Botanical Latin

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:03:20 PST
Jim SHields noted,
At 06:42 AM 12/11/2008, you wrote:
>I always enjoy these discussion of Botanical Latin.  Has anyone noticed
>that some botanists transliterate the (English) "V" sound from Russian as
>"w" in names?  Other times as "v" of course.

The spelling of botanical names derived from Russian depends on 
whether the names were transmitted via German speakers. Some of the 
most active botanists attached to early Russian exploration were in 
fact German in origin, and applied their own often unwieldy phonemic 
spelling to Russian names.

Jane McGary
(B.A., Classics; M.A. Comparative Lit.)


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