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Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

Minor nitpick: I don't know how to say "Jolla". I mean I know that "Jolla" is pronounced "Hoya" in European Spanish ("Hosha" in Argentinian), but in most European languages it'd be "Yolla" with a soft "j" and the naive English pronunciation would be "Djolla". I don't know which was the intended one.

Not that it really matters I suppose, but why go to all that trouble building an apparently lovely device and giving it a slightly cumbersome name?

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Jolla means "light boat" in Finnish. I guess it's a tongue in cheek for the Elop's burning platform speech, where Jolla is the light boat getting a away from it.

(Agree that for global products, people should prefer names that are easier to pronounce)

It also occurred to me that with Nokia's history as a rubber manufacturer they're bound to have made rubber rafts at some point (which would indeed be called `jolla').

Or I could be completely overreading this...

They made, and are still making excellent rubber boots.

http://www.prisma.fi/tuotekuvat//large/71/1bz60y0a4pi3kq31.j...

But jolla is a small boat.

Even the simplest names will be pronounced in various ways. I believe NIKE is said NAi-Kee in the U.S when French people say NAik.

Yes and if the French prononunced it like it's written it would sound like Neek, which is similar to the french word 'Nique' which is a slang for fucking

Even with an american-like pronounciation (Nai-k) it could be used as slang.

I wonder if the greek says Nee-Kei~, since Nike is a borrowing from greek mythology.

It's pronounced Yolla. Like they say it in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64ja7WBHU8

Which is not the right / official way really.

I can't help but hear "the YOLO phone".

eg. http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/20/jolla-phone-hardware-tour...

Finn here. If you consider the Finnish way the correct one, then it's "yolla" (or "yoh-lla"). To be clear, the "o" is short, and doesn't bend towards "u" like it would in "yo mama so fat".

The right way, according to the Jolla employees is "Dzholla", not "Yolla". But some of them say Yolla at times :)

"Jolla" is a Finnish word, pronounced "yolla". I'd be very surprised to hear any Finn actually say "dzholla".

Yes, and they on purpose didn't intend it to sound like the Finnish pronunciation of Jolla. That's what I've heard. But Finnish speaking Jolla crew often fall back to the naturally sounding way, that's why you hear them saying Yolla.

Not really related, more like a curiosity: "jola" is (give or take) the cheap Portuguese word for beer.

free as in beer?

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