Dump Latin

[Peter Schuchert]

>It was hardly botanical Latin, but a famous children's book in England
>was published in Latin as "Winnie, ille Pooh".  John.

There are also some volumes of Asterix available in Latin, just too
motivate students to read Latin.

But from a zoologists perspective this discussion about latin
seem really absurd. Taxonomic diagnoses for new animals
have luckily been abandoned more than 100 years ago!
Perhaps we have to drop English one day too, when it
will be out of use, but that's a long way to go and I
suspect that by then nobody will study systematics anymore.
At present, at least, English is the language that offers the
broadest audience and all new descriptions should at least
be accompanied by an English version.


cheers,
Peter


Peter Schuchert
Museum d'Histoire Naturelle
Dep. des Invertebres
1, route de Malagnou
CH-1208 Geneve
Switzerland

tel  0041 22 418 64 45
fax 0041 22 418 63 01
http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/mhng/index.htm