Pat, this is an interesting area, as there is no internationally accepted pronunciation of this form of Latin/Greek. I have been of the opinion that one should attempt to pronounce in line with any given honourific, such as Clivia with a long "I". It doesn't always work, and, then, in other languages, certain letters have a different sound. Spanish "J" is like English "Y", which in Nederlands is a dipthong "IJ", pronounced "eye" a bit drawn out. German and the "W" are a good example. I spent a half hour talking with an orchidist about two plants until I suddenly realized that we were talking the same specie, just her pronounciation was so different, I didn't recognise it! The plant in question was Dendrobium lawesi, which in English is pronounced lawz-eye, in German la-vess-ee. In school, I learned to pronounce the endings as: ae = eye i = eye ii = ee-eye a = short a ie = ee If this is internationally correct?, I have no idea. Any other comments? With honourifics, we have the problem of not really knowing how the name was pronounced. Is Clive with a long "I", as typical for a first name, or is it the variant sounded like "ee". One thing is for certain, it is NOT short "I". There are examples whereby the original spelling of a name has been corrupted through translations. Paeonia mlokoseiwiczi is an example. This version uses the correct spelling of his name. He was from Poland. Typically, one sees P. mlokosewitschii, which is incorrect, but the tranliteration from Polish to Russian to German took it's toll! Naturally, the point is to remain understandable, but the pitfalls are many. Let's face it, none of us WANT to discredit someones name. Jamie V. Cologne ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patricia Brooks" <pbrooks3@sc.rr.com> To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 2:13 AM Subject: [pbs] > Today I heard Cliva prounced two different ways. Is the first I long or > short. This was at a plant sale the master gardeners booth. I kept my > mouth shut. > > Pat > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php >