[Taxacom] Asterales

[Sean Edwards]

Yes, Curtis and Jim, I'm not sure that criticising others' 
pronunciations is always good or worthwhile, unless you have an argument 
that a pronunciation is 'clearly' wrong.

I'm surprised that no-one has yet mentioned William T Stearn's 
compendious /Botanical Latin/ (4th edn 1992, 546 pages), particularly 
his section 'Pronunciation' (pp.51-54), I won't quote from it, except 
for this paragraph on personal names:

    "These rules cannot satisfactorily be applied to all generic names
    and specific epithets commemorating persons. About 80 per cent of
    generic names and 30 per cent of specific epithets come from
    languages other than Latin and Greek. A simple and consistent method
    of pronouncing them does not exist, because different peoples use
    the same letters for different sounds and different letters for the
    same sounds. The /cz/ of Polish corresponds to the English /ch/ and
    the Italian /c/ before /i/ or /e/, but the English /ch/ is not the
    same as the French /ch/ or the Italian /ch/ before /i/ or /e/. The
    ideal method with most names commemorating persons is to pronounce
    them as nearly as possible like the original name but with a Latin
    ending. The uncouth-looking /Warszewiczella/ will then be
    euphoniously pronounced as /var-she(-vi(-che(l'-la/ and not
    uncouthly as /wars-zew-ic-zell-a/. The main difficulty is that this
    method involves giving a German pronunciation to /Heuchera/, a
    French pronunciation to /Choisya/, a Scottish pronunciation to
    /Menziesia/, an Italian pronunciation to /cesatianus/, a Polish
    pronunciation to /przewalskii/, etc., and to do this is more than
    most botanists and gardeners can manage."


It is really pointless agreeing with or disagreeing with this extract 
from Stearn, out of its voluminous context. Clearly non-English (meaning 
the country) speakers would often disagree. But it does illustrate that 
simplistic stands should take a wider perspective and be more tolerant. 
I (try to) get used to the very different continental European Latin 
pronunciations, it's really not too difficult. Less finger-wagging, more 
smiling.

I can't find this in his book, but William Stearn said (1995 
BSBI/University of Reading conference on Botanical Latin) "botanical 
Latin is a modern romance language in its own right", and as such is 
effectively a living language; it is not as stable as might be hoped, 
and its pronunciation is certainly dependent on the native tongue of the 
speaker. I can't agree with Pekka's "Latin names are ALWAYS pronounced 
according to the rules of the Latin language". And I'm glad that 
Torbjörn's views are clearly tongue-in-cheek.

Sean

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sean Edwards
sean.r.edwards(at)btinternet.com




On 13/03/2012 06:22, Jim Croft wrote:
> And it's nice to have that small reminder that we live in a
> multilingual, multicultural world with a complex history. :)
>
> jim
>
> _________________
> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~ http://about.me/jrc
> 'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
> of doubtful sanity.'
>   - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)