Homoeomma or Homeoemma?

[Justin H]

Hey guys!

Homoeomma or Homeoemma?

I'm just trying to figure this out out of curiosity. Both of these spellings are littered across the web... even on sites describing taxonomy changes. Are these two different genre? Or is it just a misspelling?

 

[TownesVanZandt]

Hey guys!

Homoeomma or Homeoemma?

I'm just trying to figure this out out of curiosity. Both of these spellings are littered across the web... even on sites describing taxonomy changes. Are these two different genre? Or is it just a misspelling?

Homoeomma is the correct spelling.

 

[The Grym Reaper]

Homoeomma

 

[ErinM31]

It is a rather strange-looking genus name and I won’t even try to pronounce it!

 

[The Seraph]

It is a rather strange-looking genus name and I won’t even try to pronounce it!

Read @AphonopelmaTX response below.

 

[Patherophis]

It is a rather strange-looking genus name and I won’t even try to pronounce it!

It's quite simple, /home-oma/.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

It's pronounced something like this... hoe-mee-oh-muh. I don't know how to write out a proper phonetic pronunciation so @Patherophis maybe saying the same thing. The "oe" is what is supposed to be a diphthong (combined 'o' and 'e'). You will have to look it up, since the combined character 'oe' and 'ae' doesn't appear on my keyboard.

When you see "oe" or "ae" in a scientific name, it has the long 'e' sound like in the word "tree". Some more examples:

Poecilotheria > Peecilotheria
Theraphosidae > Theraphosidee
Theraphosinae > Theraphosinee
Psalmopoeus > Psalmopeeus
Thrigmopoeus > Thrigmopeeus

and so on..

I don't include what syllable to put the emphasis since that kind of depends on one's native language and how one pronounces words in general. When it comes to the pronunciation of scientific names, there are a lot of liberties taken and no one really pronounces them the same way. The Latin and Greek words that are used to make up the name of a taxon is Anglicized and doesn't conform to the actual pronunciation rules of either language.

For the proper spelling of any taxon, see the World Spider Catalog - Theraphosidae.

 

[ErinM31]

It's pronounced something like this... hoe-mee-oh-muh. I don't know how to write out a proper phonetic pronunciation so @Patherophis maybe saying the same thing. The "oe" is what is supposed to be a diphthong (combined 'o' and 'e'). You will have to look it up, since the combined character 'oe' and 'ae' doesn't appear on my keyboard.

When you see "oe" or "ae" in a scientific name, it has the long 'e' sound like in the word "tree". Some more examples:

Poecilotheria > Peecilotheria
Theraphosidae > Theraphosidee
Theraphosinae > Theraphosinee
Psalmopoeus > Psalmopeeus
Thrigmopoeus > Thrigmopeeus

and so on..

I don't include what syllable to put the emphasis since that kind of depends on one's native language and how one pronounces words in general. When it comes to the pronunciation of scientific names, there are a lot of liberties taken and no one really pronounces them the same way. The Latin and Greek words that are used to make up the name of a taxon is Anglicized and doesn't conform to the actual pronunciation rules of either language.

For the proper spelling of any taxon, see the World Spider Catalog - Theraphosidae.

So that means they aren’t pokies but peecees?! Having interest in both science and language, I really ought to know this kind of thing...

Thank you for the info!

 

[Patherophis]

It's pronounced something like this... hoe-mee-oh-muh. I don't know how to write out a proper phonetic pronunciation so @Patherophis maybe saying the same thing. The "oe" is what is called a diphthong. When you see "oe" or "ae" in a scientific name, it has the long 'e' sound like in the word "tree". Some more examples:

Poecilotheria > Peecilotheria
Theraphosidae > Theraphosidee
Theraphosinae > Theraphosinee
Psalmopoeus > Psalmopeeus
Thrigmopoeus > Thrigmopeeus

and so on..

I don't include what syllable to put the emphasis since that kind of depends on one's native language and how one pronounces words in general. When it comes to the pronunciation of scientific names, there are a lot of liberties taken and no one really pronounces them the same way.

For the proper spelling of any taxon, see the World Spider Catalog - Theraphosidae.

I was just about to edit my post to include this. What I have written is "european" pronunciation, here ae and oe are read /e/(not perfect example, but bear is closest I can think right now), while in english pronunciation it is /i/ as You pointed. I would trancript english pronunciation as /homi-oma/.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

So that means they aren’t pokies but peecees?! Having interest in both science and language, I really ought to know this kind of thing...

