Linear Algebra Pronunciation Guide

Like all fields of mathematics, linear algebra has many prominent figures whose names are non-trivial to pronounce in English (the lingua franca of science and mathematics).

This is further complicated by numerical linear algebra libraries which have inconsistent and unintuitive pronunciations.

Cholesky

• pronounced: ko - less - key (somewhat throaty ko, like kho)
• often mispronounced: chuh - less - key
• notes: this is somewhat muddled by that fact that Choleskly was paternally Polish and maternally French, and grew up in France, but I side with the Polish pronunciation (see references)

Schur

• pronounced: shore
• often mispronounced: sherr (rhymes with her)

Krylov

• pronounced: cree - lav, cree - luvf
• often mispronounced: cry - lawv

BLAS

• pronounced: blawz (rhymes with paws), bloss (rhymes with gloss, perhaps slightly less common)
• often mispronounced: blass (rhymes with class)

LAPACK

• pronounced: L - A - pack (syllabic rhyme with bell - may - pack)
• often mispronounced: luh - pack

SCALAPACK

• pronounced: skay - luh - pack (syllabic rhyme with may - uh - pack)
• often mispronounced: anything else

PETSC

• pronounced: pet - see
• often mispronounced: anything else

References: Cholesky, BLAS and LAPACK, PETSc