I keep getting "Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token o"

Looks like jQuery takes a guess about the datatype. It does the JSON parsing even though you're not calling getJSON()-- then when you try to call JSON.parse() on an object, you're getting the error.

Further explanation can be found in Aditya Mittal's answer.

The problem is very simple

jQuery.get('wokab.json', function(data) {
    var glacier = JSON.parse(data);
});

You're parsing it twice. get uses the dataType='json', so data is already in json format. Use $.ajax({ dataType: 'json' ... to specifically set the returned data type!

Another hints for Unexpected token errors. There are two major differences between javascript objects and json:

1. json data must be always quoted with double quotes.
2. keys must be quoted

Correct JSON

 {
    "english": "bag",
    "kana": "kaban",
    "kanji": "K"
}

Error JSON 1

 {
    'english': 'bag',
    'kana': 'kaban',
    'kanji': 'K'
 }

Error JSON 2

 {
    english: "bag",
    kana: "kaban",
    kanji: "K"
}

Remark

This is not a direct answer for that question. But it's an answer for Unexpected token errors. So it may be help others who stumple upon that question.

Basically if the response header is text/html you need to parse, and if the response header is application/json it is already parsed for you.

Parsed data from jquery success handler for text/html response:

var parsed = JSON.parse(data);

Parsed data from jquery success handler for application/json response:

var parsed = data;