3 ms·

No, Fred is right - it would better if it was atom or gemini, that's literally what he is saying. Yggdrasil - I just had to type the entire word out and even t

No, Fred is right - it would better if it was atom or gemini, that's literally what he is saying. Yggdrasil - I just had to type the entire word out and even then autocorrect didn't tell me I had a word. I think the Mp3 vs Ogg Vorbis is perfect analogy. Tbh, I wouldn't use a Scandinavian language word for a global application as it will automatically frustrate any English as a second language users - the words defy practically all rules of English, they frustrate me even as no matter if I can read them, I often have no idea how to pronounce them unless I've already heard them said. This is one of those words I encountered many times before I first heard it said and actually knew how to say it. Fred is right 100

NemoNobody 2y ago
Haha, I just realized I actually have used a Scandinavian word in an app I intended for global use - I just respelled the word so that it made sense in English.
anotherhue 2y ago
To give a contrary opinion I think it's a beautiful world and an excellent gateway to one of our greatest mythologies. "The World Tree" is an aspect of human literary history. I'm not an ESL so I can only imagine the difficulties but I do not think we should be robbing the world of beauty, history and nuance for the sake of business English. Few English speakers can spell or pronounce it correctly so it even becomes a shared difficulty. Fun fact: several names of days of the week come from Norse mythology. Look up the names of the months if you want something more modern.
- F3nd0 2y ago
  I have English as my second language and can't think of a single reason why foreign words should frustrate me. On the contrary, I feel like I have an advantage; since English spelling/pronunciation is very messy, coming from a language with more regularity (and just being multilingual in general) probably just makes non-English words feel more natural to me. One anecdotal example is the name of ‘GNU’. Somewhat often, I see English speakers on the internet mock the name for being difficult or odd to pronounce, and they usually end up explaining it by writing ‘guh-noo’, which somehow clarifies the matter. To me, ‘GNU’ reads naturally, I find the official explanation ‘like “grew” but with an “n”’ very clear, and I can’t fathom how ‘guh-noo’ can feel more clear or comfortable to anyone, because to me it just looks utterly ridiculous. So for deviating from English, I have a hard time seeing a background in other languages as anything but an advantage.
cma 2y ago
On the other hand I've only seen the Yggdrasil project once 3 or 4 years ago. The weird name and already visited link on my hn feed.. I did a doubletake for maybe 1 second thinking wtf is this and then immediately knew what it was without clicking, in a way that I definitely wouldn't have been able to if the project were named 'Atom.'

NemoNobody 2y ago

Haha, I just realized I actually have used a Scandinavian word in an app I intended for global use - I just respelled the word so that it made sense in English.

anotherhue 2y ago

To give a contrary opinion I think it's a beautiful world and an excellent gateway to one of our greatest mythologies. "The World Tree" is an aspect of human literary history. I'm not an ESL so I can only imagine the difficulties but I do not think we should be robbing the world of beauty, history and nuance for the sake of business English. Few English speakers can spell or pronounce it correctly so it even becomes a shared difficulty. Fun fact: several names of days of the week come from Norse mythology. Look up the names of the months if you want something more modern.

F3nd0 2y ago
I have English as my second language and can't think of a single reason why foreign words should frustrate me. On the contrary, I feel like I have an advantage; since English spelling/pronunciation is very messy, coming from a language with more regularity (and just being multilingual in general) probably just makes non-English words feel more natural to me. One anecdotal example is the name of ‘GNU’. Somewhat often, I see English speakers on the internet mock the name for being difficult or odd to pronounce, and they usually end up explaining it by writing ‘guh-noo’, which somehow clarifies the matter. To me, ‘GNU’ reads naturally, I find the official explanation ‘like “grew” but with an “n”’ very clear, and I can’t fathom how ‘guh-noo’ can feel more clear or comfortable to anyone, because to me it just looks utterly ridiculous. So for deviating from English, I have a hard time seeing a background in other languages as anything but an advantage.

cma 2y ago

On the other hand I've only seen the Yggdrasil project once 3 or 4 years ago. The weird name and already visited link on my hn feed.. I did a doubletake for maybe 1 second thinking wtf is this and then immediately knew what it was without clicking, in a way that I definitely wouldn't have been able to if the project were named 'Atom.'