Thank you for the info!

You got it! Tarantulas of the genus Poecilotheria should be called "peekies" not "pokies"!

 

[dangerforceidle]

I was just about to edit my post to include this. What I have written is "european" pronunciation, here ae and oe are read /e/(not perfect example, but bear is closest I can think right now), while in english pronunciation it is /i/ as You pointed. I would trancript english pronunciation as /homi-oma/.

Do I have to pronounce the emoji?

 

[Patherophis]

So that means they aren’t pokies but peecees?!

Yes.

You got it! Tarantulas of the genus Poecilotheria should be called "peekies" not "pokies"!

What abot that "k" ?

Do I have to pronounce the emoji?

I wanted to have there ":" instead of "-", but it kept changing into emoji.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

What abot that "k" ?

Well, the letter 'c' in scientific names follows the proper Latin pronunciation of always having a hard 'k' sound as in the word "kite." So the first syllable of Poecilotheria would sound like 'peek' thus the vernacular term "peekie." I assume the term "pokie" was formed in the same way where whoever started using it understood the proper pronunciation of the letter 'c' but not the 'oe.' That or the term "peekie" sounded too silly. If you spell "peekie" as "peecee" or "peecie" then English speakers would probably pronounce it incorrectly as 'pee-see'.

For the record, I don't use either "peekie" or "pokie" since they both sound too silly for my taste. I prefer "tiger spider." But I do pronounce Poecilotheria as Peekilotheria.

 

[Patherophis]

Well, the letter 'c' in scientific names follows the proper Latin pronunciation of always having a hard 'k' sound as in the word "kite." So the first syllable of Poecilotheria would sound like 'peek' thus the vernacular term "peekie." I assume the term "pokie" was formed in the same way where whoever started using it understood the proper pronunciation of the letter 'c' but not the 'oe.' That or the term "peekie" sounded too silly. If you spell "peekie" as "peecee" or "peecie" then English speakers would probably pronounce it incorrectly as 'pee-see'.

For the record, I don't use either "peekie" or "pokie" since they both sound too silly for my taste. I prefer "tiger spider." But I do pronounce Poecilotheria as Peekilotheria.

I would disagree here. Yes, in Clasical Latin "c" would always be pronounced /k/, but scientific nomenclature does not belongs to Classical Latin and does not follows its pronunciation. Scientific nomenclature belongs to New Latin. Simplified, we are not supposed to pronounce scientific names as Ancient Romans would, they wouldnt, almost none of them even existed at that times, we are supposed to try to pronounce them as great scientists of 18. and 19. centuries, who created most of them, would. Btw in times when "c" was /k/ at any possition, oe was pronounced /oi/, so You are quite incosistent, You use ancient Roman pronunciation of "c" and combine it with modern English pronunciation of "oe".

I think that one who created that term had no idea about pronunciation at all.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

I would disagree here. Yes, in Clasical Latin "c" would always be pronounced /k/, but scientific nomenclature does not belongs to Classical Latin and does not follows its pronunciation. Scientific nomenclature belongs to New Latin. Simplified, we are not supposed to pronounce scientific names as Ancient Romans would, they wouldnt, almost none of them even existed at that times, we are supposed to try to pronounce them as great scientists of 18. and 19. centuries, who created most of them, would. Btw in times when "c" was /k/ at any possition, oe was pronounced /oi/, so You are quite incosistent, You use ancient Roman pronunciation of "c" and combine it with modern English pronunciation of "oe".

I think that one who created that term had no idea about pronunciation at all.

You are absolutely correct that I am being inconsistent with using Latin pronunciation in scientific names. However, languages are not my area of expertise so I only follow what others have taught so I can't take full responsibility when it comes to those inconsistencies. When I set out to learn how to pronounce scientific names, I first learned it from biological sources then learned a little on how classic Latin was pronounced. I reached the exact same conclusion you stated on how scientific nomenclature does not follow the pronunciation of classical Latin. What confused me, and still does, is how biologists pick and choose what to pronounce in the classical way and what to pronounce in the English way. I still get confused on how to pronounce the names that have Greek roots, but stay with the "biologists' way" instead of trying to figure out the proper Latin or Greek way. To make things even more confusing is when biologists use scientific names as adjectives. Such as using a family or subfamily name to describe a group of spiders, or other organisms. For example, "theraphosid spider" to refer to a spider belonging to the family Theraphosidae. I had to ask professional arachnologists how that is in any way proper for Latin and was basically told that it wasn't.

