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After reading texnic's answer to my question Pronunciation of foreign IT abbreviations / languages, I became curious about why Latin won over Greek in our Russian schools.
Here in the Czech Republic we pronounce variable names according to the Greek tradition. So we say ипсилон, not игрек. But what historical/demographic processes can determine the choice of transcription?
By the way, why hasn't 'wai' [waɪ] settled down? Was it ever known in Russia?
In the 19th century Russian educated society spoke French, which is probably why they adopted the French pronunciation of the Latin alphabet when they are used as variables. Compare the French, German, and English pronunciation of A, B, C, ..., Z with the Russian pronunciation of these letters in scientific contexts and it's pretty clear that French is the source of the Russian pronunciation (H = аш, J = жи, Y = игрек are all French pronunciation) except for the Latin letters E and O that are pronounced as Russian letters.
The variable y typically shows up in contexts involving x and z, which are all Latin letters (e.g., the equation y = f(x) or the coordinates (x,y) and (x,y,z)), so it's completely reasonable to pronounce y as a Latin letter. In my experience the Greek letter ипсилон, as a Greek letter and not the Latin Y, is used quite rarely in scientific circles.
Russian science made its first steps under strong influence of Germans. Also, rich Russians hired private teachers from Germany and France for their children. That must be some of the most important reasons. So the question must be why Greek tradition exists in Czech Republic which is even closer to Germany.
If you are referring to mathematics, the both letters are used: sometimes used Latin Y "игрек", sometimes the Greek ϒ.
In programming there is no Greek alphabet available for variable names so we use the Latin letters.
There are different standards for Latin letter names. For example in some textbooks "I" is called "и", in the others - "йот". Calling Latin Y "ипсилон" I encounter for the first time, this name is reserved for the Greek letter.
Because Latin is de facto international alphabet.
