I know the correct pronunciation is E-Co but I've always said eye-co.
Same. I know it's supposed to be pronounced 'iko', since it's a kind of clumsy word play on the Japanese 'ikou', meaning 'let's go', referencing the kid leading Yorda around the castle. However if they wanted it to be pronounced that way for the Western release IMO they should have phoneticised it better.
It's similar to the Aeris vs Aerith thing. The Japanese may have intended the name to be Romanicised as 'Aerith', but they certainly didn't pronounce it that way because there is no 'th' sound in Japanese. They say 'Aerisu', with not much emphasis on the 'u'. In the Western release it was spelt 'Aeris' so why pronounce it as 'Aerith'? Purism towards an original form that doesn't exist...
Or the way people bicker about the 'correct' pronunciation of Karateka... Screw it, don't get me started. I'm done.
I know the correct pronunciation is E-Co but I've always said eye-co.
Same. I know it's supposed to be pronounced 'iko', since it's a kind of clumsy word play on the Japanese 'ikou', meaning 'let's go', referencing the kid leading Yorda around the castle. However if they wanted it to be pronounced that way for the Western release IMO they should have phoneticised it better.
It's similar to the Aeris vs Aerith thing. The Japanese may have intended the name to be Romanicised as 'Aerith', but they certainly didn't pronounce it that way because there is no 'th' sound in Japanese. They say 'Aerisu', with not much emphasis on the 'u'. In the Western release it was spelt 'Aeris' so why pronounce it as 'Aerith'? Purism towards an original form that doesn't exist...
Or the way people bicker about the 'correct' pronunciation of Karateka... Screw it, don't get me started. I'm done.
Honestly, this kind of reeks of western entitlement. "If they want me to pronounce words properly they should be spelled more American."
It doesn't matter if words are spelled phonetically or not, they still have correct and incorrect pronunciations. You can choose not to pronounce it that way, but that doesn't make it any less incorrect. It's a silly thing to suggest anyway, as English is full of borrowed words from other languages that aren't pronounced phonetically.
I know the correct pronunciation is E-Co but I've always said eye-co.
Same. I know it's supposed to be pronounced 'iko', since it's a kind of clumsy word play on the Japanese 'ikou', meaning 'let's go', referencing the kid leading Yorda around the castle. However if they wanted it to be pronounced that way for the Western release IMO they should have phoneticised it better.
It's similar to the Aeris vs Aerith thing. The Japanese may have intended the name to be Romanicised as 'Aerith', but they certainly didn't pronounce it that way because there is no 'th' sound in Japanese. They say 'Aerisu', with not much emphasis on the 'u'. In the Western release it was spelt 'Aeris' so why pronounce it as 'Aerith'? Purism towards an original form that doesn't exist...
Or the way people bicker about the 'correct' pronunciation of Karateka... Screw it, don't get me started. I'm done.
Honestly, this kind of reeks of western entitlement. "If they want me to pronounce words properly they should be spelled more American."
It doesn't matter if words are spelled phonetically or not, they still have correct and incorrect pronunciations. You can choose not to pronounce it that way, but that doesn't make it any less incorrect. It's a silly thing to suggest anyway, as English is full of borrowed words from other languages that aren't pronounced phonetically.
Nice going, you hit the double jackpot on assuming that a non-American is American and using the buzzword of 'entitlement' in a topic where it has zero relevance. With a degree in language, I've simply put more thought into linguistics than you have, that's all.
The debate on how best to pronounce fantasy words with no governing rules is a playground game of one-upmanship. The reason 'Ico' has to be pronounced phonetically is because it is not English, nor is it Japanese, nor any other language on earth, barring coincidence. Therefore it's perfectly reasonable to pronounce it 'eye-co', following the English model of 'icon'.
If for some reason you are aspiring to pronounce it as close as possible to the katakana, despite the fact that as a Western gamer you have not been presented with the katakana and probably don't understand them, here are some tips. 'Ee-co' is just as inaccurate as 'eye-co'. Accurately, it is 'ih-koh', as if you're saying the 'i' of ichor and the 'co' of cop. That is, as long as you're using the British pronunciation of 'cop'. I can't think of a word to relate to the pronunciation of 'イコ’ which contains a '-co' sound that Americans pronounce naturally as part of their dialects. Make sure you don't say 'ikkoe', either. Do you understand how dumb this whole thing is yet?
@laivasse: I actually wasn't assuming you were American, I was just using that as an example of western entitlement.
Fantasy words still have intended pronunciations. It's certainly reasonable that someone would not immediately know that pronunciation just by looking at the word, but the intended pronunciation is still the correct one. You can choose to pronounce it otherwise even knowing that, but there's still a correct and incorrect pronunciation. Changing the title of the game just so westerners can phonetically pronounce it easier is completely silly.
