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I played my first game of Agricola yesterday. Naturally, I'm left with a bunch of questions, but chief among them is: How do you pronounce the name of this game? Our group was split pretty evenly between "AG-ri-co-la" and "a-GREEK-o-la". Which side (or maybe neither!) is correct?

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    Pronounce it however you pronounce agriculture.
    – Joe Flynn
    Aug 27, 2014 at 15:43

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Erik P's reference to Wiktionary is correct, but he is interpreting the IPA pronunciation incorrectly.
/aˈɡri.ko.la/ is ah-GRIH-koh-lah. You can hear it pronounced by Merriam-Webster here.

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  • +1 Thanks. I'm Dutch, so translating the latin pronunciation in my head into a fake English one is not my strong point :)
    – Erik P.
    Dec 19, 2010 at 19:59
  • My browser crashed on that link so I looked for alternatives. I found this one for latin: de.forvo.com/word/agricola And this one for spanish: forvo.com/word/agr%C3%ADcola
    – Kempeth
    Dec 19, 2010 at 22:14
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    I studied Latin at Oxford, so I'd hope I'm at least a moderate authority on such matters, and this answer looks correct to me!
    – thesunneversets
    Dec 20, 2010 at 0:25
  • @Kempeth: Try this link and click on the little speaker symbol next to the word.
    – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
    Dec 20, 2010 at 2:10
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    Actually, Eric is right about the IPA and you are wrong. The symbol /i/ is EE, not IH, as the very Wikipedia link you gave points out.
    – JSBձոգչ
    Jul 9, 2012 at 0:47
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Among my group, we pronounce it "ah-greek-OH-la". Based on the fact that the designer is German, my so-so knowledge of German, and lack of facts that prove me wrong, I 'd say this is the "correct" pronounciation.

Disclaimer: I 'm Greek. We pronounce things quite differently than Americans.

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I learned ah-GREE-ko-lah in school, and Wiktionary seems to bear me out: according to this page, the (classical) pronunciation in IPA was /aˈɡri.ko.la/, and according to this table on wikipedia the quote precedes the stressed syllable.

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  • My high school Latin taught me a-GREE-ko-lah as well. The second syllable definitely gets the stress, though as BlueRaja points out it may be "grih" instead of "gree".
    – lilserf
    Dec 19, 2010 at 19:03
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I pronounce it the way they do in Dead Poets Society (AG-ri-co-la).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxFPc3Q_Lh4&t=1m4s

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Say it however you want (don't insist that all your friends say it the 'right' way). If you care, the author of the game pronounces it ah-GREE-ko-la.

10:20 into the interview: http://www.cliquenabend.de/videos/450000-Hernevideospezial-Uwe-Rosenberg.html

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