The Proper Pronunciation of "Ocarina"

A lot of people pronounce it wrong. It's okay, I'm here to help.

• Category

  Gaming

[Esperologist]

I checked a few dictionaries and their pronounciation audio sample goes with the 'awk' sound, not the 'oak' sound. Merriam-Webster went with \ˌä-kə-ˈrē-nə\ for text and audio... unlike other sites that use \ˌä-kə-ˈrē-nə\ for audio but ok-uh-ree-nuh for text. I tried finding an Italian dictionary... but I didn't see one... search engines wanted to define Italian in a dictionary or translate the language.

If the ocarina is Italian, that is the language to get the pronounciation from.

[FourthPiece]

From what I've studied and heard, Italian has a similar way of pronouncing vowels. AEIOU would be pronounced Ah, Eh, Ee, Oooh (like "glue"), and Oo. Japanese is the same, only in a different order. あいうえお being pronounced: Ah, Ee, Ooh, Eh, and Oo. Therefore, "ocarina" would be pronounced "Oh-kah-ree-na"

[bastianzu]

...the word is pre-exisiting. It's a real world which predates the video game. The proper pronunciation is "AH-cah-REE-nah. Japanese has nothing to do with it. :P

[FourthPiece]

Even though the word is preexisting, if its correct pronunciation was ah-kuh-ree-na, then the Japanese would say アカリナ instead of オカリナ.

[bastianzu]

That reasoning doesn't work for me because... not to be politically incorrect, but you can't base the pronunciation of an English word depending on how it was written for a video game in Japanese. They clearly meant for it to be the same, they simply didn't either 1) know now it was pronounced, or 2) didn't realize that people would make this big of a deal all these years later and didn't correct their mistake. I've heard Aonuma and Miyamoto both say "Zerda" on some occasions... so... :P

[FourthPiece]

Did you hear me pronounce the title in the video? Japanese has no clear "L" sound, so it's difficult for them to pronounce it especially when it's a Japanese person whose specialty isn't English.

Also…

There are set ways of writing Western words in Japanese so that the pronunciation is kept intact during the transfer from the Western language to Japanese.

[gaybutte]

Yes!

[NeonFXx]

You have a weird way of justifying the wrong pronunciation of a word. Instead of appealing to a box of Japanese art why don't you go ask the woodwind section of an orchestra?

Ocarina's were not invented solely for this games franchise, they actually have an official pronunciation and it's the one that annoys you (sorry about that).

Hyrule/Hylia on the other hand can be pronounced however you wish since they are made up words. But ocarina = Oc-ah-ree-na not "Oak"

[Adrian bublé]

I've always said "oak" arina not awk... I too found it fucked up when people said "Awk" arina..

[Batman316]

It's Ock-Arena, not Oak.

Just like Octagon, Octopus, and October.

[MasterAssassin42963]

Also, there is no such thing as an "OC"arina but there is a thing called an "OR"carina even thought there isn't an R inbetween which leads to the Stupid people saying "OC" it's such a small problem but it get's to me every time.

[AliKat1731]

Yes!!! This means I've been pronouncing it right all along!! So there people who said I was saying it wrong!!!! :D

[Sykes Bellasario]

Thank You. Simple as that.

[Tyler Brown]

Honestly... does it really matter? This is the most pointless video on Youtube.

[HelioIgnus]

Mainly I argue against using commercials as a base, but I see your point.

[BastianTime]

Because "Ocarina" already has a pronunciation in English that predates its use by Nintendo for this game. To argue that it should be pronounced any way other than the official English way shown in any English dictionary is to ignore that the title is in English. If it was meant to be pronounced the Japanese way or the Italian way, the whole title would be in Japanese or Italian.