Pronunciation of scientific names

Post by **Padfield** » Sat May 05, 2007 1:14 pm

Well, I was wrong and you were right, Pete - it is a long (and therefore stressed) 'i' in urtica/urticae.

In fact, you've been right about pretty well eveything I've checked up so far.

I haven't finished researching every name yet, but here are a very few suggestions:

machaon - should it be ma-KAY-on (there is a tilde accent on the second alpha in the Greek)?
athalia - seems anomalous that you have an 'ar' sound in the middle, when you use 'ay' everywhere else (even though I prefer 'ar'!!)
agestis - I would say it is definitely jest, not guest
boeticus - I would keep it as you have it (I think it means 'from Boeotia')
brassicae - as with urticae, the 'i' is long in the Latin, so I guess your suggestion 'brass-Y-see' is right, though it's difficult to imagine saying it!!
[Edit: I misread this because I didn't have my glasses on - it was a breve not a macron on the 'i' - so ignore the brassicae comment]
daplidice - should it be dap-li-DY-see? There are a few other 'i' words that seem a little inconsistent to me, but I might be misreading the rules.

More suggestions and thoughts to come later.

Guy

PS - while looking up these names it occurred to me that writing a list of their etymologies for the site would be a good winter project - perhaps saying a little about the various fantastic characters the butterflies are named after.

Post by **Padfield** » Sat May 05, 2007 6:47 pm

Next little discovery: arion is the name of a legendary ancient Greek poet/musician and is spellt with a marked accent on the iota (Greek has the advantage that the accents are always clearly marked). Normally, his name is pronounced 'uh-REE-on' but I guess in the biological convention he should be 'uh-RY-on'. My Greek dictionary spells his name 'Arion' but some websites give it as 'Areion' (still with the accent on the iota), which would have been pronounced closer to 'uh-RAY-on' in ancient Greek.

It should be obvious I'm not at all a scholar in this, but I'm trying to use scholarly sources.

Guy

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Sat May 05, 2007 10:21 pm

All good stuff - thanks Guy! I also cross-posted on the uk-leps Yahoo! forum and will cross-post replies here. Hopefully, in a week or so, we should have a somewhat definitive list

Cheers,

- Pete

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Sat May 05, 2007 10:22 pm

Cross-post from uk-leps ... Andy Brazil:

The problem with using anglicised latin is that it completely throws those of us who had latin teachers! I've spent too long pronouncing ae as "aye" to switch to calling it "ee". So betulae is Bet You Lie and not bet you lee.

And I can't do a soft c consistently no matter how hard I try - those k's keep slipping in. (ok even I don't go as far as pronouncing caesar as kaiser - but consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds, so i'm told.) I'm fine with s for c in the middle of words but co is KO as far as my brain is concerned - which is fine for colias, but not apparently for coenonymphia. (ko no NYM fe a)

After going through the list I get the following differences in genus (mind you some of this could be my midlands/norfolk accent of course - vowel sounds are funny things in english anyway - I'm glad you said a as in cat not a as in glass, or we'd be here all night)

Danaus I see as DAN ay us
Erebia as Eh ree be a
Glaucopsyche as glor KO sigh key
Hipparchia as hie PAR key ar
Issoria as IS or re ar
Lampides as Lam PEE deez
Lycaena as Lie KAY na
pyrgus as PIE gus

I won't do the specific, except that Euphrosyne, one of the nine muses, has always been pronounced you-FROZ-nay, and it would be strange to use a different pronunciation for the butterfly named after her, and that since gardners talk of brassica's as BRASS e KARS, we really ought to keep something similar - I think bra sy see is a step to far.

Andy B

Post by **Padfield** » Sun May 06, 2007 3:51 pm

As I see it, this exercise, apart from being quite fun, has two purposes. One is to provide guidelines for those who want them, so they can use Latin names with some confidence and not feel stupid because they can't pronounce the weird words. UK Butterflies is an excellent educational resource and it seems a very good idea that it should provide this kind of information, particularly for those who don't already have strong opinions. The second purpose is more historical (all pronunciation is historical - it constantly changes over time and place and no one can say they are 'correct'). How did South and Ford and Lady Glanville and all the other luminaries of British butterflies actually pronounce the names? I feel that knowing the conventions, at least, is very interesting, even if we choose to go our own way.

