Name is in Latin, not English, you can use common name in your language.
Sounding like a witch/wizard and becoming a pokémon master are two of the most convincing arguments when introducing someone to iNat…
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I think it´s pronounced more like a k+s/z, so [ksenophobic] (k = like the c in “can” for example)
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I would pronounce it ‘para strachio sfecomb ya’!! I have no idea what is correct, but that’s what would roll off my tongue.
@dianastuder to me x = z (zed!). So ‘xeno’ = zeno. Xenocide is ‘zeenocide’. Divided by a common language indeed.
@Strawberrytart I believe the binomial name was started when people first started ‘scientifically’ describing species. Latin and Greek were the ‘universal’ languages (i.e. used by the Cristian church) so everyone in Europe understood them. So a plant or insect described in England would be understood as the same thing in France or Germany. I think it’s a good thing - a moth like Peridroma saucia is the same thing in Europe or South America, no matter what the local names are.
However, I don’t often use these names in spoken conversation, but in written form. Which was how the originators communicated. Some names are not easy to say. Euxoa (a large genus of moths) is pronounced ‘yucks o,a’. That’s how I learned it, but I have no idea how Chinese, Hindi or Spanish speakers would pronounce it. When written, I understand it.
Pronunciation is a difficult thing. In Nahuatl, Mexica is ‘meshi ca’. I’m sure people who do not understand that would pronounce it differently. ‘Meshi ca’ has become Mexico, which the Spanish speakers would pronounce as ‘meh hi co’ but English speakers pronounce as ‘mex i co’. I have no idea how @fffffffff would say it.
So don’t worry too much about it!
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It’s Мексика, so Meksika, but Mexico City is pronounced Mehiko (Мехико, as modern alphabet was based on Greek, х=h), so if country name was “taken” not from English, it too would be with “h” or “sh”. In English I would say it as everybody else.)
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In March I met a group of local plant enthusiasts who previously only knew me on iNat. The outing was lead by a more famous botanist from the next county over. He consistently pronounced every name differently than me, pretty much always putting long vowels, whereas I do vowels more like they are in Spanish, no dipthongs unless they are part of the spelling (how I was taught for Ecclesiastical Latin.) When I commented about it, he said such and such university uses his voice to record a pronunciation guide, so he must be right.
Then last week I went to a symposium of restoration ecologists. All of them pronounced names as I do, probably unsurprising as my college advisor was a member of their group. So at least I’m correct in some circles!
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No one speaks Latin! Except perhaps my spouse (euxor in Latin. She just told me that). Apparently ‘Xeno’ is Greek, which is ‘zeno’. The thing with binomial names is that they are a meld of Latin and old Greek. which makes agreeing on a pronunciation difficult.
My spouse just told me that ‘Genus Euxoa’ is two languages. Genus is Latin, Euxoa is Greek, and is not related to the Latin ‘euxor’ (spouse)! How’s that for complicated.
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Thank you!
i think it’s funny that there must be one “right” pronunciation.
if i go to 30 English speakers around the world and ask them to pronounce “Strawberry Tart”, i might get 15 or 20 technically different pronunciations, but most native English speakers might only be able to hear a handful of different pronunciations, and even then, i doubt anyone would consider any of those pronunciations incorrect.
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I learned the scientific name for Sideoats Grama from a Texan with a twangy accent and while it might not be fully correct pronunciation (which doesn’t really exist) it was memorable and I still like saying it: BOO-dah-LOO-ah cur-TIP-en-DOO-lah.
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And I would say it “Richardson-eye” to retain the pronunciation of the surname. For me the double I versus the single I to indicate masculine possessive is unimportant as it is so variable in use in species epithets. But to each his own.
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That was a fun read, @keirmorse . My favorite quote from it: “When someone presumes to correct your pronunciation, a knowing smile is an appropriate response.”
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Like has been said, it will vary based on your own native language and pronounciations.
And really…that’s okay.
Example: I do cave bio work, and my British colleague who I started into it with focuses on cave beetles and spiders. So let’s take Carabids. Care-ah-bids. Do some stuff where I live in the US south…now I hear Cah-rab-bids. honestly the only thing confusing is internally translating to try to match pronouncaition to whom I am around, and half the time I dont bother (and no one cares).
I actually find this chance to be lost-in-translation is much worse with common names. We have legit cave shrimp here in Alabama (P alabamae). Like. Legit shrimps. On a bio trip in the UK i was told to be on particular watch for fairy shrimp “just a tiny shrimp thing”. …okay so I’m thinking yeah they have a cute name for the small cave shrimp, that’s so adorable right? Wrong. Few hours in confused af as to why they kept looking in little gour pool puddles and such (not where one would find shirmp, based on my experience) I find out the mean amphipods. I was looking for the wrong thing the whole dang time, and now the pools they were focusing on, made much more sense! If they had said amphipod from the beginning - even if pronounced differently - I’d have known!
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That’s a fantastic discussion by Michael Charters - thanks for linking it. I’ve been chastized for “mispronouncing” botanical names but mostly laugh about the criticism. I learned most of the names from texts, and years might pass before I have occasion to say one out loud or hear someone else say it. And accents matter. I once spent two days in the field with a Mexican botanist, and we used only Latin binomials (and my limited Spanish). It took me a while to learn that her “ah-KAH-see-ah” was Acacia, “FEE-koos” was Ficus, “BAH-say-AHN-toos” was Vaseyanthus, and “ee-BEES-koos” was Hibiscus. She did a far better job of understanding me.
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What about words that end in “eae”? They always make me hesitate.
Spanish speakers (at least in Mexico) pronounce ‘v’ as ‘b’. So to a Mexican Spanish speaker, the word ‘Chavez’ would be ‘chabez’.
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Plant family names end in -aceae which I pronounce acee-ee
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In the case of a specific epithet like gaigeae (named for a woman named Gaige), I just say GAY-jee since the final E is silent in her name. As in my favorite turtle, Trachemys gaigeae. But that’s different from the botanical usage.
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Yes, though in my experience it’s variable and can range from a hard American “b” to a soft buzzy one (halfway to an American “v”). So the name Victor might sound like “BEEK-tohr” but the word abeja might be closer to “ah-VAY-ha”. Edit: I realize I’m mixing “v” words and “b” words but that’s how I hear the sounds in Mexican Spanish - somewhat interchangeable.
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As the years have passed I’ve grown lazy with honorific botanical names, and would now pronounce this one
Richardson-eye
Wrong no doubt, but those hearing it still know exactly what I mean, and it becomes much easier to preserve the original pronunciation of the root name. If I’m not mistaken this is also in line with how zoological honorifics are formed and pronounced.
EDIT:
Ha! Missed your earlier post before posting the above.
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