By Tom Waters
No One Knows How To Say It
As a passionate student of both horticulture and language,
this is a subject I have strong interest in. If you search the web (or a
library) looking for guidance on how to pronounce a particular Latin name, you
will quickly find an array of conflicting recommendations. You are also likely
to see such recommendations prefaced by a remark such as the following (no, I
cannot bear to link to this site):
Relax! The good news is there is NO "correct" way
to pronounce them! You may pronounce them any way you wish, and you will be
just as "correct" as any Ph.D. botanist. So have confidence, and just
say them however feels comfortable to you. Anyone who corrects you is only
showing their own ignorance, and the correct response is to just smile and say
"Yes, that's what I said, (and repeat the name as you pronounced it
before).
In my experience, the more strident the assertion that there
is no correct pronunciation, the more scattered and arbitrary the pronunciation
advice that follows. Still, the sentiment above has been expressed in milder
form by a number of respected writers knowledgeable in botanical Latin,
including the modern pontiff on the subject, W. T. Stearn:
How they are pronounced really matters little provided they
sound pleasant and are understood by all concerned...
Now one can hardly take exception to the pragmatic assertion
that the purpose of language is to communicate, and if one is communicating
successfully, there is no cause for anxiety or concern. Yet it strikes me as
odd that people writing about the pronunciation of botanical names so often
feel obliged to include such a disclaimer. Writers on other disciplines do not.
When was the last time you read a chemistry text that reassured students with
"You can say OX-i-gen, ox-EYE-gen, or OH-zee-gen, and they are all
correct!"
From the standpoint of linguistics, which regards the spoken
language as primary and the written language as secondary, it is quite a
strange circumstance that a community of speakers would not know how to say the
words they use. How did this come about?
A Little History of Latin as Spoken in England
Long after the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin remained the
lingua franca of Europe, particularly among the learned. Although it ceased to
be a native language, it did not cease to be a spoken language. Even into the
nineteenth century, classically educated people in Europe would converse in
Latin, as well as writing and reading it. Because the language was in
continuous use, its pronunciation changed with the locale and the era, as does
the pronunciation of any language. Especially significant were the changes that
occurred in England. During the Middle English period, English experienced what
is known as "the great vowel shift", which dramatically changed the
sounds of the long vowels: A went from "ah" to "ay", E from
"eh" to "ee", and I from "ee" to "eye".
Thus Old English mis (pronounced "mees") became Modern English mice.
Keep in mind that this shift in pronunciation was not something people were
conscious of; it happened gradually over several generations. The older
pronunciations were forgotten. And the change carried the pronunciation of
Latin words with it. So as "mees" changed to "mice", so
linum (Latin for "flax") changed from "LEE-num" to "LYE-num".
(Of course, there have been many other changes in English pronunciation between
when the Romans introduced Latin to England and the present day, but these are
some of the most pertinent for the present discussion.) Other pronunciation
changes were happening all over Europe, so that Latin as pronounced in England
was different from Latin as pronounced in Germany, which was different again
from Latin as pronounced in France.
As many of our modern sciences blossomed from the
seventeenth century onward, they took their terminology from Latin. Botany was
no exception: following Linnaeus's system of binomial nomenclature, every
species was assigned a genus name and species name, both in Latin form
(although the root words from which these names were formed were often Greek or
from some other language). In England, these Latin (or Latinized) names were
all pronounced as Latin was pronounced in England at the time. There was at
this time no disagreement over the pronunciation of words in Latin. Even those
constructed on Greek roots were easy to pronounce for anyone with a classical
education (just as people of our generation knew how to pronounce
"internet" when the word first appeared, since although it was a new
word it was made up of familiar components.) Furthermore, many technical terms
were adopted straight from Latin into English, with perhaps only a minor change
in form. Many of these borrowings from Latin are transparent to us today: area,
species, orbit, formula, momentum.
Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Open Your Mouth...
By the late nineteenth century, linguists had worked out,
based on careful study of ancient sources and comparisons between the various
Romance languages, how Latin was actually pronounced in the classical era of
Caesar and Cicero. Latin began to be taught according to this reconstructed
classical pronunciation, rather than the English pronunciation that had been
familiar up to that time. This was a positive change in terms of appreciating
the previously forgotten sounds of the ancient language, but it gave rise to
problems in using the Latin or Latinized technical vocabulary of the sciences.
