Finally with a lot of words you say the same as I do *Lets grow bulbs and enjoy this *Roland* * 2010/7/27 Jane McGary <janemcgary@earthlink.net> > Ben Zonneveld, who is a very good botanist, wrote: > >> The funny thing is that only English speakers every time wonder how to >> pronounce a name . The explanation is simple. There are about 35 >> different sounds in every language. There are also about the same number >> ,35, of ways to write these sounds. With one exception unfortunately >> .The English has about 800 different ways to write these same 35 sounds. >> For me, if I see a dutch word for the first time I know in most cases >> how to pronounce it. This is nearly impossible with an English word even >> if you are a linguist. >> > > I, who am no botanist but who am a linguist with a BA in Classics, must > correct this. Many languages have far more than 35 phonemes, or meaningful > sounds, and a few have fewer than that. I've worked with more than one > language of which we said, ruefully, that it has more phonemes than > speakers. (And by the way, the orthography of Dutch is far from > transparent.) > > The pronunciation of classical Latin and Greek (most people who get caught > up in this sort of discussion ignore the fact that many botanical names are > Greek, not Latin) has been reconstructed in various ways at various times, > and we can be sure that the way these languages were spoken varied from > place to place and from time to time. You can't base your pronunciation of a > plant name on whatever you heard in your high school Latin class decades > ago, because historical phonology has moved on since then. > > I will not loose the standard lecture at this point, but will say only that > botanical names are best considered loanwords in whatever language context > they are being used. Most languages' speakers have a strong tendency to > treat loanwords in certain ways, such as rendering the vowels and assigning > syllabic stress. These tendencies can vary even between two varieties of the > same language; for instance, American English speakers tend to assign stress > to the penultimate syllable of an unfamiliar word, and British speakers to > the antepenult. Moreover, American speakers are more likely to preserve the > Continental vowels than are British speakers (i.e., the vowel pronunciations > most easily heard in Spanish). These are not mistakes; they are just > characteristics of different language varieties. > > If your interlocutor (the person you're talking with) understands what you > mean, you are doing all right. If he doesn't, you can write down the word, > or, if you know how, render it in a different language variety. > > So stop worrying about how to say them and let's worry about how to grow > them. I am busy with the latter. I'm lifting my whole bulb collection to > move it into the new bulb house, which will be finished tomorrow! Then the > mason builds the raised beds inside it, and I, or, I hope, some powerful > hired hands, bring in the soil components, and the bulbs go into their deep, > unconstricted new homes, where they should all be much happier than in pots. > Then I can start rounding up replacements of all the things that froze to > death last December -- mostly arums, but if you can spare Gladiolus tristis, > I'm missing it sadly. > > Jane McGary > Northwestern Oregon, USA > > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > -- R de Boer La Maugardiere 1 F 27260 EPAIGNES FRANCE Tel./Fax 0033-232-576-204 Email: bulborum@gmail.com