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Why is PhD read as /piːeɪtʃˈdiː/ (from Oxford Dictionary) and not, for example, like /fˈdiː/ , while diagraph ph is read as /f/ in Latin and Greek words? Why do we write Ph if not to represent the /f/ sound?

There are questions about writing (like this) but not pronouncing.

EDIT: Thanks for answers. To be clear. I asked this because of it is not the three letters P.h.D. Why we read it not as /ɛf diː/?

tchrist
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Konstantin Morenko
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    To be consistent, you'd either read each letter (P - h - D) or treat it as a pseudo-word (fad). By convention, Ph.D is read as individual letters. – Lawrence Nov 26 '18 at 17:41
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    Well, the reason it’s not /fdiː/ is that syllable-initial /fd/ is not phonotactically valid in English, so that’s not a possible pronunciation of anything. It’s a good question, though. There’s no obvious way to pronounce initialisms with digraph letters, so why one strategy was chosen over another is an interesting conundrum. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 26 '18 at 19:59
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    In English, the initial consonant cluster of /fd/ is impossible, and would never occur to a native speaker. I have heard it pronounced [fɨd], with a minimum vowel, but just as a joke. – John Lawler Nov 26 '18 at 19:59
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    I've heard the same as @JohnLawler here in the UK, generally by holders of PhDs in a slightly self-deprecating sense – Chris H Nov 27 '18 at 09:48
  • Oxford University, mainly because of "not invented here" syndrome, calls its PhD degrees DPhil, pronounced /diː fɪl/. Maybe you'd prefer that. – Robert Furber Nov 27 '18 at 13:35
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    Please, just migrate ELL questions to ELL. NO NEED for answers or discussion. – Fattie Nov 27 '18 at 15:25
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    It is ... profoundly, just amazingly, tedious .. when questions appear on here which have the underlying concept "LOGICALLY such and such in English 'should' be pronounced / spelled / written / etc how I think! I'm shocked, shocked, that this is not the case!" How do you reply to this? – Fattie Nov 27 '18 at 15:27
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    You can call NaCl enn-ay-see-ell, or you can call it sodium chloride, or you can call it salt, but you can't call it nackel. – Michael Kay Nov 27 '18 at 15:58
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    @Fattie This is not an ELL question by any possible stretch of the imagination. No amount of learning English will teach you why PhD is pronounced as it is, and the answer is not one that any English speaker will know by dint of being an English speaker. You may find it tedious, but it is actually a very interesting and profound question that is very much an ELU question. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 27 '18 at 20:27
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    I posted as a a comment to an answer, but maybe it belongs here instead. In my experience, it's a "sci-dee" and an "ed-dee" for ScD and EdD. – Gus Nov 27 '18 at 21:14
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    My insurance agent pronounced it "phud" but that is highly unofficial! – JosephDoggie Nov 27 '18 at 22:14
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    hi @JanusBahsJacquet "pH" and many first-two-letters-symbols (think scientific symbols, elements etc) are "spelled out" as individual letters. It's a total non-issue. Janus, you say the question is "interesting" but, there are absolutely no answers to it whatsoever below. Because, it's totally uninteresting. :) Further the tenor of the back and fore is that it "should" be pronounced some way, which his just silly of course.) Some words become words (radar) some stay as letters (Lol), some are changing (led lights, already said as a word in say German). Who Cares? – Fattie Nov 28 '18 at 03:00
  • @MichaelKay Brilliant! I will henceforth ask table companions to "pass the nackel"! – Mick Nov 30 '18 at 14:25

2 Answers2

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PhD (or Ph. D.) is a bit of a frozen expression or idiom. The expression doesn't abbreviate the English phrase "Doctor of Philosophy". If it did, then it would be something like "DP" or "DoP". Instead, PhD retains the structure of the medieval Latin Philosophiae Doctor, which dates from the 17th century.

As to why the Latin abbreviation for "Philosophiae" was "Ph" rather than just "P"? "Philosophia" was a word borrowed into Latin from the Greek, and in Greek the word is spelled "φιλοσοφία", the first letter being φ. In Greek that's a single letter representing an aspirated π, and is transliterated into Latin as ph.

Since the abbreviation PhD does not match up with the English phrase it supposedly abbreviates, the pronunciation of the abbreviation has diverged from the pronunciation of the phrase.

