Since I'm staying in a foreign country now, it is even more important for me to learn and know what scientific names certain organisms have, in my case, as a ornithologist, birds. However, during the learning and reading process I remembered the following. In Latin, in contrast to English, the "c" is always pronounced as a "k". Since many scientific names are also (derived from) Latin (but I believe some are also based on Greek or even old-French...), my question is if the "c"'s in scientific names should also always be pronounced as "k"'s. I'd like to know if there are there certain rules among scientists about the pronounciation of scientific name? Or does everyone simple adds it own flavour to it, depending on where they are from and what accent they have?
As Guido mentioned latin pronounciation is quite similar to italian.
Let me recommend you Google translate http://translate.google.com/
Just choose Latin to English trnaslation, type the name of your species, and use the 'Listen' tool at the bottom-right corner. I found it pretty accurate!
I hope it helps.
I have always thought that Latin pronunciation should have been similar to the Italian one, but surely this is not provable (to me is reasonable to assume that Italian-like this is correct).
The google pronunciation of Latin is extremely high similar to the Italian one. I think we should try to force this as the correct pronunciation. If English people does not understand, they could make some effort as we all did for learning their language .. :)
Hi:
Latin pronuntiation is not that close to the italian one. (Why not to Spanish or french, if both came from latin too?.) There are some important differences:
It seems that latin, at least originally, did not difference between "u" and "v".
C should be pronounced "K" unlike italian or spanish.
Latin did lack some sounds from greek and other languages, therefore it used the "th" and "ch" graph to represente greek sounds for Theta and Chi (pronounced like the spanish "zeta" or greek "theos" and like the german "ch" respectively) these graphs represent sounds latind did not have and were pronounced more or less "t" and "k", Should you pronounce the latin or the original greek form?
I would suggest:
u = u
v=v
c=k
ph=f
ch=k or ch
Th=t or th
In adition there are some difficult vowel combinations: like sphaero that should be pronounced "sfero" , I think.
the "h" can be challenging too
Sadly, I agree with Guido, just pronunce it as English, so everybody will understand.
I´m Dutch myself, so I can´t help to give bit of the Dutch flavor to the names while learning them. However my English is good enough as well so to swap to the English pronunciation is not such a great deal to me. But, as I already expected, this is not the proper way of how to pronounce the names if I understand correctly. By the way, when I use Google translate to translate from Latin to English while typing Cygnus olor, Google translate also knows this to be Latin for swan, so in this case it is not such a good help with regard to pronunciation.
Hi Guido,
I agree. The Spanish seems to have had some influence of the Basque in its early formation.Probably the modern italian had influences of other languages too. Anyway, the spanish vowel system is similarto the (standard) italian one, and there are some vowel sounds lost. In may oppinion, Italian like vowels and fixed consonants (i-e- ce pronounced as ke ) would be the best.
Best
In my own opinion i think pronunciation is less important than getting the spellings right all the time. So my advice, learn to pronounce in a way that helps you recall the spellings of the species name easily. Cheers
There are, and are unlikely ever to be, any rules on how scientific names are pronounced. The original pronunciation of Latin is not certain and varied from country to country depending on the native language. Also many scientific names are not derived from Latin. It is best to pronounce names so that they are understood where you are. As a general rule pronounce every vowel separately except in diphthongs. You may need to alter your pronunciation depending on where you are, for example in English speaking countries 'i' is often pronounced as 'eye'. In Continental Europe I will change this to 'ee' as the 'eye' pronunciation for 'i' is unknown there. Please do not even suggest that a standard pronunciation is enforced. We cannot even ensure that personal names are pronounced according to the original, for example I hear many saying 'ka-mel-ee-a' (Camellia) but I have never heard man-yol-ee-a (Magnolia).
I am from germany and one of the few students of geological sciences (esp. palaeontology) at my university whon leared latin and (acient) greek in school. My professors I try to enforce a correct latin pronunciation among the other students but sadly enough only one of them learned acient greek and latin in school. But all german scientists I know complain about the english pronunciation of scientific names, so at leat we try to pronounce them correctly while a lot of people from english speaking countrys do not care how the greek or latin words that are basis for these names are pronounced.
But I agree, it is much more important to spell the names correctly.
I try to use the Latin pronunciation unless I know there is a more appropriate one (e.g., if the name belongs to a person or if the pronunciation was explicitly stated with the description). I seem to also recall some discussion of this in Winston's book, "Describing Species."
