"hee-pah" ... Is English your native language? Or did you perhaps study another language extensively?
I ask because "hee" isn't a likely pronunciation for "hi" for me unless it's Japanese that I'm looking at. Certain other languages, such as Spanish, I think might also get the same pronunciation.
But in English, it's pretty rare. Pronunciation as in "hit" or "high" are a lot more likely.
And once you've decided that it's "hi" as in "hit", the rest of the pronunciation just follows as "hip-uh". And yes, trying to spell from pronunciation comes back as "hippa".
"Hee-pah" wouldn't come out as HIPAA, though. It'd be HEPA or something, but that's actually already used and is pronounced "heppa" as in "head".
In short, there's no real good way to pronounce a lot of acronyms that doesn't end up with some kind of pronunciation or spelling problem at some point. And people generally just go with what sprung to mind first.
> Certain other languages, such as Spanish, I think might also get the same pronunciation.
Most languages, if they use Roman letters, use "i" to indicate the FLEECE vowel. (That is, the vowel used in the English word "fleece".) English is the odd man out for vowel pronunciation, due to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift .
Spanish follows the ordinary pronunciation of "i". It doesn't for "h"; the letter "h" in Spanish is silent. So you wouldn't get "hee" from "hi", you'd get "ee". (Compare, say, the Spanish word hija, "daughter", best approximated by the English syllables "ee-hah".)
> Is English your native language? Or did you perhaps study another language extensively?
Yes, English is my native language. However, the word "hipaa" is so obviously impossible as an English word that I consider it normal to use the pronunciation conventions for foreign words.
Yeah, I thought of that bit about Spanish afterwords, but left it anyhow.
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but most Americans don't consider pronunciations in other languages, possibly because they generally don't know a second language anyhow. And since HIPAA (almost wrote HIPPA!) is a US thing, I don't see foreign pronunciation entering into it much.
I wish more people would learn a second language. It can be really enriching. The key, IMO, is to pick a language that you'll enjoy using somehow. For me, it was Japanese, because I enjoyed a lot of Japanese media as a teen, and continue to do so as an adult.
I'm seeing a lot more foreign content on Netflix lately, and Brazilian seems like it'd be a good choice for a second language, if you're into TV shows.
I ask because "hee" isn't a likely pronunciation for "hi" for me unless it's Japanese that I'm looking at. Certain other languages, such as Spanish, I think might also get the same pronunciation.
But in English, it's pretty rare. Pronunciation as in "hit" or "high" are a lot more likely.
And once you've decided that it's "hi" as in "hit", the rest of the pronunciation just follows as "hip-uh". And yes, trying to spell from pronunciation comes back as "hippa".
"Hee-pah" wouldn't come out as HIPAA, though. It'd be HEPA or something, but that's actually already used and is pronounced "heppa" as in "head".
In short, there's no real good way to pronounce a lot of acronyms that doesn't end up with some kind of pronunciation or spelling problem at some point. And people generally just go with what sprung to mind first.