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pronouncing scientific names
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by Wollers on March 25, 2003
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I've been looking for a good source on phonetic spellings/ pronunciations of scientific names, but have had no real luck. Most of my limited knowledge on pronunciation has been picked up just through fellow herpers throughout the years. I know of Carl Ernst's book VENOMOUS REPTILES of N.AMERICA which gives the phonetic spellings of the snakes concerned. Is there any book or site like that concerning the large family of Colubrids that somebody could direct me to? It's quite frustrating and embarrassing when you don't have the confidence to refer to a snake native to your own state by its scientific name, in fear of that you are pronouncing it incorrectly.
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RE: pronouncing scientific names
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by Chance on March 25, 2003
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Really the only thing you need to know to correctly pronounce scientific names is a basic knowledge of Latin pronunciation, which is what "scientific" names are. If you've had any time in any of the Romance languages this helps out a lot as well, because they are based off of Latin (Romance languages are those like Spanish and French). You don't need to go and buy a book on scientific name pronunciation. In fact, you could most likely just find a site on the internet to give general alphabetic pronunciations. Good luck!
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RE: pronouncing scientific names
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by Ferdelance_1 on March 26, 2003
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Good luck indeed !
The planet Uranus is an elementary example.
When I studied science in school it was pronounced Ur-anus.
Recently I have noticed it's being pronounced Ur-a-nus.
Correct pronunciation is not an absolute must,nor should you be embarassed when doing so, because there is always going to be more than one pronunciation.
What you need to know is what the scientific name relates to, (visualize it in writing), ie, Colubrid, Elapid, Pit Viper, or Viper, then break it down by Genera, species, and subspecies.
Latin is a "Dead" language, therefore, as WW so eloquently put it, only Caesar and his associates, and I will include the highly educated Kleopatra the VII, knows how Latin was correctly pronounced.
Additionally, not all scientific names are written in Latin: Example: Crotalus is the "Greek" word pertaining to the Genus that the majority of Rattlesnakes are assigned to.
Just thought I would shed some light on the subject.
Cheers,
Derek K.
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RE: pronouncing scientific names
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by JTEDENS on March 27, 2003
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If you talk to any herpers for an extended period of time or just got to local herp society meeting and talk to several people you'll find that many of them pronounce names differently and most are incorrect. Furthermore, many supspecies are given names for the person who discovered them, most of these do not meet latin pronunciations at all. I have given in to pronouncing many things the way they are most commonly referred to instead of trying to be correct all the time.
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RE: pronouncing scientific names
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by Bothrops_pictus on April 8, 2003
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I took the course of classic Latin for several years, and what I can say is that almost all people (even professionals) pronounce the latin very badly, specially the anglophones because they tend to pronounce the letters like in English.
It is of a lot of help when the person speaks a language derived from Latin like Spanish or French but there are always a lot of letters which are frequently mispronounced. For example:
Vowels: They will always be read like in German or Spanish, it doesn't care where they are located, keep this in mind all the time because that's the most common mispronouncitation in people who speak english.
C - Always sounds like k, for example the word adulescens (teenager) is pronounced a-du-les-kens
CH - Always as K, so "Lachesis" will be pronounced La-ke-sis.
G - Like the German g, before e and i sounds like in "get" or "gift"; never like in "magic".
H - lightly aspired, like in "house."
J - For the anglophones this letter is not a problem, pronounce it like in English.
LL - Like in the english word "Gorilla", never like in the spanish "calle" or the french "famille"
Q - After this letter U is always pronounced, like in "liquid".
TH - Like in the english word "athletic".
V - In classic latin this letter sounds like the W of the english but it is not incorrect to pronounce it as v, specially when another u makes it difficult to pronounce it like a w (at least that's what my professor told me).
Æ- Like the german ä, in case that you don't know this sound try to make an e in the throat. (If you don't know how to get this character the code is alt+145 and alt+146)
oe- Similar to æ.(I don't know the code for this character but it's written like in the french word "oeuf"
In case that you find any letters or words from greek or other languages pronounce them like in that language (unless the greek word is latinized, or that you don't have any idea of how to pronounce the greek or the language the word came from).
I hope that this could be useful.
Valete! (Bye in latin)
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RE: pronouncing scientific names
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by Ferdelance_1 on April 8, 2003
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A truly informative post !
I was definitely pronouncing Lachesis incorrectly, and most likely the case for many other Venomous and Non-venomous snake Genera.
QUESTION: Staying with the same Genus Lachesis, how does one correctly pronounce "muta" ? Would it be with a long (English) U like Moota, or short (English} U like in the slang word for a mongrel/non-thoroughbred dog Mutt ?
Curious:
Cheers,
Derek K.
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RE: pronouncing scientific names
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by Bothrops_pictus on April 10, 2003
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Hi
I'll answer your question and will add some information I forgot. The U must be like the spanish or german u (the english oo is too long and the u in "cut" sounds more like a latin a), if you don't know the sound try asking a german from berlin to pronounce the word "mutter", that's almost how "muta" sounds.
The english t and d are retoflex, and the latin t and d are dental, they sound like in spanish (a dental t or d is done when you pronounce the t or d and instead of putting the tip of the tongue like in english the tip of the tongue must touch the teeth, as if you tried to place it between them.
Another retroflex letter in english is the r (actually, an anglophone can speak perfect spanish but we can most of the time know he's not a native because of the sound of his r), the latin r is like the spanish r, to get this sound do like with the d and t.
Also, when there's and e after an i, the both are pronounce and the sound is never like in english or german, where the e makes the sound of the i longer. I hope this can help you.
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RE: pronouncing scientific names
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by Ferdelance_1 on April 11, 2003
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Hello,
Thank you very much for providing such a definitive response to my inquiry !
Having studied the Spanish (Espanol) language for several years, and elementary German (De Deutsch), plus having resided in Deutschland for over three years, I believe my comprehension of the correct pronunciation of "muta" has now been accomplished.
I will keep in mind all that you have provided in future attempts to correctly pronounce Latin, and other non-Anglo wordage.
Cheers,
Derek K.
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