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  • Once and For All: How Do You Really Pronounce Godot?

This quote is taken from Binary Orange in another thread and seemed to be largely ignored: [quote author=BinaryOrange link=topic=15386.msg15696#msg15696 date=1460517391]Another fun question! How do you pronounce "Godot"? I'll give you a hint, the name of it is based off of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot]this[/url], according to Godot's [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godot_(game_engine)#About_the_name]Wikipedia page[/url]![/quote]As for me, I've always pronounced it as "guh-doe" ... but it's supposed to be "GOD-oh" I guess? Then I hear it as "GO-DOT" like ROBOT, and since it has a robot icon, I guess that's how it's really pronounced? Juan Linietsky, who I guess is THE or one of THE main men behind all this, pronounces it like ROBOT on his Introduction to Nodes tutorials on YouTube. If the man behind the engine pronounces it like GO-DOT, then it must be true, and not like "GOD-oh" as in the screenplay?Normally, I hate software or anything that has names where no one really knows how to pronounce it. But I have to let my opinion slide on this since this engine is great. ;)Can we settle this once and for all for the betterment of tutorial makers and users going forward? Even HeartBeast pronounces it like ROBOT in his new tutorial series. I really need to know as it's causing me sleepless nights..... not really :D

I'll always pronounce it goDOH, like in "En attendant Godot". Everything else doesn't make sense to me.

[i]Go-do[/i], plain and without accent on any of the syllables, just like we pronounce it in French for the play [i]En attendant Godot[/i] (original version by Beckett before he translated it to English).But there's no need to enforce a specific pronunciation. Even for the play the English-speaking world is clueless about whether to say go-DOH or GO-doh, so there's no way for us to enforce any specific pronunciation.And in the end, it doesn't really matter. Better, it makes our engine more peculiar and intriguing to have no unique pronunciation for its name.I can only hope for the community to settle on [i]officially[/i] having no official pronunciation. [url=https://wiki.mageia.org/en/FAQ#How_does_one_pronounce_Mageia.3F]That's what we did for Mageia[/url], the Linux distribution I contribute to, and it's great :) I don't think there's a better solution for an international project used and developed in big part by non-native English speakers.See also https://godotengine.org/qa/175/what-is-the-proper-way-to-say-godot

Funny. I always pronunciated it Go-Dot with a loud T.

As others have said, there's almost no proper pronunciation. Even the name for the play that the name is from is different, depending on who you're talking to, and what country they are from. It's pretty intriguing that one engine can have so many different names!  G:

[quote author=BinaryOrange link=topic=15500.msg16254#msg16254 date=1463053453]It's pretty intriguing that one engine can have so many different names!  G:[/quote]The engine of many faces... Valar Morghulis :P

I agree for the most part with everything everyone has said. It's nice that it sparks conversation, but I think it may cause some confusion for people who may pronounce it one way and then hear it pronounced another way and have no clue what the other person is talking about. I guess, in the end, pronunciation doesn't matter. It's the results you get from the engine that matter. I suppose I'll pronounce it Go-Doh cause it's sounds nice. The hard "T" like robot still doesn't sound right. If more tutorial makers, including Juan, continue to pronounce it like robot, then eventually I think it will catch on to those who are new to the program and that's how everyone will pronounce it in the future. G:

[quote author=BinaryOrange link=topic=15500.msg16254#msg16254 date=1463053453]It's pretty intriguing that one engine can have so many different names!  G: [/quote]A good child always has many names. ;)

5 days later

Can't help but think that the devs would have been better to name it without the "t", as in Godo. Would have saved some pronunciation dramas  :) The hard "t" sounds very wrong to my ear, but then I already knew about the Becket play.Reminds me of the way many people pronounce fresnel. The number of people I have heard that work professionally in 3d that say it with the "s" sounded is scary  ;D Euler is another name that is commonly mispronounced. And don't get me started on "quinoa"!

[quote author=zendorf link=topic=15500.msg16319#msg16319 date=1463546435]The hard "t" sounds very wrong to my ear, but then I already knew about the Becket play.[/quote]Sounds weird to me too. The only reason I had brought this subject up, again it would seem, is that after hearing Juan or reduz or whatever he goes by here pronounce it with a hard "t" sound, I didn't know what was up. I figured it really was supposed to be go-DOT like ro-BOT and it was all of us messing up the pronunciation, not the devs.Color me clueless. I like Go-Dough :)

I prefer "Guh-Dough", as in "Waiting for Godot". Because clearly it's the game engine we've all been waiting for!

7 days later

[quote author=deadsuperhero link=topic=15500.msg16387#msg16387 date=1463952467]I prefer "Guh-Dough", as in "Waiting for Godot". Because clearly it's the game engine we've all been waiting for![/quote]Indeed, that is why they named it Godot...as we will always be impatiently waiting for the next version or sexy new feature  G:

3 months later

Old thread for sure but let me give my 2 cents : AFAIK they are based in a spanish speaking country,Argentina if i am correct, so you would just pronunce it "Go-Dot" (Not! Gou-Dout) . As a spanish speaker myself,it does sound very good and normal but i cant speak for others. [SOLVED] :p

Godot as in the French pronounciation, guh-douh

"Juan Linietsky, who I guess is THE or one of THE main men behind all this, pronounces it like ROBOT on his Introduction to Nodes tutorials on YouTube. If the man behind the engine pronounces it like GO-DOT, then it must be true, and not like "GOD-oh" as in the screenplay?"<br><br>Yes, I pronounce Godot exactly like Juan Linietsky - Robot&nbsp; and because the word ROBOT is the original Czech word (and my native language) is pronounced in czech as well as he writes - "ROBOT"<br>from Wikipedia : "The term 'robot' was first used to denote fictional automata in a 1920 play R.U.R. by the Czech writer, Karel Čapek. However, Josef Čapek was named by his brother Karel as the true inventor of the term robot."<br>.....so I pronounce like "GODOT" <br><br>

"Juan Linietsky, who I guess is THE or one of THE main men behind all this, pronounces it like ROBOT on his Introduction to Nodes tutorials on YouTube. If the man behind the engine pronounces it like GO-DOT, then it must be true, and not like "GOD-oh" as in the screenplay?"<br><br>Yes, I pronounce Godot exactly like Juan Linietsky - Robot&nbsp; and because the word ROBOT is the original Czech word (and my native language) is pronounced in czech as well as he writes - "ROBOT"<br>from Wikipedia : "The term 'robot' was first used to denote fictional automata in a 1920 play R.U.R. by the Czech writer, Karel Čapek. However, Josef Čapek was named by his brother Karel as the true inventor of the term robot."<br>.....so I pronounce like "GODOT" <br><br>