this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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I guess I’m one of them. I’ve never used LaTeX, but I don’t know how else I’d pronounce that.
The 'X' at the end of LaTeX is actually a capitol chi, so it pronounced with a 'k' sound.
It's actually a ch-sound, as in Bach. But Knuth also thinks the k-pronunciation is fine.
Lay-tech or Lah-tech is how I've been told it's pronounced, don't ask which one is correct, I don't know
The last sound being one that afaik doesn't exist in English. It's like the j in jalapeño but waaay guttural. It's the Greek letter χ.
IIRC its creator said it's Lay-tech
It's "Lay" because it's borrowed from / referencing "lay person" i.e. not a member of the (TeX) priesthood.
The tex there has the Greek letter chi instead of Latin x at the end and is supposed to be reminiscent of a Greek root from which we derived the word technique: techne or Ï„Îχνη. The tex there is just pronounced tech usually. The original intention I believe was for it to sound like the ch in loch or bach but that sound isn't common in modern English.
Not to be too pedantic, the modern Greek chi is a voiceless velar fricative (or in some cases a voiceless palatal fricative) rather than uvular. The velar location is the same place English pronounces the letter k, uvular is a bit further back, more like the French r. It's a little confusing because the IPA uses the chi symbol for the voiceless uvular fricative even though Greek doesn't pronounce it that way. In Klingon, the voiceless velar fricative is written as H (I believe gh is a voiced velar fricative rather than uvular as well). I think the uvular consonants are q and Q. Apologies if my pedantry was unwelcome
Hey I'm regularly wrong and don't mind being corrected.
Uvular fricative somehow reminds me of friction of the vulva.
They're nor related, are they?
Vulva or uvula?
La-tech
My PhD supervisor insisted it was "Law-tex"
That's how you can tell if someone is into latex (kink), they don't feel comfortable calling LaTeX (tech) by the same pronunciation around people.