Yeah except it’s named after the play so it’s definitely pronounced God-oh. I think people just mispronounce it Go-dot if they haven’t heard of the play. Looking at you Mr Linus Tips.
From the article linked on this very post:
Those open source values even extend to how you pronounce the engine’s name. We asked if Godot is pronounced “Go-dough,” like the play, or “Go-dot.”
“It’s open source,” Verschelde said with a grin. “Pronounce it however you like.”
They’re being diplomatic. From Wikipedia:
The name “Godot” was chosen due to its relation to Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, as it represents the never-ending wish of adding new features in the engine, which would get it closer to an exhaustive product, but never will.
It’s clear that it’s named after the play. It’s also clear that the devs really don’t care how you say it.
Personally, I think I’ll start doing god-ot, as in “got it”.
“Go-dough,” like the play
“Like the play” - but where does the stress go? On the final syllable, as in French? (The play was originally written in French.) On the first syllable, as is more usual in British pronunciation of French words? (The author was Irish and apparently this is how he pronounced it - when speaking English.)
That’s exactly the problem with prescriptive pronunciations – they tend to break down depending on how narrow the transcription, which means they’re arbitrary anyway.
If it is truly based on the play, then it would have to be /go.'do/, like the French.
/'go.do/ is indeed an anglicized pronunciation.
Source: am a professional linguist.
Edit: and we should not forget: all human language is ultimately arbitrary in terms of form, modulo limits of human articulation. This is often referred to as Saussure’s Principle of Arbitrariness. Which is to say: no one should get bent out of shape about how people pronounce things. If the information transfer was successful, nothing else really matters from a linguistic standpoint.
I think either is probably fine. Apparently the French stress the syllables equally, not just the second so it’s a minor difference.
Actually I just listened to the French pronunciation and it sounds more like they do stress the first syllable to me:
juː ʃʊd juːz ˌɪntəˈnæʃᵊnᵊl fəʊˈnɛtɪk ˈælfəbɛt fɔː prəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃᵊn ðɛn
text
You should use international phonetic alphabet for pronunciation then
