Taxacom: Hepialidae vs Epialidae

[Donald Hobern]

Thanks, David.

I get where you are coming from now. You are correct, but in classical Greek, and hence in the Greek that many taxonomists in the past tended to learn at school, eta is always a vowel and these earlier variants in inscriptions, etc. don't apply. The 'h' sound at the start of some Greek words often derives via a sound change from an initial Indo-European 's' - hence Latin sex but Greek hex for 6.

So, some Greek words starting with vowels are aspirated and some words are not. Whether the vowel is eta, epsilon or any of the others (or a diphthong) is separate.

Best wishes,

Donald


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Donald Hobern - dhobern at gbif.org<mailto: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 5:26 PM
To: taxacom at lists.ku.edu <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: Taxacom: Hepialidae vs Epialidae

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%7C878d796c9e044c5a244708d9fa84c097%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637816270508895015%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=vn0ut50un5KOkrBlGa654q8LdGyCcYUbqlIhkGHKurk%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%7C878d796c9e044c5a244708d9fa84c097%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637816270508895015%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=murytob%2FlOsqge6F8kdsdqUGYITn3JUPI30RG2Zc2k8%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%7C878d796c9e044c5a244708d9fa84c097%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637816270508895015%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=E99hfOXCyIirJ9ade8pVAQb3RBilKU%2BHgzvamgCsnGQ%3D&reserved=0
> > see page
> > 292.
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