Latin Pronunciation: Help please!

[Stoic]

First off, let me say that I've tried to make all pronunciation examples easy to understand by my primarily american-english speaking audience. For me, the pronunciation is plainly evident in the latin word itself and requires no "translation".
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Is it better to sound like an idiot and be correct, or to sound correct and be an idiot? The reason I ask this is because I'm terribly confused by the way most people pronounce latin names. That, and I get some strange looks from other people when I "speak spider" (latin).

"Avicularia" is a prime example. I pronounce this "ah-vi-kuu-LAHR-ee-ah", as I follow basic LATIN rules of pronunciation (not english rules, as english rules are totally <edit>, as well is irrelevent when pronouncing latin). However, everybody I've ever heard pronounce "avicularia" says it "uh-vic-yuu-LAIR-ee-uh", which as far as I know, is totally wrong and sloven.

An example I'm going to use for dissection is the ever popular "Julius Caesar". How is this pronounced? It's "JUUL-ee-us SEEZ-er", right?

WRONG.

Let me point out some of the basics here:

1. Latin contains no soft "J" sounds. This should be pronounced more like "YUU-lee-uus".
2. Latin contains no soft "C" sounds. This should be pronounced more like "KAI-sar" (sort of like "sky" for those of you who have been speaking english for far too long).

As you can see, if we apply the simplist latin pronunciation rules to latin names, it totally changes the way most people say them. Am I missing something here? Is everybody mispronouncing everying, or am I just making myself look stupid?

Thoughts, comments and questions are all welcome. Please feel free to flame me if I'm wrong about this, as I fully realize that I probably just insulted 99% of the viewers on this forum.

Regards,
Stoic

 

[bananaman]

Its all here: http://atshq.org/articles/beechwp1.html
Hope it helps... cheers...

 

[Amanda]

You know... I don't think I've ever heard another keeper say "avicularia" out loud (not many around here), but I never questioned saying anything but "ah-vi-kuu-LAHR-ee-ah". Do people really commonly pronounce it the other way?

PS. I actually did take Latin for three years, lol.

Latin is a pretty simple language to pronounce once you know the rules... no exceptions to any of them. It's the scientific names that aren't Latin-based that trip me up.

 

[By-Tor]

Julius Ceazer pronounced Yulias Kaiser...now you are sounding german

 

[Merfolk]

I heard 'Po-see-lo-téria'

I had latin courses as a child, and since I speak French and know that other european languages has a latin base as well, it helps understand some spanish and italian ; english has a latin influence too but to a lesser degree.

I read some translations of T's latin names and some were really funny!!!!

Like, Avicularia means 'bird eater' (i am sure they can and do sometimes in the wild, but, Oh boy this is really not the one you associate with bird eaters!!!)

Phormictopus : Something like 'ant legs' (not sure)

Some other latin words used with T's that I remember:

Ptero : wing
Chiro:hand
Cyano: blue
Theria: beast


Add yours...

 

[Thoth]

The problem scientific names is that they are combination of greek and latin,
each with its own set of pronounciation rules, so taxonomist came up with a standard pronounciations which follow but do not strictly adhere to the various rules of both languages (which are sometime scounter intuitive to english pronounciations).

Also latin has several ways of prononciation classical (or golden age), silver age, and ecclesiatical (or Vatican)

 

[Taceas]

Amo te, Stoic.

I had 4 years of Latin in high school, sadly I've forgotten most of it now. But the parts that our teacher really pounded into us in preparation for college was mostly the root derivatives of words, both Latin and Greek. What a life-saver those have been!

Sometimes, I too find myself being totally absurd and pronouncing things incorrectly to the general public, but correctly from a Latin standpoint. I pronounce Avicularia the way that you do. It just made sense to me.

French and most other 'Romanesque' languages are merely really poorly pronounced provincial Latin.

English is of the Germanic roots surprisingly enough. Most of the UK was speaking some variation of Gaelic which is a native tongue, until the Angles/Saxons from Germany/Denmark and then the Normans from France, when they invaded the British Isles. So you have some German/Gaelic/French/Latin all wrapped up into one common language, English.

Merfolk, I think you're getting your Latin and Greek confused. =P

In Latin:
manus = hand
caeruleus = blue
penna = wing
bestia = beast

 

[Cerbera]

Interesting: I have always pronounced poecilotheria as poe-kile-o-ther-ee-a or poe-kill-o-ther-ee-a... if that wasn't right, wouldn't they be nicknamed 'pocies' (poe-see's) ?? Not that i profess to know either way...