In the case of names (or parts of names) that are not derived from latin or anciet greek (with the names of persons or localities as the basis for that part of the name) I try to stay true to the original pronunciation of that part.
There are cases where the descriptions of a species features an intended pronunciation that does not fit to the etymology of the name given in the description. In that case I use the pronunciation that follows from the etymology of the name and ignore the "wrong" intended pronunciation.
If the question is "How to pronounce scientific names ?" and 'scientific names' are (mainly) 'Latin names', we have to try to use the correct Latin pronunciation. It's not "just" a matter of opinion!
For example, the word 'Ilex' (holly) begins with the sound 'i' (as in 'pit') - and if a colleague says 'ai' (as in 'like'), I have serious problems to understand what he is mentioning.
I have read with interest several replies, I am Italian and I have studied Latin and ancient Greek at school (as Kosch). I find that the rules mentioned in the paper suggested by Heynen (very interesting and clear) are similar to what I learnt at school. As I know, the Latin is very similar to the 'Italian pronunciation'.
I totally agree that we should use the latin pronunciation from latin-derived scientific names, in the same way that we try to properly pronunciate any other foreign language. Using latin-derived words for scientific names has the benefit of acting as a "lingua franca" in the scientific community that allows us to understand each other no matter the country we came from. However if we change the pronunciation making them closer to our local language, then they become very difficult to understand, specially for latin-derived language speakers. It's totally a pity that latin and greek is each time less learned at school.
I agree with Allen Coombes that at the time Latin was being spoken, there must have been a wide diversity of accents and pronunciations, as for all geographically widespread languages such as for example English in modern times. Again, as Allen stressed, the important is that your colleagues understand what you are talking about, so when it is a verbal conversation the 'local' pronunciation seems to be the best to adopt. And when one writes the scientific names, as Azubuike Chukwuka mentioned, one should make sure the names are correctly written! I am happy to have studied Latin in secondary school, but it is not conceivable that Latin teaching would be imposed worldwide.
With confidence, as most in the audience will likely also be uncertain. In the end, if the biggest criticism of your work is that your mispronounced latin binomials, then you had a very good day.
Totally agree with James Cahill. That's what I've been told all my life. Every region will have their own way of saying things but if you get the basic syllables right then, people should know what you mean.
Dear Colleagues, the question posed was ' how to pronounce ' and not ' is pronunciation fundamental '.
But as a general problem, in scientific communication the language should be considered "a method" instead of something that limits the exchange of information. And "methods" should be rigorous (as more as we can...), I think.
I want to be more clear:
a) It is very difficult to express an opinion or discuss in a foreign language, because a not familiar language cannot be known as the native one, and because rarely are phrases or statements used identically in two languages.
b) It is difficult to understand a foreign language as natives.
c) in scientific communication it is essential to report clearly our research and to understand clearly the work made by others.
d) biodiversity of people and languages (even if they change!, and this is positive) is a richness and we have to maintain it as important as the richness of organisms.
I try to do my best to speak a understandable English, because I have personal interest to do this, and I respect others.
If latin names are 'Latin' I similarly will try to do my best to pronounce in the language of Taxonomy. This is the language, for example, which gives me the possibility to "read" plant names even in Japanese web pages.
The original poster asked "how to pronounce scientific names?" As many here have emphasized, scientific names are now constituted by roots from multiple ancient and modern languages and often are a chimera of multiple languages. Much focus on this forum has been on Latinized nomenclature. Even if we limit the discussion to scientific names that are entirely based in Latin, a discussion of "proper" pronunciation now raises the question of whether one should adopt Classical or Ecclesiastical Latin. I learned the very pretentious sounding Classical Latin pronunciation, so I tend to the brunt of a few jokes here and there when I slip up and pronounce "Confusciusornis sanctus" in Classical Latin.
For scientific nomenclature, I expect there will always be inconsistencies, unless there are texts unknown to me about how to pronounce Latin-Greek-Chinese hybrid names with some reconciliation of all adjacent phonemes (and allowance of future phoneme evolution).
