[leps-talk] English has become the lingua franca

[Chris J. Durden]

I have noticed that in some languages like French the default common name 
for a species is formed by vernacularizing the scientific name. If we 
applied this useful rule to English we could enjoy such names as the 
Antiope Nymphaly, the Plexippe Danay, the Rape Pieris, Macoun's Oenean and 
Fritz(gaertner)'s Celaenorrhine. This was tried in the 19th Century as 
noted by Scudder but did not seem to catch on. The advantage to this system 
would be that those who knew the scientific names would know which species 
was being talked about and others would no longer be intimidated by Latin 
word order and foreign-sounding words.
    I would advocate this approach for coining new common names for those 
species that did not have a well established American (or Canadian) English 
common name. Another benefit would be that no common name would be longer 
than two or three words.
    Remember that kids have no trouble with words they learn early. My 
mother was a gardener and she claimed my first word was Rhododendron.
................Chris Durden


At 11:38 PM 5/8/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Hmm-- Esperanto left out a few billion people! (and though I met many, even
>thirty years ago, who advocated it, I couldn't get a complete Esperanto 
>sentence
>out of any of them....)
>
>Del luego,
>
>Woody
>
>Michael Gochfeld wrote:
>
> > Ron,
> > Ironically, English has become the lingua franca (I presume French once 
> held
> > that distinction).  It offers many disadvantages in terms of grammar, but
> > Esperanto (a dream of the 1950's never really caught on).  That would have
> > given us the opportunity to coin a whole new bunch of vernacular names. 
> MIKE
> > GOCHFELD
> >
> > Ron Gatrelle wrote:
> >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Niklas Wahlberg" <Niklas.Wahlberg at zoologi.su.se>
> > > To: "leps-talk" <TILS-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 5:17 AM
> > > Subject: Re: [leps-talk] Dutch Names !!! No Finnish names!
> > >
> > > > No, no! I think Finnish names are even better! There are even less 
> people
> > > > speaking it in the world and we have such wonderfully long names. How
> > > about
> > > > punakeltaverkkoperhonen (Euphydryas aurinia)??!! :-D And the great 
> thing
> > > is
> > > > that you pronounce it like you pronounce the latin names...
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Niklas
> > > >
> > > > PS its almost summer here, saw a male auroraperhonen (Anthocharis
> > > > cardamines) and a couple of lanttuperhonen (Pieris napi) on my way to
> > > work
> > > > this morning.
> > >



 
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