Latin names and how we say them

[johnw]

Martin how do we know how the Romans spoke 2000 years ago? This is a serious question. I have often wondered about this since becoming interested in gardening and meeting 'plant experts' who always know the correct pronunciation and say this is how Latin should be spoken.

The 'proper' classical way to pronounce Latin is as taught in schools. Exactly how they worked out what pronunciations were in Roman times I don't know exactly, but I understand it was through writings from the time (in Latin and other languages) about the language itself, from which Latin scholars were able to glean how words were pronounced.

Apparently quite a few pronunciations have changed since I learned Latin. My son has been learning Latin for the last couple of years at secondary school, and it seems that further study of writings from Roman times have provided better clues to pronunciation, so that some words are now spoken quite differently to in my school days - just as current scholarly thinking has changed the way we're supposed to pronounce the name of Queen Boadicea (which I learned as Boadisseea but is apparently now pronounced Boadicca!)

Martin - Light years ago when I was taking Junior High School Latin I recall the teacher saying that the Irish monks were believed to have kept some correct Latin pronounciation going but church Latin was bastardized. Was he right? It would be interesting to hear more of what your son has gleaned from the latest findings.

I remember the teacher saying he could hardly imagine Caesar stepping forward to declare "Way-knee", "Wee-dee", "Week-ee" but that's the pronounciation he taught us.

I have to ask how are surnames properly handled  ie Rhododendron wardii? And also the double "i"?  A botanist friend says ward-ee-ee. A Hungarian friend says var-dee-ee and friends ward-ee-eye. Then, what of species names built on French, Russian or whatever surnames - do you pronounce as in French etc ...ie  Rhododendron fargesii - farjh-ee-ee or far-gays-ee-ee or far-gays-ee-eye?

And "c" hard or soft? We were taught Boadicea as - bow-ah-dee'-kay-ah and provinciae as pro-win'-key-eye.

Things that trouble the idle mind.

johnw

[Anthony Darby]

Apparently quite a few pronunciations have changed since I learned Latin. My son has been learning Latin for the last couple of years at secondary school, and it seems that further study of writings from Roman times have provided better clues to pronunciation, so that some words are now spoken quite differently to in my school days - just as current scholarly thinking has changed the way we're supposed to pronounce the name of Queen Boadicea (which I learned as Boadisseea but is apparently now pronounced Boadicca!)

Martin - Light years ago when I was taking Junior High School Latin I recall the teacher saying that the Irish monks were believed to have kept some correct Latin pronounciation going but church Latin was bastardized. Was he right? It would be interesting to hear more of what your son has gleaned from the latest findings.

I remember the teacher saying he could hardly imagine Caesar stepping forward to declare "Way-knee", "Wee-dee", "Week-ee" but that's the pronounciation he taught us.

I have to ask how are surnames properly handled  ie Rhododendron wardii? And also the double "i"?  A botanist friend says ward-ee-ee. A Hungarian friend says var-dee-ee and friends ward-ee-eye. Then, what of species names built on French, Russian or whatever surnames - do you pronounce as in French etc ...ie  Rhododendron fargesii - farjh-ee-ee or far-gays-ee-ee or far-gays-ee-eye?

And "c" hard or soft? We were taught Boadicea as - bow-ah-dee'-kay-ah and provinciae as pro-win'-key-eye.

Things that trouble the idle mind.

johnw
[/quote]

I was taught "boodicca" John.

[Paul T]

Given that Latin is a dead language (i.e no-one actually can 100% be sure of any pronounciation because there is no-one on the planet who is a native speaker or it) the arguments about what is right and wrong will always continue.  Anyone who is an absolute authority on these things is really tooting their own trumpet, as there is no way to be sure of how things really WERE pronounced.  Once I found out that I stopped worrying about how something was pronounced "right" and just decided that as long as whoever I was talking to and I could work it out between us that we were talking about the same plant, then it didn't really matter. 

[johnw]

I was taught "boodicca" John.

Hmm!  I'm almost certain our teacher said the only dipthong in Latin was ae (eye).

Next time I see a friend who studied ancient Greek I will grill her.

johnw

[Martin Baxendale]

I'm no expert on Latin pronunciation. All I'm saying is that the best we can do is try to pronounce Latin names in as generally accepted a way as possible - i.e. as it's taught in schools. Hopefully botanists are a little more precise with Latin pronunciations than most gardeners.

My Slovak wife, who has a Masters degree in environmental sciences from Komarska University in Bratislave and majored in botany, has always despaired of English gardeners' pronunciations of Latin names. The first time I said Gentiana in her presence she fell about laughing! She said they way I pronounced it, it sounded like a Russian princess!

