Ferraria/Spelling rules
Jane McGary (Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:39:01 PST)
Dylan wrote,
Some languages are not "latinizable" and a scientific epithet based on
a local name in such a language may appear in its original form as a
specific or generic epipthet, e.g. Dypsis bejofo, Caryota no,
Kaempferia galanga or Alpinia zerumbet.
Epithets such as this are considered (and often are in fact, being
the native-language names of the plants) nouns rather than
adjectives. We also see Latin and Greek nouns occasionally used as
epithets, and this is usually why a species name does not exhibit
gender agreement with the genus name.
And yes, I know English spelling is not phonemic (though it once
was), but unlike Germans, we do not usually produce consonant
clusters such as "schtsch" when transliterating a single alphabetic
character from Russian. English-speaking linguists are, however,
capable of even worse deeds when devising practical orthographies, as
anyone who has ever read Siberian Yupik (Eskimo) can attest.
Jane McGary