[TN-Bird] Re: Plover pronunciation
- From: James Brooks <comeback@xxxxxxxx>
- To: Tenn Birds <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:10:07 -0400
Thanks for taking this back to its roots, Dev. I agree with you
heartily. To me the Scientific (Latin) names are far easier to remember
and pronounce than English, which tends to hyphenate ad nauseum with no
real firm rules on Capitalization. As more splits occur, particularly on
birds in the tropics, things really become unwieldy, like Southern
Long-toed Beach-Bum. Now why is that easier to say than Pluvia nebularia?
By and large the flower people recognized this many years ago, and use
scientific names for most plants, throwing in a few English variants
from time to time apologetically. But these same people pick up a pair
of binoculars and their scientific names vanish. Logic has nothing to do
with it.
A word of warning on Latin pronuncations: ornithologists from around the
world tend to impose the pronunciation of their Native language onto
Latin names. They are ornithologists after all, not linguists. So a
paper session on Juncos will be pronounced Junk-oes by the Brit, Yuncoes
by the Swede, and Huncoes by the Hispanic. Latin, it seems, has evolved
in many ways.
You haven't lived until you've heard Cuban ornithologist Arturo
Kirkconnell, after giving up on whether its a Bank Swallow or a Sand
Martin in Ingles, come up with Riparia riparia, with all the Rs heavily
trilled.
Of course English pronunciation is based entirely on usage, so is
constantly changing. It has nothing whatsoever to do with logic, or we'd
all be saying Pileated rather than Pilleated, but let's not go there -
again.
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