LinuxQuestions.org
Help answer threads with 0 replies.
Home Forums Tutorials Articles Register
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - General
User Name
Password
Linux - General This Linux forum is for general Linux questions and discussion.
If it is Linux Related and doesn't seem to fit in any other forum then this is the place.

Notices


View Poll Results: How do you pronounce "Debian" yourself?
dee-bin 1 1.89%
deb-en 0 0%
deb-ian 34 64.15%
deh-bee-uhn 14 26.42%
Other (please specify in post) 4 7.55%
Voters: 53. You may not vote on this poll

Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 04-04-2021, 11:21 AM   #1
jsbjsb001
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2009
Location: Earth, unfortunately...
Distribution: Currently: OpenMandriva. Previously: openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, CentOS, among others over the years.
Posts: 3,881

Rep: Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063
How do you pronounce "Debian" correctly?


I was watching a video about the C getopt() function yesterday and the guy in it was apparently using Debian as his OS to demonstrate getopt(). But he pronounced "Debian" in a very different way to what I thought was the correct way to pronounce "Debian", he pronounced it "deb-en" instead of "dee-bin" the way I thought was the correct way of saying it (sorry if my spelling is off there, but I'm not an English professor - particularly when it comes to different spellings for pronunciations).

So I looked it up on Google and apparently the way I pronounce it isn't correct either. I also come across this youtube video that seems to pronounce it differently again (and also pronounces "Linux" as "Line-ux", which I know is incorrect).

How do you pronounce "Debian" yourself?
 
Old 04-04-2021, 12:02 PM   #2
shruggy
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2020
Posts: 3,677

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
Well, it comes from Deb (then girlfriend, later wife of Ian Murdock) + Ian. See 1.2. Pronouncing Debian in the Brief History of Debian. It's also mentioned in the Debian System by Martin F. "madduck" Krafft.

Last edited by shruggy; 04-04-2021 at 12:36 PM.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 04-04-2021, 12:07 PM   #3
teckk
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Oct 2004
Distribution: Arch
Posts: 5,146
Blog Entries: 6

Rep: Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834Reputation: 1834
I thought that it was "Dee bee an", I think it's "Deb ee an"
 
Old 04-04-2021, 12:16 PM   #4
fatmac
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Sep 2011
Location: Upper Hale, Surrey/Hants Border, UK
Distribution: Mainly Devuan, antiX, & Void, with Tiny Core, Fatdog, & BSD thrown in.
Posts: 5,506

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
As shruggy says, it's from the names, Deb & Ian.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 04-04-2021, 12:36 PM   #5
jsbjsb001
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2009
Location: Earth, unfortunately...
Distribution: Currently: OpenMandriva. Previously: openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, CentOS, among others over the years.
Posts: 3,881

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063Reputation: 2063
Quote:
Originally Posted by shruggy View Post
Well, it comes from Deb (then girlfriend, later wife of Ian Murdock) + Ian.
...
Yes, I already knew that - the point of the thread was to ask how people pronounce "Debian", not where the name comes from.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fatmac View Post
As shruggy says, it's from the names, Deb & Ian.
No kidding, thanks for the echo
 
Old 04-05-2021, 04:10 AM   #6
fatmac
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Sep 2011
Location: Upper Hale, Surrey/Hants Border, UK
Distribution: Mainly Devuan, antiX, & Void, with Tiny Core, Fatdog, & BSD thrown in.
Posts: 5,506

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
As said - Deb Ian
 
Old 04-05-2021, 05:20 AM   #7
Michael Uplawski
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2015
Posts: 1,622
Blog Entries: 40

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
Now me ...

We should define the word “correct”. The German pronounciation, i.e. the one you encounter most of the time, has a beautiful sound (to our ears, of course) and I prefer it to Deb & Ian. Now I cannot explain it more, as I cannot find an English word with an authentic 'e' sound...

... that said, there are a lot of people who try to pronounce “more English” that is asked for. They say Diehbien and I cannot find that awful, either.

Maybe revive the discussion when a real problem occurs and mixups become a nuissance.

Last edited by Michael Uplawski; 04-05-2021 at 05:22 AM.
 
Old 04-05-2021, 05:52 AM   #8
hazel
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Mar 2016
Location: Harrow, UK
Distribution: LFS, AntiX, Slackware
Posts: 7,650
Blog Entries: 19

Rep: Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480Reputation: 4480
Slightly off-topic, but a few years ago I bought a second-hand computer for a friend. The seller brought it over and installed a hard drive for me, one from a non-working machine that I had found; he wanted to keep the original hard drive for security reasons. I booted it up from SystemRescueCD to check that the drive worked, and he was amazed. "Is that Lynux?" he asked? So I said, "No, it's Linux."

Last edited by hazel; 04-05-2021 at 09:33 AM.
 