So, with that, I agree with the posters here who state that we all make the best attempt to (1) follow established guidelines, (2) not to bastardize the pronunciation of any language, and (3) acknowledge that inconsistencies arise when dealing with language hybrids. Furthermore, I strongly oppose Anna Maria Mercuri's insinuation (if I'm correct in gauging this point) that mispronunciation of scientific names implies lack of respect for a culture. And though we've all bastardized what some would view as the proper, rigorous pronunciation of the component Greek and Latin roots, we've all been able to understand each other clearly. I've communicated scientific names with native speakers of Portuguese (in Brasil), Spanish, French, German, and Chinese. We laughed at each others' pronunciations, certainly, but that simply helped make the discussion of science more friendly and open. Communication is about passing of information from signaler to receiver given an oft-noisy channel. As long as the information is transmitted sufficiently, receivers are usually very good at filtering out the noise. A view of names that is too rigorous simply forces scientific nomenclature into a stagnant position and ignores the fact all communication systems evolve.
Solution: Pronounce it as best you can, laugh with each others' pronunciations, make modifications to the pronunciation if it completely obscures understanding, and get back to the science.
Interesting question and one that most scientists ignore. There is a well known invasive ant called Pheidole megacephala - the only person I have ever heard pronouce the 'c' as a 'k' is my father - an older generation scientist and one who studied Latin at school. Perhaps the death of Latin at school has a lot to do with mis-pronounciation?
@Catherine. Good point. Sounds like the death of Classical Latin had something to do with this.
M.H.: "How to pronounce scientific names of organisms? "
with your mouth...
"death of classical Latin' indeed a metaphoric diagnosis for mis-pronunciation of scientific names..So whats the way forward since Latin is not embraced worldwide except in the classical arts or legal professions?
I see that many contributors are in favour of a return to classical pronunciation. However, this will take us onto a dangerous road. While a standard pronunciation will appeal to the scientific mind, how many will use it? I suspect very few. We should always remember that scientists communicate using the written word, and for those of us, like me, who have worked with scientific names all their lives, the number of times we write a name far exceeds the number of times we have to speak it.
Taking the 'megacephala' example (actually Greek), I prefer the hard c, pronounced like K, but if we were to adopt a fully classical pronunciation here, the ph would not sound like 'f'. Most would understand this epithet with a hard or soft 'c' but as meg-uh-k(s)ep-huh-luh I think they would not. The pronunciation of 'c' is one of the problems and we are strongly influenced by linguistic traditions in our own countries on how we say it. Before 'e' or 'i' it will often be soft, before 'a' it will be hard. How would names like Cynara be pronounced classically? In a way that nobody would understand them I suspect, as the 'c' would be 'k' and the 'y' would be 'u'.
Then how will we deal with the pronunciation of names that commemorate individuals? Use the original pronunciation or a latinized one? Take the genus Choisya. In Britain this is always pronounced choy-zee-uh, and everybody understands, as most have one in their garden. There nobody would understand shwuz-ee-uh, and if a Latin pronunciation were adopted, the 'ch' would be 'k', the 'o' and 'i' would be pronounced separately and the 'y' would be a 'u'. The result would be incomprehensible.
We need to remember that many people use scientific names, amateurs, gardeners, nurserymen, in far greater numbers than scientists and these names need to remain understandable to everyone. The way forward? I come across very few problems when communicating names verbally, although I have done this in many countries. So carry on as we are. If we have to laugh occasionally at someone's pronunciation, let's do it, at least we understand what they are saying.
"If we have to laugh occasionally at someone's pronunciation, let's do it, at least we understand what they are saying."
Well said. My thoughts exactly.
We should pronounce Latin words as the Roman people did. But we do not know how they did. After the fall of the Roman Empire the new barbaric states used the Latin language in their administration. But only the written Latin. The people spoke the local version of Latin which became Spanish, French, Italian etc. Slowly the original Latin pronunciation have been forgotten which caused a lot of troubles. Erasmus of Rotterdam worked out the so called classical pronunciation of the Latin language in the XV or XVI century. This was used in all Europe except England. James II of England wrote in the XVII century that Latin could be understand everywhere in Europe but the Latin of Englishmen are not understandable for other nations. He had some experiences.
The classical Latin was used in Europe (I studied it in Hungary 30 years ago, and my daughter studied it 3 years ago) for a long time. At the end of XIX century or early XX century English scholars studied the Latin to find out the original Latin pronunciation. They thought they have found it and called it restitutive Latin pronunciation.
Now both of them (or more?) can be used. At the Debrecen University I use the Latin according to Erasmus.
A lot of scientists have not studied Latin but they should use it. Some of them try to imitate the pronunciation of American or English colleagues which is often a mixture of the classical and the restitutive rules or they simply use the English (American) pronunciation. Generally, older German and Czech colleagues use a good classical Latin pronunciation.
