Voronof's snowdrop

penstemon penstemon@Q.com
Tue, 02 Sep 2014 11:31:39 PDT
>Botanical
>nomenclature contains thousands of examples of transliteration, if only 
>because
>words derived from Classical Greek had to be respelled in the Roman 
>alphabet for
?publication.

There was no W in the Roman alphabet. Words containing that letter are not 
in Latin. Though it’s likely we don’t know even half the words in the Latin 
language, there are no examples in the classical literature using the letter 
W, or the aphthongs so common in English names, etc.
In an attempt to call these neologisms "Latin", might as well make the 
argument that the ancient Romans watched television, because we watch it 
now.

>But thanks to all the ancient attempts
>to represent Latin in Greek and Greek in Latin, we have a much higher level 
>of
>confidence in the sounds of the individual letters. And that’s all we need 
>for
>botanical Latin.

Botanical "Latin" is the product of "New Latin", a language designed to be 
written, not spoken.
The addition of impossible-to-pronounce-as-Latin neologisms refutes the 
notion that botanical nomenclature has a "correct" pronunciation in a Latin 
manner. (See television fallacy mentioned above.)

>Most gardeners just say them as they see them (i.e, as if they were English 
>words),
>and in doing so miss a lot of the story.

(See television fallacy above, as well as the etymological fallacy.)
"..in botanical nomenclature the literal meaning of names is irrelevant". 
(Aljos Farjon, A Natural History of Conifers, p.76)

Bob Nold,
Denver, Colorado, USA

(my last name is German but I pronounce it just like it looks)


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