Old 04-05-2021, 08:52 AM   #9
fatmac
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Sep 2011
Location: Upper Hale, Surrey/Hants Border, UK
Distribution: Mainly Devuan, antiX, & Void, with Tiny Core, Fatdog, & BSD thrown in.
Posts: 5,506

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
Or as the man himself pronounces it 'Leenics', (as near as I can write his pronunciation in English).

Lynuks is how they quite often say it over the other side of the pond, whereas we know it's Linux......
 
Old 04-05-2021, 11:21 AM   #10
DavidMcCann
LQ Veteran
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: London
Distribution: PCLinuxOS, Salix
Posts: 6,146

Rep: Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314
I always say "lynux" because it's based on the name Linus and that's pronounced "lynus" in English. It's the same argument as for Debian. Why should I imitate Linus's Swedish accent? And yes, it is Swedish, not Finnish.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 04-05-2021, 02:45 PM   #11
remmilou
Member
 
Registered: Mar 2010
Location: Amsterdam
Distribution: MX Linux (21)/ XFCE
Posts: 212

Rep: Reputation: 69
Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidMcCann View Post
I always say "lynux" because it's based on the name Linus and that's pronounced "lynus" in English. It's the same argument as for Debian. Why should I imitate Linus's Swedish accent? And yes, it is Swedish, not Finnish.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds : "Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland, on 28 December 1969..." and: "is a Finnish-American software engineer who is the creator and,..."
B.t.w. Swedish is a real language and not an accent

About your pronounciation argument: In the Netherlands we pronounce "Joe Biden" just the American way and not the NL way (would be something like You Beeden), because of the funny American accent.
 
Old 04-05-2021, 04:01 PM   #12
rnturn
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jan 2003
Location: Illinois (SW Chicago 'burbs)
Distribution: openSUSE, Raspbian, Slackware. Previous: MacOS, Red Hat, Coherent, Consensys SVR4.2, Tru64, Solaris
Posts: 2,808

Rep: Reputation: 550Reputation: 550Reputation: 550Reputation: 550Reputation: 550Reputation: 550
Quote:
Originally Posted by teckk View Post
I thought that it was "Dee bee an", I think it's "Deb ee an"
OK. Suggestion for the new version of the Linux Standard Base: Under /etc, include a WAV file explaining the proper pronunciation of your distribution name. It worked for Mr. Torvalds and the PostgreSQL folks... :^D
 
Old 04-06-2021, 11:04 AM   #13
DavidMcCann
LQ Veteran
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: London
Distribution: PCLinuxOS, Salix
Posts: 6,146

Rep: Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314Reputation: 2314
Quote:
Originally Posted by remmilou View Post
"Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland, on 28 December 1969..." and: "is a Finnish-American software engineer who is the creator and,..." B.t.w. Swedish is a real language and not an accent
About your pronounciation argument: In the Netherlands we pronounce "Joe Biden" just the American way and not the NL way (would be something like You Beeden), because of the funny American accent.
I know that Linus was born in Finland, but his native language is Swedish — as is the case with about 10% of the population there — and obviously he originally spoke English with a Swedish accent when he arrived in the USA. Obviously you pronounce English names in English because you learnt English at school and are fluent in it. Very few people are fluent in Swedish!
 
Old 04-06-2021, 02:04 PM   #14
ondoho
LQ Addict
 
Registered: Dec 2013
Posts: 19,872
Blog Entries: 12

Rep: Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053Reputation: 6053
Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidMcCann View Post
Linus was born in Finland, but his native language is Swedish — as is the case with about 10% of the population there — and obviously he originally spoke English with a Swedish accent when he arrived in the USA.
I'm not so sure about that - Finns speaking Swedish natively speak Swedish with quite a different accent than actual Swedes. I always had the impression that he (used to) speak English with a decidedly Finnish accent, but I'm hardly an authority there.
Also, it's more like 5%.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Uplawski View Post
The German pronounciation
...always reminds me of Hesse's Demian...
That said, several posts now explained what the name means, which makes the pronounciation unambiguously clear.
 
Old 04-06-2021, 03:52 PM   #15
Bonzoo
Member
 
Registered: Sep 2018
Location: Costa Rica
Distribution: Antix21a2,Parrot rolling,MXfce19.4,Sparky Openbox
Posts: 233

Rep: Reputation: 48
Ian Murdock The Debby Lynn part was from his wife....who is a pain in dass. Debian. He was a friend of mine back in the day...... He created the best package management///original disros one could ever have.
Still #1/
Be careful if its raining. You might slide off that arch

Last edited by Bonzoo; 04-06-2021 at 03:54 PM.
 
  


Reply

Tags
debian, speech, words



Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
how do you pronounce "Mozilla"? ereeno General 32 05-09-2007 02:29 AM
How do you pronounce PostgreSQL? tim General 9 01-24-2006 07:17 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - General

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:00 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration