pronounce

<h1 align="center">🔊 say-it · Pronounce</h1> <p align="center"><strong>Stop saying "kub-cuttle". One Bash command pronounces 1,903 developer jargon names — most with a cited source.</strong></p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://github.com/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce/stargazers"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/stars/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce?style=social" alt="GitHub stars"></a> <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/live-pronounce.renlab.ai-7adfbb?logo=safari&logoColor=white" alt="Live site"></a> <a href="LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg" alt="License"></a> <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/browse"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/dictionary-1903%20entries-8fd694" alt="Entries"></a> <a href="https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sayit.pronounce"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/VS_Code_Marketplace-install-007ACC?logo=visualstudiocode" alt="Install from VS Code Marketplace"></a> <a href="https://open-vsx.org/extension/sayit/pronounce"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Open_VSX-install-8fd694" alt="Install from Open VSX"></a> <a href="docs/github-action.md"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/GitHub_Action-Pronounce_Docs-2088FF?logo=githubactions&logoColor=white" alt="Pronounce Docs GitHub Action"></a> </p> <p align="center"> 🌐 <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai"><strong>pronounce.renlab.ai</strong></a> · 🇨🇳 <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/zh" hreflang="zh-Hans">中文</a> · 📖 <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/browse">Browse</a> · 🎯 <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/quiz">Quiz</a> · 🎤 <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/#hero-search">Voice search</a> · 🔌 <a href="mcp-server/">MCP server</a> · ⚙️ <a href="docs/github-action.md">GitHub Action</a> </p> <p align="center"><img src="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/demo.gif" alt="say-it kubectl — terminal demo" width="720"></p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://github.com/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce/releases/download/v2.5.0/promo.mp4"><strong>▶ Watch the 47-second promo</strong> (with voice)</a> · <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/quiz">🎯 Try the quiz</a> · <a href="https://pronounce.renlab.ai/#hero-search">🎤 Voice search</a> </p>

---

🚀 Try it in 30 seconds

git clone https://github.com/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce.git
cd pronounce && ./install.sh
say-it kubectl

That's it. Now try say-it GIF, say-it nginx, say-it Pydantic, say-it --why JSON, or say-it quiz for a 10-question challenge. Linux users: install espeak-ng (sudo apt install espeak-ng) and the CLI just works. Windows: same CLI under WSL or git-bash + PowerShell. Or skip install and use the browser at pronounce.renlab.ai.

⭐ If say-it kubectl saves you one cringey standup moment — star the repo. It nudges more devs to contribute their favorite mispronounced project name.

<p align="center"><a href="https://star-history.com/#anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce&Date"><img src="https://api.star-history.com/svg?repos=anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce&type=Date" alt="Star history" width="600"></a></p>

---

🏆 The developer pronunciation scoreboard

1,903 entries — 1,283 carry a citable source — 108 settled by the creator themselves, 175 the community still argues about. The famous ones:

✅ Settled — the creator said so

| Word | It's… | …not | Settled by | |------|-------|------|-----------| | GIF | "jif" | "ghif" (hard-G speech cue) | Steve Wilhite (creator), NYT 2013 | | nginx | "engine X" | "n-jinx" | NGINX official | | YAML | "yam-ul" | "yammel" | yaml.org | | GNU | "guh-NEW" (hard g) | "noo" | GNU Project | | LaTeX | "lay-tek" | "lay-teks" | Lamport / LaTeX project | | TOML | rhymes with "knoll" | "tom-el" | Tom Preston-Werner (creator) | | Tcl | "tickle" | "T-C-L" | John Ousterhout (creator) | | awk | "auk" (like the bird) | "A-W-K" | Aho / Weinberger / Kernighan |

⚔️ Still contested — both readings are in active use

| Word | Camp A | Camp B | |------|--------|--------| | kubectl | "koob-control" | "cube-cuddle" | | SQL | "sequel" | "S-Q-L" | | JSON | "JAY-son" | "JEE-son" | | GUI | "gooey" | "G-U-I" | | JWT | "jot" (per RFC 7519) | "J-W-T" |

Every cell has IPA and audio; 1,283 also carry a citable source. Browse all 1,903 entries →

Disagree with one? That's the whole point — open a PR with your reading and a source. The argument is the dataset.

---

What you're actually getting

• 1,903 entries — 1,283 carry a citable source. Confidence-tagged (creator-clarified / community-consensus / contested), each with a citable URL where one exists (we'd rather leave it blank than fabricate one). Wilhite said GIF is "jif" at the 2013 Webby Awards. Crockford says JSON is "JAY-son" (RailsConf 2009). RFC 7519 says JWT is "jot". The dictionary cites them.
• Multi-reading audio. For words where the debate is real — GIF, SQL, GUI, char, regex — the CLI chains the alternates after the primary with a spoken "or:" so you hear the debate without staring at the terminal. --solo skips the tail once you've internalized it.
• One Bash CLI, no npm runtime. No sudo, no framework bootstrap, no surprises. It detects macOS say, Linux espeak-ng/espeak, or Windows PowerShell System.Speech. The repo also ships a Claude Code skill and an MCP server so your AI answers "how do you pronounce X?" with audio, not a phonetic guess.
• A docs-native GitHub Action. Scan Markdown changed by a pull request and emit a sourced pronunciation glossary in the job summary — no API key, dependency install, or network request.
• Canonical website audio. The site plays each committed canonical MP3 first and uses Web Speech only as a fallback if playback fails.