Mark Beadles
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    So the reason the abbreviation for "Filosophy Doctor" is not pronounced "Eff Dee" is because medieval English scholars liked Latin way too much? – Joker_vD Nov 26 '18 at 20:43
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    @Joker_vD More like late Renaissance German scholars, but yeah. – Mark Beadles Nov 26 '18 at 20:53
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    "that's a single letter representing an aspirated π" ... or at least it was at some time in Greek history. Even after the Greek pronunciation of φ changed, the Latin transliteration ph was retained. – GEdgar Nov 26 '18 at 21:38
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    As a Greek, I can safely upvote this. – gsamaras Nov 27 '18 at 09:55
  • @Joker_vD: In a similar vein, ECG can be spelled EKG because it's an abbreviation for ElectroCardioGram and using a K retains the correct pronunciation of the C. Note that both spelling and pronunciation can be affected, or only one of them (some doctors write ECG but say EKG and afaik that is also accepted) Abbreviations sometimes introduce ambiguity (such as the P in "PH", or the C for a "K/S") and therefore the abbreviation is adjusted to remove the introduced ambiguity. – Flater Nov 27 '18 at 14:30
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    @Flater ElectroCardioGram is pronounced EKG in English because it was invented by Germans, who habitually don't use the letter c for anything. – Christopher Schultz Nov 27 '18 at 15:17
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    then it be something like "DP" or "DoP" - Note that Oxford University (and possibly others?) awards DPhil instead of PhDs – Matt Burland Nov 27 '18 at 16:11
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    @ChristopherSchultz Most Germans habitually use the letter c for a great many things. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 27 '18 at 20:29
  • @JanusBahsJacquet I should have been more clear; my last name is an obvious counter-example of my claim. Germans generally don't use c as the initial letter of a word. At least not in any native-words (e.g. Cello doesn't count). – Christopher Schultz Nov 27 '18 at 22:45
  • Do you know when this pronunciation was adopted by/ossified in English, or whether, historically, PhD was ever pronounced "phi D" (fie/fee dee), "phil D", or "PD" in any English-speaking country? I'm curious because in the US, academia-affiliated organizations with the Greek letter Phi in their name either pronounce it in full or abbreviate it to just P (e.g. Alpha Phi Omega is sometimes APO and sometimes A Phi O; Phi Beta Kappa is always PBK). I've never heard of one using PH ("pee aitch"). And then there is the "C Phil" degree, which my alma mater awards on the way to the PhD, not the PhilD. – 1006a Dec 01 '18 at 16:03
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Because it is an initialism so you read out each letter ("DVD" is pronounced "dee-vee-dee", not "dvid"; "US" is pronounced "you-ess", not "uhs"). Your proposed pronunciation could be used were it an acronym.

Carly
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    Well, PhD isn't a strict English initialism since Ph isn't an English letter. This answer rather begs the question, why do we consider PhD an initialism and not an acronym? – Mark Beadles Nov 26 '18 at 17:53
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    Likely to distinguish it from other more comment "P-D" abbreviations, like "police department" or "private detective;" the "H" is likely explicitly called out as a courtesy to the listener, like the phrase "Phat as in p-h" – Carly Nov 26 '18 at 17:55
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    But even PD isn't an English initialism for Doctor of Philosophy. If it were, it would be DP or DOP. It retains the structure of the original Latin Philosophiae Doctor which predates the other "PD" abbreviations by a long while, so it can't just be "courtesy to the listener". – Mark Beadles Nov 26 '18 at 19:13
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    Now to clarify whether one says "P, aitch, D" or "P, hetch, D". – Beanluc Nov 26 '18 at 20:16
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    Who says "hetch" for H? – Azor Ahai -him- Nov 26 '18 at 21:14
  • @AzorAhai ... heatchans ... – Carly Nov 26 '18 at 22:48
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    PhD is not the only such example. Some English universities award the degree of Doctor of Science and use the abbreviation ScD = pronounced, as in the case of Phd, as three letters. – JeremyC Nov 26 '18 at 22:55
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    @AzorAhai, I've often heard Australians pronounce h as -h(long a)tch-, as in haytch. For example, H.264 - haytch dot 2 6 4. – Tracy Cramer Nov 26 '18 at 23:36
  • @Tracy Yes, that's typically the case (though personally I'd probably still spell it out as 'aitch') – Glen_b Nov 27 '18 at 02:48
  • @TracyCramer regional dialects are fascinating. Californian here, and we'd probably drop the period when pronouncing that one: aitch two six four – Morgen Nov 27 '18 at 05:47
  • @TracyCramer But who says "hetch"? And what is H.264? – Azor Ahai -him- Nov 27 '18 at 05:47
  • The distinction between "acronym" and "initialism" is not clear cut, and some terms can be pronounced either way depending on the speaker (e.g. "SQL"). At best, it describes the fact that "PhD" is pronounced as letters, but it doesn't explain why. This answer is like saying "the sky is blue because the word blue refers to the colour of the sky". – IMSoP Nov 27 '18 at 13:02
  • @AzorAhai "Who says "hetch" for H" - In the UK , only people 'oo don't know 'ow to talk proper. ;) – alephzero Nov 27 '18 at 15:15
  • It's not really an initialism. In classic ELU style, this just adds confusion on confusion :) – Fattie Nov 27 '18 at 15:34
  • @AzorAhai, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC – Tracy Cramer Nov 27 '18 at 16:51
  • In my circle, other kinds of Ds pronounce the kind of D. it's a "sci-dee" and an "ed-dee" for ScD and EdD. – Gus Nov 27 '18 at 21:12
  • @AzorAhai According to WordReference, the Irish pronunciation of "h" is like "haytch" (choose Irish from the dropdown and you'll hear it). I can't vouch for it though, I'm just reporting it. – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Nov 27 '18 at 23:25
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    @FabioTurati Okay, that's good to know. But I was asking about "hetch." – Azor Ahai -him- Nov 28 '18 at 01:47
  • @AzorAhai 'hetch' sounds upper-crusty. Those who own horses and pronounce girl 'gel' ... maybe. – mcalex Nov 28 '18 at 06:13