Decoding SQL: A Concise Historical Guide to Pronunciation

SQL is widely used today, and many have used it [or at least heard of it], but most people tend to pronounce SQL the same way that the last person they heard speak the language did.

The question of how to pronounce SQL reminds me of the typical pronunciation of European cars in U.S. culture, specifically the pronunciation of Porsche.

There are two syllables in Porsche: "Por" and "Shuh." Put them together, and you get Porsche. It's not Porsh. It's not Parsh. It is Por-Shuh. Porsche.

Decoding SQL: Unveiling the Acronym 'Structured Query Language'

SQL is not a word: it is an initialism, which is an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word (e.g. ASCII, NASA, FBI).

Generally, a person who has never used SQL, and/or never shared an interest in verifying the correct pronunciation, will simply echo the pronunciation that he or she heard commonly used in the environment for which they associate.

However, whether you say SEQUEL or Ess Que Ell: your pronunciation has absolutely nothing to do with your experience or anything else [for that matter].

Unearthing History: Insights from Patrycja Dybka at Vertabelo

Relational databases came into existence with E.F. Codd’s 1970 publication “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.”

While Codd’s ideas were remarkable for the time, in San Jose, California, two colleagues named Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce were developing SQUARE (Specifying Queries As Relational Expressions) – a query language.

By 1974 they published the query language SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language) based on SQUARE.

Embracing Transformation: A Shift in Identity

Unfortunately, due to trademark violations on the acronym SEQUEL, which was already registered by the Hawker Siddeley aircraft company: the name was later changed to Structured Query Language, and abbreviated as SQL.

In 1979, not long after IBM’s prototype, the first SQL product, ORACLE V2, was released by Relational Software (which was later renamed to Oracle Corporation).

Within weeks of the Oracle V2 release, IBM released its first offering, System R, using a new query language called SEQUEL developed by IBM. This was followed by SQL/DS in 1981, and finally DB2 1983, which remains IBM’s flagship RDMS product to this day.

Demystifying SQL Pronunciation: What's 'Correct' Anyway?

Chamberlin says “Ess-Cue-Ell,” and he gets an extra vote because he’s the co-developer of SQL.

Honestly, I say both, depending on who I'm talking to. But as a rule of thumb, I tend to pronounce programming languages the way their respective creator(s) does/do.

If the creator of SQL says S-Q-L: there's your answer. Ess-Cue-Ell prevails!