The things you learn from reading Wikipedia: etymology of "Debian"

[pne]

Ever wondered where the name "Debian" came from?

I suppose I never really did until reading about it in the Wikipedia article:

Debian was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock, then a university student, who wrote the Debian Manifesto which called for the creation of a Linux distribution to be maintained in an open manner, in the spirit of Linux and GNU.

He chose the name Debian by combining his first name and the first name of his then-girlfriend (now wife) Debra[1], i.e. the word is a portmanteau. The word "Debian" is pronounced as the corresponding syllables of these names are in American English: /deb' ē ən/.

Comments

[asciident]

I already knew, because I once got into an argument about how it was pronounced. :P

(It's also on the Debian website: http://www.debian.org/intro/about.en-gb.html#history)

Pronunciation of "Debian"

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah! So it is.

Though the pronunciation scheme is not very useful — the one in the Wikipedia article looks like "dictionary pronunciation", which is at least kinda-sorta standardised, while I'm not sure whether the pronunciation on the Debian page is IPA or some "pseudo-English" scheme.

If it's IPA, it would imply an unnatural vowel for the first syllable; /e/ doesn't occur in many varieties of English since most have a dipthong (/eI/ or so) there.

Re: Pronunciation of "Debian"

[pne.livejournal.com]

Hm, some translations have /deb ii n/ as the pronunciation, which is probably from an older version of the English page - this pronunciation scheme seems even more home-baked, but does seem to imply that it's a short /E/ in the first syllable.

Re: Pronunciation of "Debian"

[pne.livejournal.com]

Though the French uses « dé-byanne »...

Re: Pronunciation of "Debian"

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

That's my guess, if it's true that the first syllable is pronounced like the first syllable of "Debra" in American English -- I pronounce "Debra" with a short /E/.

I really ought to start doing a Wikipedia fact of the day.

[eilanhp.livejournal.com]

Damn, with all this talk you got me addicted to Wikipedia.

Rebecca, incidentally using Debian...