TITLE: Is there a definitive guide to speaking mathematics?
QUESTION [86 upvotes]: Is there a definitive guide to speaking mathematics to avoid ambiguity?  I'm writing a program to generate text for a variety of mathematical expressions and would like to code it so that it adheres to some standard.  I've found Handbook for Spoken Mathematics, but nothing better.  Before settling on this one source, I thought I'd ask this mathematics community.

REPLY [30 votes]: I don't have a reference for a definitive guide, but like the other answerers, I would encourage you to pursue the blind mathematics
student program, and take this as your guide as
to the best pronunciation of mathematical text.
When I was a graduate student at UC Berkeley, there were
several graduate students in the mathematics program who
were blind, whom I found to be very impressive in terms of
mathematical sophistication; they made enormous
contributions to the class discussion in terms of
mathematical ideas and insight, and I was always amazed at
their mathematical ability, despite what I personally would
find to be a debilitating handicap.
I was employed for a time by the disabled students office
to read various mathematics notes into a recording device,
which several of these blind students used to study from. I
was charged with the task of reading my lecture notes into
a recording device, which the various blind students would
listen to. They had special tape recorders that could
replay the sounds at higher than normal speed---listening to an hour lecture in ten minutes---and this is
how they used the recordings, a high-pitched squeal of my
reading the mathematical notes. I came to realize that
they would listen to these notes at basically the same
speed that most people would read text, which is of course
a much higher speed than a normal speaking speed. But it was
comical to listen to the students studying, since they would
listen to me say
"Theorem.Everycountabledenselinearorderwithoutendpointsisisomorphic
   totherationalline.Proof.Letopenanglebracketblackboardbold$\mathbb{P} $commalessthancloseanglebracket
   beacountabledenselinearorderwithoutendpoints..." 
and so on, at ridiculously high speed, while understanding
everything. They would sometimes ask me questions, and play
back the tape at high speed, but I would find it difficult
to understand except at normal speed.
Through this work, I came to realize how one must speak
mathematics for blind students, and I believe that this is
the actual answer to your question. The key to reading for
blind students was to describe the fonts and logical
structure of the expressions in the text as precisely as
possible. Thus, $F(f(n))+I(N_i)$ would be pronounced,
"upper F of the quantity lower f of n the quantity, plus
upper I of the quantity upper N sub lower i" and
$\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{n^3})_k$ would be, "blackboard bold Q
open paren square root the quantity lower $n$ cubed the quantity close paren sub lower k". When I failed to
describe a question precisely, by failing to say "upper A"
instead of "a", for example, I would get questions back
from the blind students about what was actually meant, when
they found it ambiguous.
So I would encourage you to contact various blind
mathematicians and inquire with them what policies and
guidelines they recommend.