For the rules of Latin pronunciation buy a manual of Latin. I have had 4 of them.
As to the names of persons, we should use the original pronunciation.
Choose any one of the several standard pronunciations. I prefer germanic-style pronunciation (Cicero: tsih-tseh-roh) over ecclesiastical (chih-cheh-roh), and I coincide that classical can sound "counter-intuitive" (kih-keh-roh). Also, non-Latin proper names embedded in scientific names should retain the original pronunciation. Finally, please do not anglicize indiscriminately: final -i (masculine genitive) is "ih", no "eye", either in germanic, ecclesiastical or classical pronunciation.
Dear Dr. Schmitter-Soto,
Which you called germanic-style pronunciation (Cicero: tsih-tseh-roh) I have learned as the classical (Erasmus of Rotterdam) pronouciatin and your "classical" (kih-keh-roh) is according to my studies the restitutive propunciation. However, I think I agree with you in everything. Ecclesiastical pronunciation is simply an Italian accent.
I learned classical Latin as , as described in Allen's "Vox Latina" and described by Juan Schmitter-Soto.
I propose some detailed information for German and Latin speaking colleagues.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz%C3%B6sische_Aussprache_des_Lateins
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateinische_Aussprache
http://books.google.es/books?id=1WsTAAAAQAAJ&client=firefox-a&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Erasmi Roterodami De recta latini graecique sermonis pronuntiatione dialogus
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k52719t
Latin regional pronunciation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_regional_pronunciation
@ Allen Coombes i absolutely agree with what you implied, that writing the names correctly is indeed a higher priority than pronouncing it accurately all the time. I guess we can focus our efforts on other aspects of scientific value, don't u think so?
In my opinion the correct writing is much more important than the pronunciation. We cannot forget that your scientific testimony will be in written papers. Nevertheless, I think that Latin would be a compulsory subject in Biology courses (at least at degree levels). Is key to understand the basic roules to write and speak well Latin. Furthermore, it would be easier to native speakers of English (or other Germanic Language) to better understand Latin-based Languages (like French, Portuguese, Italian or Spanish or Romanian).
Great proposal! Unfortunately, in Italy, the tendency is to eliminate Latin even from schools.
Thank you András Bozsik for your advice.
Dr. Martins,
Yes, writing is important, but it is only the half of the demanded knowlegde. Unfortunately, there is a tendency that the intruction level of Latin becomes more and more poor at all educational lavel. English does have German roots, but the impact of French during the historical development of English language, mainly in scientific fields that is at vocabulary level, is much greater.
It would be interesting to read opinion of collagues with Asian and African cultural backgrounds.
Dr. Mercuri,
The Italian language has all linguistic and logical advantages and also the more equal opportunity would be provided.
Dear Dr. András
I totally agree with you, in both points. It's frequent to see people pronouncing some species name with English accent in some congresses since seemed that nobody understood them. In fact, it already happend me!
Regarding to the teach of Latin in the Portuguese Educational System, I would say that it was, is and seems that will be very poor! Curiously Latin is teached only in the Humanity branch of the Secondary school, for whom that follow Languages or Lawyers! I never touched in this wonderful Language but I have trying to learn something....especially because in the last year I needed to give name to four new species! ;)
Dear Dr. Martins,
You are entirely right. And this custom became like an epidemic. I remember the intermezzo of a symposium some years ago. A Hungarian pronounced a Latin generic name of Greek origin with a stressed English accent in front of an audience where the majority was Hungarian with some colleagues from Central-Europe. It was ridiculous.
Presumably not satisfactional all researchers answer is available. But Latin language is still active, hence we can pronauce Latin name in this native language
Even Europeans pronounce scientific names differently depending on their native languages and the rules they've learned from school or books. (Rules of which the Kikero-Sisero difference is only one.) When working in the Netherlands it took a while before i recognised 'may-laa-no-chasta' as my familiar friend '(Drosophila) mel-ana-gaster'. And my Japanese students in Hokkaido used even more wonderful pronunciations (such as un-ees-pee-na for unispina). These pronunciations prevented them finding the information contained in the name. For example, 'unispina' does infact have one spine, 'curvispina' has curved spines, but they didn't realise this because they didn't recognise the common elements of these names. Not being able to see the information in the names hampered their remebering them. Giving them a list of common elements and their meanings helped them greatly.
And in general non-europeans need help with these names. They don't know Latin and don't have Latin elements in their languages. Choosing another European language would be worse still though, as it would be even less international and make nonsense of the existing corpus of scientific names.