In most cases, the traditional English pronunciation was retained, as the words
had already become quite familiar. Thus species remained "SPEE-sheez"
(the traditional English pronunciation), rather than becoming
"SPEK-ee-ess" (the classical pronunciation).
Note: I've come across a few references that erroneously use
the word "traditional" to refer to the reconstructed classical
pronunciation of Latin. In this context, the word "traditional" does
not mean "oldest", but instead refers to what has been handed down
through tradition (with changes along the way), rather than what has been
reconstructed by linguists studying ancient Latin.
But for words less often encountered, such as the names of
lesser-known genera and species, English speakers after 1900 were left in a
state of uncertainty. The traditional English pronunciation was no longer being
taught, and fewer people had any instruction in Latin at all. So from the 20th
century on, people encountering a Latin species name for the first time would
either (1) use the traditional English pronunciation if they could infer it
from the pronunciation of similar names they had actually heard spoken, (2) use
the classical Latin pronunciation if they had learned this in school or from
books, or (3) make something up. You will find all of these approaches
evidenced in the pronunciation guides now in circulation, almost always mixed
together without much attempt at consistency.
Botany (or biology, more broadly speaking), I think, has
suffered worse from this confusion than the other sciences that make use of
Latin terms, simply because we have so many names to contend with (many of
which will be encountered in writing before they are ever heard), rather than a
manageable set of technical terms whose pronunciation is reinforced by use in
conversation. It is small wonder that writers on the subject have given up
trying to maintain a pronunciation system that is shared by all.
OK. Now What?
So what is one to do, assuming that one is actually
interested in pronouncing the names in a way that has some basis in linguistic
tradition, rather than just arbitrary guesswork? For me, it comes down to two
viable choices: (1) use the traditional English pronunciation, or (2) use a
mixture of the traditional and classical systems, informed and tempered by the
practices of people you converse with.
Why not just use the classical pronunciations exclusively?
Surely this has the best claim to being the "real" pronunciation of
Latin. The reason is that many plant names have become familiar in their
traditional English pronunciation, and they are here to stay. Iris itself is a
perfect example. The classical pronunciation is "EE-ris". Try this at
your next local iris society meeting or at your local nursery and see how it
goes. Many other examples are easy to come by. Who is going to talk of
"gair-AH-ni-ums" instead of "jer-AY-ni-ums"?
"SAY-dum" instead of "SEE-dum"? "nar-KISS-us"
instead of "nar-SISS-us"? (If you do adopt a consistently classical
pronunciation, though, you will come closer to the way many non-English
speakers pronounce the names.)
My own inclination is to use the traditional English
pronunciation, up to the point where it isolates me from contemporary practice
in my area. An example is the term plicata, which is "pli-KAH-ta"
classically and "pli-KAY-ta" traditionally. In North America, at
least, I don't ever expect to hear the latter as the name for the familiar iris
color pattern - or the pseudo-species for which it was named. I will, however,
say "re-tik-yoo-LAY-ta", "flor-en-TYE-na", and
"hoog-i-AY-na", even though I often hear
"ret-tik-yoo-LAH-ta", "flor-en-TEE-na", and
"hoog-i-ANN-a". The traditional English pronunciations have several
advantages. We can use English words borrowed from Latin as a pronunciation
guide (alpine helps us pronounce alpinus, albino helps us pronounce albinus,
variegated helps us pronounce variegata, etc.) It also provides a consistency
that reinforces the pronunciation of common elements in different names, and
thus makes new names easier to pronounce when you encounter them. Finally, it
connects us to the English-speaking botanists and gardeners of the past, who
knew no other way to pronounce Latin. W. R. Dykes and Sir Michael Foster are
excellent company, in my view.
If you mix traditional and classical pronunciations
(provided you get your mix from listening to others, rather than randomly),
then your choices are less likely to stand out in your locality, and will
probably come closer to what people in your area would expect, having
encountered the names only in writing.