$ say-it --why JSON
word              JSON
ipa               /ˈdʒeɪsən/
respelling_us     jay son
confidence        contested
source            Wikipedia § Pronunciation
url               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON#Pronunciation

---

Why not just Google?

Because Google gives you 47 Reddit arguments and a YouTube clip you have to unmute. IPA gives you /ˈkuːb kənˌtroʊl/ — a reference, not a teacher.

You don't need a phonetic transcription. You need to hear the word. Twice. Maybe three times. Done.

say-it ships a community-maintained dictionary of how engineers actually say the names that trip everyone up — and feeds the intended respelling to your OS's text-to-speech engine, so kubectl comes out as koob-control, not whatever your computer guessed from the letters.

Famous moments

Some pronunciations aren't opinions — the creators settled them. The dictionary cites every one:

| Word | Reading | Source | |------|---------|--------| | GIF | "jif" (creator says so) | Steve Wilhite, Webby Awards 2013 | | JSON | "jay-son" | Douglas Crockford, RailsConf 2009 | | GNU | "g-noo" (hard G, one syllable) | GNU Project official | | Linux | "LIN-ux" (short i, schwa) | Linus Torvalds himself | | LaTeX | "lay-tek" (or "lah-tek") | Leslie Lamport, official | | Django | "JANG-go" (silent D) | Django FAQ | | Vue | "view" (one syllable) | Evan You, Vue docs | | Vite | "veet" (French for quick) | Vite docs | | Knative | "KAY-native" (the K is voiced) | Knative docs | | etcd | "et-cee-dee" (et-cetera-distributed) | etcd FAQ |

Run say-it --why <word> to see the citation when an entry has a source_url; unsourced entries are left blank rather than given a fabricated URL.

Install

brew install anzy-renlab-ai/tap/say-it   # Homebrew on macOS

Or the "Try it in 30 seconds" block above. ./install.sh drops:

• the CLI at ~/.local/bin/say-it,
• the pronunciation dictionary at ~/.local/share/say-it/pronunciations.tsv,
• if you use Claude Code, a pronounce-word skill at ~/.claude/skills/pronounce-word/ so any "how do you say X?" prompt to your AI gets answered with audio instead of IPA,
• the same skill into ~/.agents/skills/ (Codex CLI) and ~/.kiro/skills/ (Kiro) when those dirs exist — it's the cross-tool Agent Skills standard.

Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your $PATH. Linux also works — install espeak-ng (sudo apt install espeak-ng / brew install espeak-ng). Windows: WSL or git-bash + PowerShell. Or skip install entirely with the browser version at pronounce.renlab.ai.

Usage

say-it kubectl                    # primary × 3, then "or: <alt>" for each alternate
say-it --solo kubectl             # primary only — silence the "or:" tail
say-it --alt GIF                  # focus on the first alternate
say-it --alt 2 GUI                # focus on the Nth alternate (1-indexed)
say-it --all SQL                  # primary AND every alternate, each repeated
say-it --no-dict kubectl          # bypass the dictionary entirely
say-it --why JSON                 # show IPA, source URL, category, confidence
say-it list                       # every word in the dictionary
say-it search redis               # grep the dictionary (case-insensitive)

say-it -n 5 Pydantic              # 5 repetitions instead of 3
say-it -r 110 Knative             # slower (110 wpm; default is 130)
say-it -o /tmp/word.aiff Postgres # save to file instead of playing
say-it --list                     # all macOS voices

The default macOS voice is Samantha (General American); -v <voice> selects another macOS voice. Linux and Windows use their detected backend's English voice. The dictionary is GenAm-only, by design.

Claude Code integration

Install the cross-tool Agent Skill directly with GitHub CLI:

gh skill install anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce pronounce-word

You:    kubectl 怎么读？
Claude: 🔊 (plays "koob-control" three times)
        /ˈkuːb kənˌtroʊl/ — "KOOB-control". Kelsey Hightower says it
        this way (KubeCon talk). "Cube-cuddle" is an alternate —
        try `say-it --alt kubectl` to hear it.

Once installed, the pronounce-word skill auto-triggers on:

• X 怎么读 / X 怎么发音 / 读一下 X
• how do you pronounce X / pronounce X / how do you say X

Your AI replies with sound, not just a phonetic guess. Skill file: skills/pronounce-word/SKILL.md.

Not on Claude? Same skill drops into Codex CLI (codex plugin marketplace add anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce) and Kiro (~/.kiro/skills/), and the MCP server covers Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue, Zed, Cline & friends — full matrix in integrations/.

[![Add to Ki