.
ibobev 3y ago
We have the same pronunciation in Bulgaria. Our math classes also are calling it "igrek". :)

jve 3y ago

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"

TFortunato 3y ago

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!)

filoleg 3y ago
> “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.

seer 3y ago

Thats also the standard way to pronounce it in Bulgarian, used often in math context as well of course.

ibobev 3y ago

We have the same pronunciation in Bulgaria. Our math classes also are calling it "igrek". :)