Well, wouldn't gatesii then be gah-tess'-ee-eye. The letter e in Latin is not pronounced ee, but eh, with a breve diacritical mark over the e--it is a short "e" I DO remember my 6th, 7th and 8th grade Latin. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John C. MacGregor" <jonivy@earthlink.net> To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 4:04 PM Subject: Re: [pbs] pronunciation > > On Jul 26, 2010, at 10:59 AM, totototo@telus.net wrote: > >> As a general rule, once a botanist has bestowed appropriate epithets on >> a >> taxon, the rules of Latin pronunciation and prosody take over. In >> particular, >> "gatesii" would have all four vowels clearly sounded, roughly gah- >> tea-see-eye. >> Of course, epithets based on Pinyin (romanized Chinese) present letter >> combinations unknown to the ancients, hence all bets are off. For that >> matter, >> even such epithets as "winogradowii" and "mlokosewitschii" are >> significantly >> non-Latinate. > > Sorry, Rodger, but I would respectfully disagree. The reason for naming > a plant--either genus or specific epithet--after a person is to honor > that person's botanical or horticultural achievements and to perpetuate > that person's name for future generations. This is done by adding the > appropriate latinized ending to the name itself, according to > international rules for botanical nomenclature established and amended by > periodic International Botanical Congresses. As such, only the ending is > latinized. The name should be pronounced as closely as possible to the > way the person commemorated pronounced his/her name in the original > language. > > William T. Stern, author of Botanical Latin: History, Grammar, Syntax, > Terminology and Vocabulary (New York: Hafner, 1966), discusses the > ramifications of this rule at the end of his chapter on "The Latin > Alphabet and Pronunciation." He notes, "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 'cesiatianus', a Polish pronunciation to > 'przewalskii, etc., and to do this is more than most botanists and > gardeners can manage." In this chapter, Stern also notes that "the rules > [of Latin prosody] cannot be applied satisfactorily to all generic names > and specific epithets commemorating persons." > > Furthermore, Stern states that " about 80 per cent of generic names and > 30 per cent of specific epithets come from languages other than Latin and > Greek." Some of us have wider linguistic backgrounds than others, but > none of us can recognize the linguistic origin and proper pronunciation > of all commemorative plant names. Still, we should make the attempt to > learn the original pronunciation in recognition of the person > commemorated. It is also fun and often enlightening to learn something > of the biography of this person--particularly if the name honors the > discoverer of a geophyte that interests us. > > Since Gates is an English name, "gates-ee-eye" is both the easiest and > the correct pronunciation. > > John C. MacGregor > South Pasadena, CA 91030 > USDA zone 9 Sunset zones 21/23 > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/