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dting
Asked: 2011-04-14 18:05:17 +0800 CST

What is the correct pronunciation of 'Ubuntu'?

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I have never been good at deciphering the pronunciation guides:

ubuntu |oǒ'boǒntoō|

What is the best way to describe the pronunciation with like sounding words for each syllable?

"oǒ": ?

"boǒn": like Boone as in Daniel or like bun as in hamburger?

"toō": like too as in also?

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5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Here's Nelson Mandela ... Short clip : The Meaning of Ubuntu .

    Actually, you get the interviewer pronouncing Ubuntu twice, and you'll hear Mandela pronounce Ubuntu near the end of the clip.

    To attempt a quick summary, the bun is close to Boone in Daniel Boone or \bün\ ;

    and tu is close to too, or \tü\ . The initial u matches this sound.

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  2. ou.boon.too = ubuntu

    In most languages from southern Africa, ubuntu = humanity to others, bantu = people.

    In some languages the "b" is pronunced as a "w", for instance my name "Buyongo" is pronunced "Wuyongo". A westerner will make the mistake of saying buy.on.go, which is incorrect. Another example is Busisiwe which is said Wusisiwe even though it has the letter B.

    So if you used a genuine southern African accent to pronunce it, it would sound more like ou.woon.tu, but for simplicity sake lets just say ou.boon.too. It's the popular way anyhow. :)

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  3. How To Pronounce Ubuntu - YouTube

    pronunciationbook

    Published on 11 Sep 2010

    This video shows you how to say Ubuntu. Learn the correct American English pronunciation of the Linux distribution.

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  4. Here's a very short clip from an interview with another very famous person demonstrating the correct pronunciation of Ubuntu :-)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGox0EKqiaE

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  5. Official

    From the Wikipedia page on Ubuntu:

    (/ʊˈbʊntuː/ (listen) uu-BUUN-too)[1]

    This is written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) followed by Wikipedia's English respelling system.

    • The vowels are /ʊ/ uu as in FOOT and /uː/ oo as in GOOSE.
    • The consonants /b, n, t/ are pronounced as they're written.
    • The second syllable is emphasized.
    • The colon-like symbol after /u/ is just a length marker, which isn't very important in English.

    The citation here is the official About Ubuntu page, where the pronunciation is written |oǒ'boǒntoō|. I'm not sure what system that's written in, but it might be a variant of the pre-IPA Oxford system, described here under the "POD" column.

    Unofficial

    Another pronunciation I've heard in North American English is /uˈbʌntu/ oo-BUN-too, with /ʌ/ as in STRUT. Another is /juˈbʌntu/ you-BUN-too, with the first syllable /ju/ = "you", which is arguably incorrect. The second syllable is emphasized in both of these.

    Zulu

    While we're here, it's worth mentioning that the word "ubuntu" originally comes from the Bantu languages (e.g. Xhosa, Zulu). I've never heard this used to refer to the OS, but for context, Wikipedia has the Zulu pronunciation on the page Ubuntu philosophy:

    [ùɓúntʼù][1][2]

    This is way more complicated for an English speaker. The accents indicate tones, the /ɓ/ is an implosive, and the /tʼ/ is an ejective.

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