Taxacom: Hepialidae vs Epialidae

Mon Feb 28 00:26:54 CST 2022

According to the literature I read on the matter, in early Greek this sound
was indeed consonantal, a voiceless glottal fricative (=aspirated) and it
was the reason why the letter H (in fact a modified version of the
Phoenician ḥeth) was adopted for it (and later for the Latin alphabet as
well). Wikipedia explains the historical aspects in the same way too:
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEta%23Consonant_h&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C50cfc7d6099943bb880708d9fa835c11%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637816264488225794%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ihDscL2x4vjQZCc9W2Qx7l1j47YomL%2FaHljeqmGlOko%3D&reserved=0 , also here:
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHeta&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C50cfc7d6099943bb880708d9fa835c11%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637816264488225794%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=goiBE0sb3Z905vKF96vkyvAZM5bODfav2TMQGb5JzhQ%3D&reserved=0 . But of course I might be wrong.

With best regards,

David Redei

On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 14:03, Donald Hobern <dhobern at gbif.org> wrote:

> Sorry David.
>
> This is not correct in regard to the Greek side of things.
>
> Eta is a long 'e' (rather an open one) and was never an 'h' in the sense
> of an aspirated consonant sound.
>
> The 'h' in some Greek words (but not the one referenced by Burmeister)
> comes from the rough breathing (looks like a curved opening single
> quotation character) over the letter. In classical Greek, all initial vowel
> combinations include either a rough breathing, meaning that the vowel was
> aspirated (started with 'h') or the smooth breathing (looks like a curved
> closing single quotation character). Burmeister is arguing that Hepialus is
> based on a Greek word that has a smooth breathing but has been
> transliterated as if it has a rough breathing.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Donald
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Donald Hobern - dhobern at gbif.org
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>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> on behalf of David Redei
> via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 28, 2022 4:54 PM
> *Cc:* taxacom at lists.ku.edu <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: Taxacom: Hepialidae vs Epialidae
>
> The Greek letter "eta" (H, η) was in early Greek pronounced as a "h"
> consonant. (This is in fact the reason why H of the Latin alphabet looks
> like the capitalized form of the greek eta = H.) Later it was pronounced as
> an "e" vowel (or, in the Hellenistic period, even "i"). Accordingly, there
> are different ways of romanizing Greek words that start with eta.
> Traditionally they were usually Romanized as "He...", cf. Ηρακλης -->
> Heracles (and not Erakles), but after the starting h consonant dropped,
> also as "E...". This caused innumerable confusion in zoological
> nomenclature. Burmeister himself changed the spellings of many names on
> this basis, e.g. here, his logic clearly is that Latinized name based on a
> Green word "η..." should be transliterated as "e..." because η = eta = e,
> so why putting a "h" before it -- which is true, but it did start with
> "he..." in other Greek dialects in different places and times. There were
> opposite acts too, e.g. the genus Enicocephalus (Hemiptera) was emended by
> Stål to Henicocephalus because of the opposite logic: Stål's apparently did
> not like the more modern transliteration used by the author (Westwood) of
> the genus and he preferred Latinized names based on Green words "η..." to
> start with "He..." (like in Heracles) and not with "E...". This is the
> story summarized very briefly, but these are merely interesting trivia with
> no relevance to nomenclature -- the only thing to remember is that any of
> these changes (correction of an original spelling He... to E... or
> correction of an original spelling E... to He...) are unjustified
> emendations (*if* they are demonstably intentional, Burmeister's act
> certainly is), see Art. 33.2.
>
> With best regards,
>
> David Redei
>
> On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 13:06, John Grehan via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > in 1878 Burmeister listed the moth family 'Hepialidae' as 'Epialidae'
> with
> > the footnote
> >
> > (*) L'ancienne ortographe : Hepialidae est fausse, le nom générique étant
> > dérivé ήπίϦϵάλοϛ du mot grec, febris algida.
> >
> > my English translation being
> >
> > (*) The old spelling: Hepialidae is wrong, the generic name being derived
> > ήπίϦϵάλοϛ from the Greek word, febris algida.
> >
> > The term 'Epialidae' was never adopted. Was this because Burmeister was
> > wrong, or because of some overriding clause in the Code? I would be
> > grateful for any enlightenment as I am as dead as a doornail when it
> comes
> > to such matters.
> >
> > If necessary, the full source is at
> >
> >
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biodiversitylibrary.org%2Fitem%2F86774%23page%2F527%2Fmode%2F1up&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C50cfc7d6099943bb880708d9fa835c11%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637816264488225794%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=I07jyMiD0FiDM%2BwsFeqdzjfcssyjaulug9YBhw9Lyqo%3D&reserved=0
> > see page
> > 292.
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> >
> > Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years, 1987-2022.
> >
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> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years, 1987-2022.
>

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