Andy is surely right, that where a particular pronunciation of a classical name (like Euphrosyne or Danaus) has long been part of the language, that is probably what South and co. used too. I must admit I forgot about the Grace Euphrosyne - when the word means 'cheer' or 'gladness' it is definitely stressed on the 'y', not the 'o'.

My Greek dictionary gives the stress on the 'o' of Glaucopsyche, so I guess he is right there too.

Guy

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Sun May 06, 2007 9:19 pm

Thanks all - the latest update is attached (changes are shaded orange). I also came across some notes on Adrian Hoskins' website at:

http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/La ... iation.htm

So - unless I receive any more comments, I'll include the latest table when I next update the website.

Cheers,

- Pete

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Sun May 06, 2007 9:49 pm

From Guy ...

http://www.answers.com/topic/danaus

Thanks Guy!

Cheers,

- Pete

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Sun May 06, 2007 9:50 pm

Cross-posted from uk-leps ... from Eddie John (thanks Eddie!):

Peter has raised a valid question and I found his website forum discussion very interesting. See http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB2/v ... cef196aa12 where there are some good exchanges on this subject.

One of the postings links to a Canadian website with a page entitled "Pronunciation of Biological Latin" at:
http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm#current

The site includes the comment:
"An estimated pronunciation from the Golden Age of Rome (80-14 C.E.) is used for the reading of ancient literature. This pronunciation differs greatly from English scientific Latin, and is more difficult to master. For example, Cicero is "kickero," Caesar is "Kysar," cervix is "kerwix," vertebrae is "wertebrye," major is "mahyoor," Thuja is "Tooya," and Vaccinium is "wakkeeniom." Some naturalists apply classical sound values to scientific names, and some employ hybrid pronunciations such as "fun-jee" for fungi. The English pronunciation is "funj-eye" and the classical is ~"foongh-ee." An excellent reference for classical pronunciation is Vox Latina by Sidney Allen (1988, Cambridge University Press, 133 pages.)"

Coincidentally, I am currently reading Robert Harris's 'Imperium', a book based on Cicero's life and find myself constantly thinking 'Kickero' (for the very reasons given by Andy!), but my confidence is shaken when I am reminded (by the above extract) that 'v' in classical Latin is pronounced 'w'!! "Wertebrye"??? Time for a re-think!

Via (wia?!) his website discussion forum, Pete has begun to produce a chart showing pronunciation of scientific names and I would be most interested to see it reproduced here (or details of a link given) when completed, please, Pete.

Would it be possible for someone at, say, the NHM (Martin?) to comment on whether there is general agreement in UK academic/scientific circles on the pronunciation of English scientific Latin and whether this also meets with approval in other countries, please?

Thanks.
Eddie
Butterfly Recording Scheme for Cyprus:
http://www.grayling.dircon.co.uk/index.html

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Mon May 07, 2007 5:22 pm

Cross-posted from uk-leps ... from Tony Moverley ...

This reference may have already been posted but just in case...
The British Dragonfly Society website has an excellent section on
pronunciation of the latin scientific names of all the dragonflies
in the UK at:
http://www.dragonflysoc.org.uk/frameset ... &pronounce;
Although the names are obviously different, there appear to be some
underlying principles which could be be transferred to the
pronunciation of the butterfly scientific names.
Tony Moverley

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Thu May 10, 2007 9:45 pm

The "result" is now visible on each species page, where you'll see the phonetic below the scientific name, which links to a summary.

Thanks to all contributors - and keep those comments coming!

Cheers,

- Pete

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Tue May 15, 2007 8:55 am

I've added some audio too now

Also updated all of the "flight times" pages to take account of 2006.

Cheers,

- Pete

Post by **Padfield** » Tue May 15, 2007 1:23 pm

The voice of Richard South himself!! Well done Pete!

It will be interesting to see what the experts at the BMNH &c. think of this.

Guy