tl;dw: the Swedish and Finnish pronunciations use the same “i” as “Linux”, but Torvalds doesn’t care if people use the English one.
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.
I started back with kernel 0.12 and called it Line-ucks. I still do and people look at me funny, but it’s an old habit and I’m an old dog.
When Linus released his audio file it was already etched into my brain the other way. I do remember being joking that I’m glad his name wasn’t Pinus (like the genus for pine trees) after hearing him say it.
Except it doesn’t in Finnish, where Linus Torvald is from. Linus and Linux is pronounced the same except for the final consonant.
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.