It does seem that continental Europeans tend to take fewer liberties with Latin  than we do. I suppose historically it's to do with British linguistic arrogance - the way we've tended to anglicise everything.

Personally, my Latin pronunciations are all over the place despite three or four years of agony in Latin classes, and I've felt embarrassed many times at coming out with pronunciations that weren't how the gardeners I was talking to pronounced the names! It's a total minefield. Often you don't know who's more embarrassed, you or the other person who thinks they've got it wrong.

I suppose in the end, the important thing is that you can always point at a Latin plant name in a book or a list and everyone (theoretically!) recognises it and knows what is it (even if they pronounce it differently).



 

[Lvandelft]

Hmm!  I'm almost certain our teacher said the only dipthong in Latin was ae (eye).
johnw

Did he hurt you badly John? 

[Tony Willis]

 

Often you don't know who's more embarrassed, you or the other person who thinks they've got it wrong.





 

Martin just grow old,first you will learn not to care and second this will be a minor embarrassment compared with other events (medical when the pronunciation of the words will be nothing compared with the procedures)you may encounter

[Anthony Darby]

I was taught "boodicca" John.

Hmm!  I'm almost certain our teacher said the only dipthong in Latin was ae (eye).

Next time I see a friend who studied ancient Greek I will grill her.

johnw

The spelling and hence perceived pronunciation comes from the Latin. The person herself, however, was not Roman, so if my memory serves me correct (which it usually doesn't), her name would have been Celtic. It is certainly spelt Boudica in Wikipedia.

[Brian Ellis]

No, indeed, Boudicea was a meber of the Iceni and we always said boo- dick-a too.

[Joakim B]

Martin
the problem with Hungrian pronunciation is that even though s and c separately are pronounced one way there are some combinations that are a sound of there own. for example "sz" is pronounced as "s" is pronounced in English (or Swedish for that matter) but I do not know if "sc" is such a combination. "cs" is such a combination.
The latin used for should be pronounced as it was meant at the time these names were given rather than how we now believe they should be spoken 2000 years ago. At least that is my opinion. If Carl von Linné and the scientists of his time pronounced it a certain way it should still be pronounced that way.
If they changed the pronunciation later then newer names should use the newer pronunciation.
At least that is how I see it.

Kind regards
Joakim

[Katherine J]

Joakim, sc is pronounced separately. S like sh in English, and c like ts. AND "a" like a kind of o (not exactly, for example like the first a in "always"). So: Scilla is pronounced Shtsilla in Hungarian. 
But this is less important. I also think the best would be to pronounce everybody in the same way the Latin names, but this can't be managed in the whole world. So...
And Martin, we also hungaricize everything, and maybe all nations do this... Here are used a lot of English words already, and if you would hear how they pronounce it, I think you also would fall about laughing.

[Joakim B]

Thanks Kata my Hungarian books are some 3500 km away now so I was not sure.
Kind regards
Joakim

[Maggi Young]

All these difficulties arise because of differences in teaching and with regional  accents ; surely the main advantage of sticking with the latin name of any plant is that when one WRITES it, it is written the same way worldwide??!! 

[Anthony Darby]

All these difficulties arise because of differences in teaching and with regional  accents ; surely the main advantage of sticking with the Latin name of any plant is that when one WRITES it, it is written the same way worldwide??!! 

Here here Maggi. Seeing document written in Japanese sprinkled with Latin names is very strange, but at least you can see if you are gazing at the right gobbledygook.

[gote]

All school children in Sweden know that the English spelling is intended to hide the pronunciation as much as possible.
We all know that fish should be written ghoti. (acc. to GBS but he was Irish I believe ).
One major problem in this discusion is that the English pronounce vowels in a different way to the rest of Europe.
The way English pronounce  A would be written Äj in Swedish (or German.)
I = Aj.  E = I, U = Jo, Y= oai, O=Ĺo
We pronounce the e also when it is the last letter of the word. (unless we are French)
We pronounce r also inside words (like Scots  ). 
This handicaps Anglosaxon people when learning other languages - including Japanese.
When the Japanese write for themselves they use the syllable system katakana to write foreign words and do this very phonetically
So they tend to write Latin in kana the way they perceive English pronounce it. Then when they want to communicate with us they translate phonetically from the kana into Latin letters. This creates the gobbledygook. It is really English seen from the outside.
Yes it is quite possible to reconstruct pronunciation of a dead language given enough text. This is, however, mot the forum to explain how.
Yes I think the ideal is to pronounce Latin the way the auctor did; be it Carl von Linné or some later botanist. None of them pronounced the way Caesar did.
However, since ideals sometimes are difficult to achieve, I agree it is better to pronounce in a way that is generally understood - which outside UK/US is not the way English people pronounce.
Hope you had a nice weekend
Göte