Something of interest I stumbled upon was using Google Translate to hear how it would pronounce scientific names both in Latin and English. If you type in a genus name like "Psalmopoeus", choose Latin in the "translate from" field and English in the "translate to" field, you will see that no translation occurs but you can hear how the software pronounces the word in both Latin and English. To my surprise, the English version pronounces it in accordance with the rules of biological nomenclature with the same inconsistencies you pointed out in my description while the Latin version sounds different since it uses what sounds like classical Latin. It's like Google can recognize biological nomenclature and pronounces it "correctly" for English. I haven't tried other languages though, but I will try it out and see what happens.

This is a good discussion. I will look into what you said about scientific nomenclature belonging to New Latin. I have never heard of "New Latin" before now.

 

[lostbrane]

Something of interest I stumbled upon was using Google Translate to hear how it would pronounce scientific names

I’m pretty sure Latin in google translate is directly substituted by the Italian audio database (last I checked anyway).

 

[Patherophis]

You are absolutely correct that I am being inconsistent with using Latin pronunciation in scientific names. However, languages are not my area of expertise so I only follow what others have taught so I can't take full responsibility when it comes to those inconsistencies. When I set out to learn how to pronounce scientific names, I first learned it from biological sources then learned a little on how classic Latin was pronounced. I reached the exact same conclusion you stated on how scientific nomenclature does not follow the pronunciation of classical Latin. What confused me, and still does, is how biologists pick and choose what to pronounce in the classical way and what to pronounce in the English way. I still get confused on how to pronounce the names that have Greek roots, but stay with the "biologists' way" instead of trying to figure out the proper Latin or Greek way. To make things even more confusing is when biologists use scientific names as adjectives. Such as using a family or subfamily name to describe a group of spiders, or other organisms. For example, "theraphosid spider" to refer to a spider belonging to the family Theraphosidae. I had to ask professional arachnologists how that is in any way proper for Latin and was basically told that it wasn't.

Something of interest I stumbled upon was using Google Translate to hear how it would pronounce scientific names both in Latin and English. If you type in a genus name like "Psalmopoeus", choose Latin in the "translate from" field and English in the "translate to" field, you will see that no translation occurs but you can hear how the software pronounces the word in both Latin and English. To my surprise, the English version pronounces it in accordance with the rules of biological nomenclature with the same inconsistencies you pointed out in my description while the Latin version sounds different since it uses what sounds like classical Latin. It's like Google can recognize biological nomenclature and pronounces it "correctly" for English. I haven't tried other languages though, but I will try it out and see what happens.
This is a good discussion. I will look into what you said about scientific nomenclature belonging to New Latin. I have never heard of "New Latin" before now.

Can't speak for English speaking biologists, here we strictly follow central european form of new Latin and while we are aware of classical way we don't let it interfere.
As for Greek, while greek roots are very common (actually there are more names of greek than latin origin), they are usually used in latinized form and following latin pronunciation.

Google Translate English can pronounce most names in English Latin way, but still has problem with some, for example containing "cae", "coe" or "cc". Most ridiculous thing was when I wrote "coelom" and it showed correct phonetic transcription but incorect sound record.
As @lostbrane says, Google Translate Latin is just Italian, and also has some problems IIRC, so it does not even represens Italian Latin correctly. (Very prominent feature of both Italian and Italian Latin is "c" in non-k positions pronounced as english "ch".)

 

[FrDoc]

Interesting how people refer to Latin as a "dead" language, given that there are several forms, e.g., classical, mediaeval, ecclesiastical, "new", all with very distinct pronunciation. It's the language that just keeps on keepin' on... Not to mention it makes you sound wicked smart, like @AphonopelmaTX .

 

[Vanisher]

Xenesthis= Senestis

 

[Patherophis]

Xenesthis= Senestis

Where did You get that from? All temporal and local variations of Latin coincide in "x" representing /ks/ (sometimes altered into /gz/).

Edit: @Vanisher I am sorry, it seems that "x" is altered into /z/ at the beggining of word in some English pronunciations.