pronunciations

Liz Day beebuzz at kiva.net
Sat Jul 28 00:39:24 EDT 2001


For what it's worth:

J.S. Smith, in _Vascular Plant Families_ (1977), says the following stuff, 
and refers readers to a 1966 500-page book on botanical latin by a W.T. 
Stearn, that I gather he got it from.   (There is also an amusing paragraph 
about the differences of opinion that exist on pronunciation.   Not being 
any kind of expert, I wouldn't know.)

(Stuff related to things people have asked:)

"The letters J, U, and W did not occur in the classical [Latin] 
alphabet.  Some ... insist, for instance, that _Castilleja_ should be 
spelled _Castilleia_."

"The dipthongs ae and oe have the sound [of a long e]."

"The consonants c and g are soft (have the sounds "s" and "j") if they are 
followed by ae, e, i, oe, or y.  Otherwise, c is pronounced as "k" and the 
g is hard...."

"An x [at the beginning of a word] is pronounced as a "z", not "ek-z".

Nothing in there gives any guidance to saying "catocala".   Since an actual 
catocala just entered the room, I will leave this to Borror and get off the 
machine now.

cheers,
Liz

-------------------------------------------------------------
Liz Day
Indianapolis, Indiana, central USA  (40 N, ~86 W)
Home of budgerigar Tweeter and the beautiful pink inchworm (Eupithecia 
miserulata).
USDA zone 5b.  Winters ~20F, summers ~85F.  Formerly temperate deciduous 
forest.
daylight at kiva.net
www.kiva.net/~daylight
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