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How do you pronounce Git? Because I don't live in a country that uses English, I haven't heard it yet.
In my country, some people use [ɡɪt] and others use [d͡ʒɪt]. Which is the one that most people use?

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    The pronunciation is [ɡít]
    – yoozer8
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 2:26
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    I note that some of the replies have assumed that the question is about the Source management system git and others have not made this assumption. It doesn't affect the question, but those who have not heard of the system may find some of the replies rather strange.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 13:58
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    The original question made it somewhat more clear, by capitalizing the G in "Git," but it was later edited to its present state.
    – Brendon
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 14:20
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    @ColinFine: Of course it's a self-deprecatory joke. :-) Isn't that obvious? And yes, as I said, I was just pointing out that get, git and Git are all cognates, which does not necessarily mean that they are pronounced with the same consonants, but which does make it unsurprising that they are. (The quote was to show that Linus was aware of the common word, and intended the name of his vcs to be the same.) Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 13:28
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    It's (roughly) 깆. Commented Oct 24, 2012 at 4:48

3 Answers 3

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If you need to know for sure, go to the source!

Video presentation about Git by Linus Torvalds

This confirms that [gɪt] is the expected pronunciation.

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    wow, this is the perfect answer., I like the go to the source!
    – Benjamin
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 15:15
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    What in the world is an acute accent in IPA? There’s no such diacritic. Surely you just mean [gɪt] for the pronunciation!
    – tchrist
    Commented May 13, 2012 at 0:37
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    Apart from the high tone diacritic. Commented May 13, 2012 at 17:15
  • I think the timestamp you've chosen is wrong. Should be around 1:28 : youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8?t=88 Commented Sep 21, 2021 at 7:19
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The word is pronounced [ɡɪt]. This is a homophone for the verb get, which is an intentional reference to its role in retrieving a source from a repository.

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    For (most?) American speakers, it isn't a homophone; /gɛt/, not /ɡít/, is a common pronunciation of get, as your reference shows. Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 5:34
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    Somewhat true, but check out the pronunciation note from my source: The pronunciation  [git] for get has existed since the 16th century. The same change is exhibited in  [kin] for can and  [yit] for yet. The pronunciation [git] is not regional and occurs in all parts of the country.
    – Brendon
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 12:17
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    @Brendon: I would say that git has to be regional. In 1893, someone describing the Mississippi accent specifically remarked that they used git instead of get, so it was certainly regional back then. The pronunciation git has probably diffused somewhat since, and you might be able to find speakers using it in all areas of the U.S., but my impression is that it is much more common in the South. Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 13:36
  • I can only go by what the source says. And, for what it's worth, I live in the Northeast and my pronunciation tends toward git, along with most people in my county.
    – Brendon
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 14:17
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    Where I live (middle of the USA) the only time they would be pronounced the same is when telling a stray animal (or child) to leave. In that case get would be pronounced with a short i sound instead of a short e. Get in this case is an imperative verb, roughly short for "Get yourself out of here". I've seen some people attempt to alleviate the confusion in this one instance by spelling this particular meaning of "get" as "git".
    – T.E.D.
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 18:44
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It never occurred to me to even think of saying it with anything other than a hard G and a short I, so [ɡɪt].

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  • Well you know, it would also never occur to most people that gif (which stands for Graphics Interchange Format) was supposed pronounced jif but that's that its creator says. I checked some gif files into git. PS: I use a hard G on both but just saying it's certainly a valid question given other gi? names :P
    – gman
    Commented Nov 3, 2021 at 18:33

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