Dear Mr. Da’idhe,
In case of Drosphila melanogaster the pronunciation you quoted could be a corrupted English accent (see Latin regional pronunciation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_regional_pronunciation) . As to the meaning of Latin words: to read, write, understand and talk are different abilities. One can understand the original sense of a word also with a distorted pronunciation.
Hallo András,
No, not 'corrupted' - the Netherlands pronunciation is the one they use commonly. And the other pronunciation i give is the normal one used in England (at least since 1990 when i've been working with the beast).
My experience in Japan and China is that biologists *can't* understand what the scientific names mean unless they've been taught how they are said - they simply do not see the similarities. Notice I'm saying 'what the names mean' and not 'what organism they refer to' - these are two different things.
Variant pronunciations of scientific names are to be avoided because their very purpose is to improve comprehension across languages and variants detract from this aim.
Dear Mr. Da’idhe,
Japanese and Chinese scholars have their own culture. Europeans must not demand Asian colleagues should understand and use a distinguished Latin. See the European use and differences however we have a common Greco-Roman background.
Between meaning and reference can be - even often is - a logical relationship which helps to recall and use the Latin names and expressions. As to the comprehension failures of various pronunciations you are perfectly right.
Except that the international culture of biological sciences - that includes Asia - uses scientific names based on Latin. It is the Japanese and Chinese themselves, in my experience, who want to take part in this international culture.
Since they do so, there has to be a good degree of standardization on how these scientific names are pronounced. (Just as there is an international standard on units of measurement.)
This is a faultless argumentation from logical point of view but one cannot meet with Latin and its cultural imbroglio in the everyday life in Asian countries. And now we have arrived to the equal opportunity of the use of scientific “jargon”. Some are benefited to use their mother tongue the others are to learn lifelong. Thus, the Latin was a democratic (sorry to use such a commonplace) idiom in the Middle Age.
You should ask the Austrian Minister of Science, Karlheinz Töchterle, who is a classical philologist with a specialisatiin in Latin (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlheinz_T%C3%B6chterle) (;-)
This is a great idea.
I note the last Hungarian Minister of Education, István Hiller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istv%C3%A1n_Hiller) has a distinguished Latin and Ancient Greek knowledge. You can ask him, too. (; - )
Oh, Mark!. yes it is a serious problem pronouncing scientific names!. But let me tell you, my first language is Spanish (Latin root) then the problem that you said to pronounce the names of species, us Latin people, we have it when we want to express any sentence in English or in German. In these cases, and also occurs with scientific names, with that only you change the accent, nobody understands what you say!. This can be resolved when you have a chance to write what you mean. But at a conference, or in dialogue with several people, this is not always possible.
Well I'm not understanding your problem with Latin names with "c" and k. If you give me an example, I possibly can help you.
Since the names of animals and plants are saved by Lineusza in Latin it should be pronounced as in the same language. I think so, because Latin is still spoken.
I agree, Tadeusz. But, pronunciation in Latin, probably not easy for people whose native language is Chinese or Russian. The point is that at a conference or congress people to understand us. This is the essence of the problem.
Otherwise ... (sorry, a bit of humor) plants and animals, do not know what is its name.
”Since the names of animals and plants are saved by Lineusza”
by the way, who is ”Lineusza”?
Dear Zsolt,
Sorry, I have written Polish name of Carolus Linnaeus (Genera Plantarum, Eorumque charaacteries naturales, 1742, I have this book et my home).
With kind gerargs, and best wishes,
Tadeusz Penczak
Tadeusz, it was clear to this native English speaker as well. Very neat that you have this text at home.
Thanks for resolving the 'Lineusza' issue, i was really eager to know who he was.
Now that that issue of the diferent written forms of the name Cal von Linné (or Carolus Linnaeus or Lineusza) hzas arisen we can see that even when we are writing names there is room enough for misunderstandings. One takes the recognition of a name in differnt language for granted, other have trouble to see that it is the same name.
This only has a minor bearing on the subject of pronouciation but I think it is very funny that such a problem emerged in this discussion.
You can use the http://www.howjsay.com/
It helps in pronouncing most of the scientific words
Why can't there by a book dedicated to listing the correct pronunciation of scientific names? It can be updated every 3 years if necessary too.
For names of orchids two versions for "c" is possible:
Cymbidium, Coelogyne, Cypripedium - "c",
Calanthe, Catasetum, Cleisostoma - "k"
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