orchid pronounciation
 

so this is about orchid pronounciation and what I have heard on youtube I didn't like.

I am sure I am wrong about this but I hate some of the pronouniations I have heard.

Like aluminum should be pronounced aluminium.

a potatoe is a potatoe not a potato

Algae is algee not al-jee.

But this continues into the orchid world like the phalaenopsis Tetraspis for example. I have heard people pronounce it like Tetrass-pis pronouncing it similar to how a tresspasser would be pronounced whereas I much more like to think of it as a Tetra-spiss.

The same with lots of Cattleya names. The worst offender I hate hearing is a Jenmaniayayayayayaiaia

I pronounce it Jen -manny

no ai ai ai at the end.

It's probably the same with some many others, a forbesii should be a forbesy not a forbesiay

The same can be said about the dendrobium bigibbum. When I first heard I I thought it was pronounced biggi-bum but it is pronounced like a bi-colour
it is a bi-gibbum

I'm probably wrong about the pronounciation of the cattleya's and they are prounced like someone just stepped on your toes ay ay ay but I don't like it lol.

how would people pronounce the laelia lundii?
Would you pronounce it laelia lundiay?

Botanical Latin has no official pronunciation. So long as people understand what's being said it's all acceptable. This is per a university botany professor.

Most common pronunciations of Latin organism names make Greek and Latin scholars roll with laughter. This is per a classics scholar.

Reminds me of a friend/professor/orchid expert when asked how to pronounce "Disa" ... in the US, most people say it "Deesa", in South Africa (where both the plants and the professor are from) it is pronounsed "Daysa" . They are notoriously difficult to keep alive... his comment, with a hint of disgust and tragedy in his voice... "Deesa, Daysa, dead..."

First of all, the word is “pronunciation”, not “pronouciation”.

I never have understood the extra “i” in aluminium, as it’s not even in the word, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, but it’s just something we accept.

Having been exposed to Classical Latin, and a bit of “church Latin”, botanical Latin seems to be more of a “Up yours. This is how I pronounce it.” environment.

To me, there should be no soft consonants and vowels should be “ah, eh, ee, oh, oo”, making Laelia lundii, “LYE-lay-ah LOOND-ee-ee”.

Then we get into the complexification of using peoples’ names (like Lund) in the botanical expressions.

Two of my favorites are neofinetia and gomesa.

The first is named after a French botanist, Finet (pr. Fee-NAY), so that ought to be “Nee-oh-Fee-NAY-ee-ah” but never is.

Gomesa is often pronounced “Go-may-sah”, but is names after a guy whose name rhymes with “homes”, so should be “Gomes-ah”.

All I can say is, oh, thank goodness! :) Having never received any formal education in Latin, or Greek, for that matter, I do my best but I'm often self-conscious in attempting to pronounce certain things and worried about making a mistake. I will just try to relax about it from now on and stop worrying.

Actually, the Gomes of Gomesa was Brazilian. So it would be pronounced Gom-es or actually Gom-ez (the Portuguese equivalent of the Spanish Gomez, I leave it to our Portuguese-speaking members to refine this). A lot of people in the US with the last name Gomes (Portuguese or Brazilian ancestry) have Anglicized their names to Gomes rhyming with homes (either because they got tired of correcting people mispronouncing it, or wanted to "blend in"), but that would not fly in Brazil. (To my ears, hearing the genus pronounced "Gomes-a" is fingernails on a blackboard, and I'm not even Latina, it hurts when a heritage is denied.)

Hoping rbarata or JungleJo comment, but I believe an initial G in Portuguese is pronounced like an initial H in English, not the hard G of Spanish.

In French adding a vowel after a terminal consonant generally converts the consonant from silent to pronounced. So if Neofinetia were a French word the T would be pronounced.

All this illustrates the idea botanical Latin is an artificial language with no rules for pronunciation.

And there is our "word of the day" winner.
Nicely played Ray! :goodjob:D

lol well I am happy someone else agrees t should be pronounced “LYE-lay-ah LOOND-ee-ee”.

even if I cannot spell pronounced right

See this makes no sense to me either

"pronunciation
/prəˌnʌnsɪˈeɪʃ(ə)n/
Learn to pronounce
noun
the way in which a word is pronounced."

If it is pronunciation then it should be the way a word is pronunced!

also remember in Latin there is no soft C sound (circus is said KirKus) and the J would be our y in modern english...

so as ray points out, the second a person's name from any other language is added it becomes literally impossible for it to be pronounced correctly in both languages.