This is too weird not to share! Console Wars author Blake Harris has been going through a Nintendo Character Guide from 1993. It's meant to instruct folks on the who, where, and what of Nintendo characters.

Amongst a bunch of other interesting tidbits Harris has been tweeting out, the book contains biographical information about Yoshi, and it's revealed the dino's real name is--wait for it--T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas.

I'm not sure if I like Yoshi more or less because of this revelation.

So, Mario isn't even human? Craziness!

This is too weird not to share!

Thanks, grandma...

pfffffffffffffft

Mario BOP!

Homo Nintendonus

homo nintendonus

This is already on the forums. Patrick, as the site's Yoshi editor, you need to be quicker on this sort of thing.

Fuck T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas!

Slow news day, huh?

Thank you for providing the name without making people click through.

I kind of like the name. It's so obviously from 1992, and probably wasn't seen by many people at Nintendo other than the one person who was writing this book.

I also take issue with Americans pronouncing it YO-she. Yoshi clearly says Yosh-ee, as do most people in England.

^^^^^ I knew before it was cool.

wait, really

Was this accidentally published to the news section or something?

Genuine question

@patrickklepek said:

@spiderrumor said:

This is too weird not to share!

Thanks, grandma...

Right, because after Yoshi you just have to ruin sandwiches too.

I bet that guide also claims the Koopalings are Bowser's children. So, according to modern Nintedo, it's full of lies. LIES!

But what does the T. stand for!?

@patrickklepek said:

That still just sounds like yo-she to me, just with derpy yoshi voice filter.

I'm from the UK and I've always called it Yo-she. I have known people who pronounce it Yosh-ee, but they're in the minority.

@efesell: I disagree. 'Yo' is quite a harsh sound where as 'Yosh' is soft, and that sounds like yosh to me.

@mattyftm said:

It's a joke, but that's how I've always said it. Not sure if you can declare one or the other a minority because all we have is anecdotal evidence.

What does Jeff Gerstmann make of this news?

Well either way I wanna say that Smash Bros has said it the other way so who knows.

Yoshi is weird.

No, it's actually pronounced Yosh. Like, if you were Yoshi's friend in high school and you were like, "Hey, Yosh!"

@efesell said:

I don't doubt that Yo-she is the 'canon' pronunciation. I was mostly joking.

All I know is this gives Jeff way more ammo in calling Yoshi a dweeb.

what a smug asshole

Double what? I would have assumed if that were true they would have made an effort to spell that "Yoshii" instead.

Giantbombtaku up in here.

From reading up on it, it seems that in English it's Yo-shi and in Japanese its Yosh-i. The voice actors being the same everywhere for the Mario series is why characters say Yosh-i.

I would like to know what Jeff thinks about this.

"T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas." He goes by "Yoshi." Nothing has changed...

Well, that's dumb.

ORRRRRRRR...

Nintendo of America was full of silly people during this time and they did a bunch of stuff without Japan's approval in the name of "localizing for the Western market". You know, things like making some weird Doki Doki Panic game into Super Mario Bros. 2 or the like.

This is by far the bigger revelation.

Yoshi still sucks btw

I'm English and I pronounce it Yo-she, as does everyone I know.

@gorillamopena:

Its not HIS name, its his species name. Cuz theres millions of Yoshis, they're disposable.

I...I kind of like it.

Check out the manual's explanation of the story and character bios for Super Mario Bros. 2. If you thought the game itself was blasphemously non-canon, wait'll you read some of that stuff. I forget the details right now, I really need to brush up on my hard-Nintendo facts.

Finally the Yoshi page can say "character" instead of "concept" and be accurate, instead of classing a species as a character :D

Yoshi is based on a nickname for some Japanese names which are definitely pronounced Yo-she. Like Yoshitsune or Yoshimitsu.

Man, Jeff goes on vacation and everything goes fucking insane.