[Taxacom] ICBN (orthography of geographical epithets)

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

From: "Guido Mathieu" <guido.mathieu at taxa.be>
Subject: [Taxacom] ICBN (orthography of geographical epithets)


> ICBN Art. 60.9. says: 'The use of a hyphen in a compound epithet is treated as an error to be corrected by deletion of the hyphen, unless the epithet is formed of words that usually stand independently..."

> How do we have to understand 'usually'? In which context (grammatically versus geographically)?

 
***
First of all, this should not be seen in isolation, as Art 23.1 also bear on this.

The name of a species consist of two parts: it is a binary name, or more colloquially: a binomial. However, linguistally it is a sentence in Latin, and should grammatically be a correct Latin sentence. Theoretically, it could consist of an indefinitive number of words but in practice it will consist of two or three words, an example of the latter being Coix lacryma-jobi. Clearly "lacrima" is word, as is the name "Job". In epithets such as the sancti-johannis and sanctae-helenae of Rec 60C.5.d the two components are clearly words that "usually stand independently".

There are a lot of geographical names that have established Latin equivalents: if this equivalent consists of two words a hyphen is to be accepted. 

Some others can be translated into two Latin words: For a name including "san" this will mean using "sanctus"; for a name including "rio": "flumen". In such cases a hyphen is to be accepted (IPNI lists a Caesalpinia flumen-viridensis).  

If latinization involves no more than affixing a ending to a non-Latin word then this a different matter. I have not looked at any real cases but I doubt if there will be many where a hyphen is appropriate.

Paul