Etiquette
Just in case anyone should interpret the above to imply that
I'm some kind of obsessive pronunciation enforcement officer, have no fear. It
is bad manners to correct anyone's pronunciation, particularly in an area where
informed people can and do have different preferences. My approach is to
respect others' informed choices, to encourage struggling beginners (it's much
more important that they want to talk about iris species at all than that they
pronounce them well), and to work to inform myself as best I can, so that I can
be a resource to others if asked. In my experience the oft-cited unpleasantness
of people correcting each other's pronunciation is a rarity.
An Anecdote in Three Parts
Let me conclude with a story of one iris name and its
pronunciation, spanning several decades. When I was a teenager, I was already
interested in Latin and knew its (classical) pronunciation rules. In one of our
iris society round robins (a sort of pre-internet discussion group, conducted
through the quaint media of paper, typewriters, and envelopes), the question
came up of how to pronounce Iris pseudacorus. I asserted that pseuda- meant
"false" and that I didn't know whether corus had a long or short o in
Latin, which would determine which syllable to stress. Bee Warburton, one of
the iris world's luminaries, patiently explained that there is plant called
Acorus, the sweet flag, that the prefix pseudo- lost its -o- in the compound,
and that Acorus is stressed on the first syllable. So the pronunciation can
only be "sood-ACK-or-us". It was my first encounter with the names as
living words, words that could be understood if you knew about the plants as
well as the language.
Recently, while attending an open house at an amazing
display garden in my area, someone remarked on irises growing in a watercourse,
and asked if they were Louisianas. The garden owner said they were not, but
could not recall the name. He said they were the fleur-de-lis. Being helpful, I
suggested pseudacorus. Because I was stressing the a instead of the o, he
didn't recognize my suggestion as being the same as the name he had read in
books. I mention this because it provides a cautionary note to the oft-repeated
advice to "say it however you like, people will understand". There
are some advantages to using a shared pronunciation.
Finally, out of curiosity, I decided to try to verify
Warburton's assertion that the a is stressed, and that it is short. Internet
searches quickly revealed many web sites stating with authority that the
pronunciation is "sood-AY-cor-us", many others stating with authority
that it is "sood-ACK-or-us", plenty holding out for
"sood-a-COR-us", and one lone site with enough honesty (or
bewilderment) to offer a choice of pronunciations. None of them provided the
etymology in enough detail that I could verify the vowel lengths in either
Latin or Greek. In this research game, you soon find that the older the source,
the more reliable, consistent, and informed it is likely to be. If you can get
back to the nineteenth century, any book you find is likely to be written by
someone who actually knew some Latin and Greek, and who had a good idea what
the words meant and how they had been adapted. Sure enough, I eventually came
upon A Manual of Scientific Terms: Pronouncing, Etymological, and Explanatory;
Chiefly Comprising Terms in Botany, Natural History, Anatomy, Medicine, and
Veterinary Science: with an Appendix of Specific Names, by the Reverend James
Stormonth (1885, digitized by Google), wherein I learned that all three vowels
are short in Greek akoros as well as in Latin acorus. Bee was right all along.
Not that I doubted that.
Footnote: -oides
One often finds, in pronunciation guides that are informed
and careful, the advice that this ending, common in plant names, should be
pronounced "oh-EYE-deez". The reasoning is sound: -ides comes from
Greek -eidos, "resembling", with the -o- as a connective. Thus the i
is long, and the short o is separate from it. Yet strangely, I kept encountering
venerable and reliable sources suggesting it be pronounced "OY-deez".
Why should that be? I learned that in the traditional English pronunciation of
Latin, when two vowels are in hiatus, the first usually became long.
Furthermore, oi is a diphthong in Anglo-Latin, though an uncommon one. Since most
of the words with this ending are coined technical terms, not natural
borrowings into Latin from Greek, early speakers of scientific Latin in England
may have had some latitude in pronunciation, whether to regard the -oi- as a
diphthong or not. In the cases where a coined Latin word with this ending was
borrowed fully into English (asteroid being a prime example), the
-oi- was pronounced as a diphthong. "OY-deez" is certainly more
natural for English speakers than the trisyllabic alternative.
Interesting factoid.