@laivasse: I actually wasn't assuming you were American, I was just using that as an example of western entitlement.
Fantasy words still have intended pronunciations. It's certainly reasonable that someone would not immediately know that pronunciation just by looking at the word, but the intended pronunciation is still the correct one. You can choose to pronounce it otherwise even knowing that, but there's still a correct and incorrect pronunciation. Changing the title of the game just so westerners can phonetically pronounce it easier is completely silly.
Fantasy words have intended pronunciations where there are governing rules, even if the governing rules are fantasy. For instance, that's how Peter Jackson's crew figured out they had to say Sow-ron and Saa-ruman instead of Saw-ron and Sarruman. With ICO, gamers just face a box with a made up word. If you can show me a quote of Fumito Ueda saying "I think ICO should be pronounced 'ikko''' then I'd be interested to see it, along with his rationalisation, considering the word doesn't appear in the game nor have any other relevance, other than a wonky word play in another language. It's not like it comes from a language used in the game, with conventions established by the game.
'Changing the title of the game' is what they did do, firstly because ICO is not spelt with Japanese characters and secondly because the accepted Romanisation of イコ would be 'iko', not Ico. Beyond gaming, this boils down to fundamental problems of romanisation and Anglicisation of languages that don't share our alphabet (and those problems exist), but what's silly is expecting gamers to seek out interviews and background info in order to know how to pronounce a made-up word that's been created by a non-native speaker of English, based on language conventions from a language other than English.
I know the correct pronunciation is E-Co but I've always said eye-co.
Same. I know it's supposed to be pronounced 'iko', since it's a kind of clumsy word play on the Japanese 'ikou', meaning 'let's go', referencing the kid leading Yorda around the castle. However if they wanted it to be pronounced that way for the Western release IMO they should have phoneticised it better.
It's similar to the Aeris vs Aerith thing. The Japanese may have intended the name to be Romanicised as 'Aerith', but they certainly didn't pronounce it that way because there is no 'th' sound in Japanese. They say 'Aerisu', with not much emphasis on the 'u'. In the Western release it was spelt 'Aeris' so why pronounce it as 'Aerith'? Purism towards an original form that doesn't exist...
Or the way people bicker about the 'correct' pronunciation of Karateka... Screw it, don't get me started. I'm done.
Honestly, this kind of reeks of western entitlement. "If they want me to pronounce words properly they should be spelled more American."
It doesn't matter if words are spelled phonetically or not, they still have correct and incorrect pronunciations. You can choose not to pronounce it that way, but that doesn't make it any less incorrect. It's a silly thing to suggest anyway, as English is full of borrowed words from other languages that aren't pronounced phonetically.
Nice going, you hit the double jackpot on assuming that a non-American is American and using the buzzword of 'entitlement' in a topic where it has zero relevance. With a degree in language, I've simply put more thought into linguistics than you have, that's all.
The debate on how best to pronounce fantasy words with no governing rules is a playground game of one-upmanship. The reason 'Ico' has to be pronounced phonetically is because it is not English, nor is it Japanese, nor any other language on earth, barring coincidence. Therefore it's perfectly reasonable to pronounce it 'eye-co', following the English model of 'icon'.
If for some reason you are aspiring to pronounce it as close as possible to the katakana, despite the fact that as a Western gamer you have not been presented with the katakana and probably don't understand them, here are some tips. 'Ee-co' is just as inaccurate as 'eye-co'. Accurately, it is 'ih-koh', as if you're saying the 'i' of ichor and the 'co' of cop. That is, as long as you're using the British pronunciation of 'cop'. I can't think of a word to relate to the pronunciation of 'イコ’ which contains a '-co' sound that Americans pronounce naturally as part of their dialects. Make sure you don't say 'ikkoe', either. Do you understand how dumb this whole thing is yet?
SHUT UP WITH YOUR AMERICAN ENTITLEMENT JERK FACE! CAN'T YOU SEE THE IRONY THAT I SAID YOU SOUND ENTITLED WHEN I'M THE ONE ACTING ENTITLED!>!? GOD WHY CAN'T YOU AMERICAN SUB HUMANS BE MORE LIKE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AND STOP BEING SO WHITE PRIVILEGED, ENTITLED SUB HUMANS~?!
When I first saw the letters I-C-O, I said "eye-co" without ever having heard anyone else say it. Even now that I know how others pronounce it, I still say "eye-co" whenever I see it.
I know the correct pronunciation is E-Co but I've always said eye-co.
Same. I know it's supposed to be pronounced 'iko', since it's a kind of clumsy word play on the Japanese 'ikou', meaning 'let's go', referencing the kid leading Yorda around the castle. However if they wanted it to be pronounced that way for the Western release IMO they should have phoneticised it better.
