[leps-talk] English has become the lingua franca

[Barb Beck]

Chris,

The main problem with your proposal is that it ties the names to a
particular taxonomic interpretation.. There is a lot of flux in the
scientific names of butterflies AND THAT IS GOOD - things are being
discovered and new alignments made.  There will be some as the result in
common names but far less.  So a ssp becomes a species name - no big deal.
So a species is sunk to ssp level - still no problem.  Compton's
Tortoiseshell will be Compton's Tortoiseshell (unless NABA trashes the name)
no matter what happens to the scientific name.

Barb

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris J. Durden [mailto:drdn at mail.utexas.edu]
Sent: May 9, 2002 1:03 AM
To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
Cc: tiLS-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [leps-talk] English has become the lingua franca


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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