this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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SQL is not traditionally pronounced like "sequel". Sequel was a whole different language.
Official pronunciation for MySQL, SQLite, and PostgreSQL all pronounce each letter.
But "sequel" is probably more common at this point and some of them include it as an alternate pronunciation now.
It's actually pronounced "squirrel"
I thought Sequel was an earlier version of SQL. That's what I remember reading when I looked it up.
Hmm. According to Wikipedia you are correct, and the original SEQUEL was simply renamed to SQL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL#History
I'm not sure how much that original SEQUEL/SQL has in common with later publicly-available SQL implementations. I never personally worked with SEQUEL but I was under the impression it was more of a spiritual predecessor to SQL than a direct ancestor. But I trust Wikipedia more than I trust my my memory here, so I guess I was wrong.
squeal
“S-Q-L ‘aight” for SQLite?
Something like that, yes. More info at https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/431329/what-is-the-correct-pronunciation-of-sqlite with links to videos of Richard Hipp (creator of SQLite) pronouncing it.
I actually couldn't find a section on pronunciation in the official FAQ, though I think it was there in the past. Still, they do use phrases such as "an SQLite database", indicating that "SQLite" starts with a vowel sound.
I pronounce it sqill.