---
title: "Symbol Pronounciation"
description: " […] each glyph has its own monosyllabic name, designed to be pronounced quickly in combination with another glyph to form a rune name. As languages are often read-aloud, this saves the programmer …"
image: https://deterministic.space/symbol-pronounciation-og.png
url: https://deterministic.space/symbol-pronounciation.html
author: "Pascal Hertleif"
date: 2015-09-29
categories: ["programming"]
---

# Symbol Pronounciation


> [...] each glyph has its own monosyllabic name, designed to be pronounced quickly in combination with another glyph to form a rune name. As languages are often read-aloud, this saves the programmer from having to say "dollar sign, question mark"--"bucwut" is much more compact.
>
> – [Hoon documentation][0]

> Because Hoon uses ASCII symbols so heavily (there is some resemblance to Perl or even the APL family, although Hoon is more regular than both), it presents a serious vocalization problem. To aid in speaking Hoon – both for actual communication, and to assist in subvocalized reading – we have our own one-syllable names for ASCII tokens
>
> – [Urbit: A Solid-State Interpreter][1]

The following pronunciation listing is directly from "Phonetic names for symbols" (Listing 3 from the [Urbit whitepaper][1]).

Symbol     | Pronounciation
---------- | --------------
[1 space]  | ace
[>1 space] | gap
`!`        | zap
`"`        | doq
`#`        | hax
`$`        | buc
`%`        | cen
`&`        | pam
`*`        | tar
`+`        | lus
`-`        | hep
`,`        | com
`.`        | dot
`/`        | fas
`\`        | bas
`:`        | col
`;`        | sem
`<`        | gal
`=`        | tis
`>`        | gar
`?`        | wut
`@`        | pat
`(`        | pal
`)`        | par
`[`        | sel
`]`        | ser
`{`        | kel
`}`        | ker
`^`        | ket
`_`        | cab
`|`        | bar
`~`        | sig
`‘`        | tec
`’`        | soq

## Irregular pronuncations

> To avoid a few tongue-twisters, some runes have irregular pronunciations that should be noted
>
> – [Hoon documentation][0]

Symbol | Irregular Pronounciation | Original pronounciation
------ | ------------------------ | -----------------------
`--`   | phep                     | hephep
`+-`   | slep                     | lushep
`++`   | slus                     | luslus
`==`   | stet                     | tistis

[0]: https://github.com/urbit/urbit/blob/c9592664c797b2dd74f26886528656f8a7058640/urb/zod/pub/doc/hoon/runes.md#names-and-categories
[1]: http://media.urbit.org/whitepaper.pdf