Rambling on

[wisdomseeker]

Just a bit of rambling on a hot summer night...

I have a heck of a time pronouncing Latin names properly, and just had to say 'Kudos' to the American Orchid Society for making orchid names easy to pronounce. If in doubt, I go to their website to see (and/or hear) how those big (unfamiliar words to me) sound, or how they should be spoken. It's definitely got me beyond just using the short-well-known names, like Catt, Paph & Pal.

Example:
Rhyncholaelia
I used to say rhino instead of "rink-oh". Has definitely helped me out.

[Ray]

Unfortunately, some are incorrect.

I know part of that is due to my (very old and limited) understanding of classic Latin, which is different from "Church" Latin, which is different from botanical Latin. For example, in classical Latin, there are no "soft" consonants - "C" is pronounced as "K", so ancistrochilus ("An-sis-tro-Kye-lus") should really be "An-kis-tro-Kyle-lus), but that's life, I suppose. Where they really seem to fall down is when the genus is named after an individual, rather than being a Latin description:

For example, neofinetia, which they say is pronounced "Nee-oh-fi-NET-ee-ah". It is named after a French botanist, Finet - pronounced "Fee-NAY", so it really should be "Nee-oh-fi-NAY-ee-ah"

Another is Gomesa, which they pronounce "Go-MAY-zah". It was named after a Portuguese physician names Gomes, which is actually pronounced as a single syllable, "Gomes" (think "homes, with less stress on the m), making it "Goms-ah".

[wisdomseeker]

Hmm... may not be perfect, but sure is helpful.

Ironic... turned on the radio as I was viewing this post. An old Led Zeppelin song was coming through the airwaves with some lyrics: "Ramble on, and now's the time, the time is now to sing my song."

[Bulbopedilum]

Ive always thought Coelogyne was pronounced like "Koe (e as in bed)-lo-jeen" until I saw someone pronounce it the way AOS says is the correct way in a video. I still pronounce it "Koe-lo-jeen" because it just makes so much more sense.

[AnonYMouse]

Originally Posted by Bulbopedilum

Ive always thought Coelogyne was pronounced like "Koe (e as in bed)-lo-jeen" until I saw someone pronounce it the way AOS says is the correct way in a video. I still pronounce it "Koe-lo-jeen" because it just makes so much more sense.

I knew the first part because I knew coelacanth. Don't know why the last part isn't guy-ne

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by Ray

Another is Gomesa, which they pronounce "Go-MAY-zah". It was named after a Portuguese physician names Gomes, which is actually pronounced as a single syllable, "Gomes" (think "homes, with less stress on the m), making it "Goms-ah".

Interesting thread topic!

On a Portuguese pronounciation site, there was a recording that sounded like Gor-miz ....

like .... Gore, as in Al Gore, followed by 'miz'.

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by SouthPark

Interesting thread topic!

On a Portuguese pronounciation site, there was a recording that sounded like Gor-miz ....

like .... Gore, as in Al Gore, followed by 'miz'.

I'm sure no expert... one our Portuguese-speaking members needs to jump in on this one.

But this also tracks with what I heard in Brazil... my ear is more tuned to Spanish, but the cadence and linguistic rules of Portuguese seemed actually to be pretty close (sound closer than spelling) - such as the terminal "s" sounding like "z", a terminal "m' sounding like "n". And Gomes sounds pretty close to the Spanish "Gomez" which definitely has two syllables. I have known people in the US of Portuguese descent who pronounced their last name "Gomes" to rhyme with "homes" but I figured that was just an Anglicization, as has occurred with immigrants from many places assimilating into an English-speaking culture.

[kg5]

Even harder to get someone on line to teach you how to pronounce a botanical name if the example is with the wrong accent to your native tongue.

As an Aussie the USA accent is not a good translation for me!

1st time I saw T. funckiana I knew I was going to have trouble.

[ArronOB]

Originally Posted by Bulbopedilum

Ive always thought Coelogyne was pronounced like "Koe (e as in bed)-lo-jeen" until I saw someone pronounce it the way AOS says is the correct way in a video. I still pronounce it "Koe-lo-jeen" because it just makes so much more sense.

Actually, I reckon they got coelogyne wrong.

Although you could argue forever about the pronunciation of various letters according to the version of Latin you learnt, one thing all versions agree on is syllabilisation.

The rules in Latin are.

Every syllable has a vowel (really, a vowel sound)
There is only one vowel sound per syllable
If a consonant lies between two vowels then it belongs to the syllable of the second vowel
If there are more then one consonant between two vowels then they are split, unless they are one of a group of regular consonantal pairs such as ch, gn, st etc, in which case they go with the second syllable.

So therefore their
‘See LODGE eh nee’
Should really be
‘See Lo GY nee’

And I think the stress changes when the syllabilisation changes because the penultimate syllable gets a long vowel sound, though I wouldn’t argue that one.

At least thats the pronunciation you get if you follow the rules, though I guess you could argue that if most people pronounce it see lodge eh née then that alone makes it ‘right’. Really, in the context we use them they are ‘loan words’.

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by ArronOB

Should really be
‘See Lo GY nee’

I think that should be it. 'See' probably follows the same as in the relatively old fish coelacanthe.

see - low (as in high/low) - jin - nee.

see - loj - jin - nee .... probably acceptable as well.

Sort of like tom-may-toe and tom-art-toe

and poe - tay -toe and poe -tar -toe