It's similar to the Aeris vs Aerith thing. The Japanese may have intended the name to be Romanicised as 'Aerith', but they certainly didn't pronounce it that way because there is no 'th' sound in Japanese. They say 'Aerisu', with not much emphasis on the 'u'. In the Western release it was spelt 'Aeris' so why pronounce it as 'Aerith'? Purism towards an original form that doesn't exist...
Or the way people bicker about the 'correct' pronunciation of Karateka... Screw it, don't get me started. I'm done.
Honestly, this kind of reeks of western entitlement. "If they want me to pronounce words properly they should be spelled more American."
It doesn't matter if words are spelled phonetically or not, they still have correct and incorrect pronunciations. You can choose not to pronounce it that way, but that doesn't make it any less incorrect. It's a silly thing to suggest anyway, as English is full of borrowed words from other languages that aren't pronounced phonetically.
Nice going, you hit the double jackpot on assuming that a non-American is American and using the buzzword of 'entitlement' in a topic where it has zero relevance. With a degree in language, I've simply put more thought into linguistics than you have, that's all.
The debate on how best to pronounce fantasy words with no governing rules is a playground game of one-upmanship. The reason 'Ico' has to be pronounced phonetically is because it is not English, nor is it Japanese, nor any other language on earth, barring coincidence. Therefore it's perfectly reasonable to pronounce it 'eye-co', following the English model of 'icon'.
If for some reason you are aspiring to pronounce it as close as possible to the katakana, despite the fact that as a Western gamer you have not been presented with the katakana and probably don't understand them, here are some tips. 'Ee-co' is just as inaccurate as 'eye-co'. Accurately, it is 'ih-koh', as if you're saying the 'i' of ichor and the 'co' of cop. That is, as long as you're using the British pronunciation of 'cop'. I can't think of a word to relate to the pronunciation of 'イコ’ which contains a '-co' sound that Americans pronounce naturally as part of their dialects. Make sure you don't say 'ikkoe', either. Do you understand how dumb this whole thing is yet?
You've said a lot of things, but the fact remains that "ee-ko" (or "iko", or "ih-koh") is more accurate than "eye-co". "Ee-ko" may still be wrong, but in a far more nuanced way. Yes, I'm not a linguist, I don't speak Japanese, and I find what you've written interesting, but let's be serious here.
I agree that this isn't really worth getting too hung up on if someone makes an honest and understandable mistake in pronunciation, but knowing it's supposed to be "ih-koh" and stubbornly sticking with "eye-co" (and expecting others to be on board with that) is pretty dumb as well. "Ico" may technically have been romanicised incorrectly, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a correct (in the sense that it reflects the creator's intention and the language it was written in) pronunciation.
I fundamentally disagree with the notion that vowel sounds are the only, or most important, mistake you can make when it comes to approximating another language, and to me that's the message that gets propagated when people say 'it's ee-co'. Psychological attachments to language conventions fascinate me and I think this is a hangup of English, where there are a ton of different vowel sounds and getting them right seems intuitively important to the speaker. When we transliterate vowels and get the sounds more or less in the right ball park we tell ourselves we've done OK. However that is not necessarily the rule across languages. Due to stretching the 'i', 'ee-co' literally means 'good child', which is just as nonsensical as 'eye-co' in terms of getting the pronunciation 'right'. Who are we trying to impress with our pronunciation of entertainment products? It seems to me that stipulating the best way to mispronounce something is just an egotistical game.
Also, 'Eye-co' shouldn't necessarily be the standard - I'm saying there should be no standard in a case such as this. I don't think there is a 'right' pronunciation of a fantasy word when it represents a product appearing in a separate market, as opposed to the original market where the word might have carried certain nuances. ICO was not transliterated incorrectly, rather it was how the marketing division decided to pitch the name of the game at Western audiences. From there, however people instinctively pronounce it is how it's pronounced. If it really was Team Ico's call that they wanted Western audiences to conform to a word play they didn't understand, which was weird even in the original Japanese, then fair enough, yet I would still consider that bad marketing. I haven't seen that said, however.
@zeik: It says ICO on the Japanese cover but the horned kid is referred to in Japanese discussion as イコ ('iko'), as far as I'm aware, which is presumably where the title and the wordplay comes from.
@laivasse: I'm not sure why the horned kid is relevant. We were talking about the title of the game, were we not? Point being, the title was not changed when it was localized for western audiences.
@zeik: Not sure why you think this is significant. The hole you've picked benefits my perspective more than it does yours. The more you divorce the made-up term 'ICO' from the character 'iko', the less reason there is to pronounce the title in line with some imagined Japanese standard.
EDIT: wait I see why you picked that out, because I said they 'changed the title of the game'. Replace that statement with 'change the name of the character', from which the game gets its name. It's the same argument.
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