But while I'm here, one thing I am confident on... for anyone who doesn't know, chelicerae is apparently pronounced 'ke-lis-er-eye', the singular being chelicera 'keli-ser-a'

 

[Merfolk]

Made a quick search, you were right on this. Ptero is Greek

I completely forgot the bits of ancien Greek thrown in my course (which I had in 1981, normal that I forgot )

So it is not Latin name we should say, but scientific name!!!

 

[RVS]

Here's a thread off of another board I found very helpful:
http://www.arachnofreaks.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=25

 

[Stoic]

The first reply to this thread, by Bananaman, includes a site (http://atshq.org/articles/beechwp1.html) with some seriously distorted pronunciations.

I'll pick a common one: Poecilotheria.

According to that page, Poecilotheria should be pronounced "pee-suh-luh-THI-ree-uh". I simply cannot accept that pronunciation.

I understant that everybody has there own way to pronounce latin, but I also cannot accept this excuse. Latin is latin, not greek. I firmly believe that all latin names should be pronounced as latin, not greek or german or whatever, as that is just confusing, pointless and impossible. Quite simply, it's called latin. Not greek. Not german. Latin.

If the catholic church decides that 2+2=5, does that make it true? Why does this same logic seem to apply to latin pronunciation?

As far as I'm concerned, that page mentioned earlier is wrong. That goes for the page mentioned by RVS as well (I cracked up a few times listening to those). The only thing helpful about either of these sites is that they teach you how to NOT pronounce latin.

Here is an excellent PDF explaining how latin really works: http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/latinpro.pdf

Stoic

 

[treeweta]

I find that people always pronounce the names differently. What i do find annoying is when some know it all reels of scientific names at speed (even if correct) assuming that everybody else knows their pronunciation, a differenct pronunciation can give the impression of a totally different word.

I remember calling the zebra see-man-eye then i heard it called sem-an-eye at the BTS show. The pronunciation isnt important, hell, im from northern England and living in illinois, i pronouce everything differently than the people round here!

treeweta.

 

[Thoth]

First scientific names are not strictly latin but an amalgam of latin and greek (occasionally within the same word)

Poecilitheria is greek, and perfectly correct greek pronunciation. The word coelm is pronounced seelim (anytime you see *oe*, pt* et c the word is of greek origin.)

Also there is little difference between Ecclesitical (Vatican) and Classical (Golden age) pronounciation.

Stoic, that chart has some errors which does not jibe with classical latin (or even Vatican) pronunciations in my textbooks (i'll post exact reference when I get home).

 

[Lover of 8 legs]

Do you guys have an audio version of Arachnoboards? I didn't realize that there was such an animal! I don't bother with being so picky over pronunciation. It's all about communication. You know what I "meen". Good! But if we are going to be picky, let's goalltheway and try to get the English in the ball park.LOL

 

[bananaman]

The first reply to this thread, by Bananaman, includes a site (http://atshq.org/articles/beechwp1.html) with some seriously distorted pronunciations.

I'll pick a common one: Poecilotheria.

According to that page, Poecilotheria should be pronounced "pee-suh-luh-THI-ree-uh". I simply cannot accept that pronunciation.

I understant that everybody has there own way to pronounce latin, but I also cannot accept this excuse. Latin is latin, not greek. I firmly believe that all latin names should be pronounced as latin, not greek or german or whatever, as that is just confusing, pointless and impossible. Quite simply, it's called latin. Not greek. Not german. Latin.

If the catholic church decides that 2+2=5, does that make it true? Why does this same logic seem to apply to latin pronunciation?

As far as I'm concerned, that page mentioned earlier is wrong. That goes for the page mentioned by RVS as well (I cracked up a few times listening to those). The only thing helpful about either of these sites is that they teach you how to NOT pronounce latin.

Here is an excellent PDF explaining how latin really works: http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/latinpro.pdf

Stoic

Please call the American Tarantula Society and tell them

 

[Stoic]

First scientific names are not strictly latin but an amalgam of latin and greek (occasionally within the same word)

Poecilitheria is greek, and perfectly correct greek pronunciation. The word coelm is pronounced seelim (anytime you see *oe*, pt* et c the word is of greek origin.)

Also there is little difference between Ecclesitical (Vatican) and Classical (Golden age) pronounciation.

Stoic, that chart has some errors which does not jibe with classical latin (or even Vatican) pronunciations in my textbooks (i'll post exact reference when I get home).

I understand that today's latin is an "amalgam of latin and greek". However, we do not commonly refer to this monstrosity as an "amalgam of latin and greek". All the inclusion of greek does is overcomplicate things and make everybody mispronounce words.

Also, from my understanding of greek (which is minimal), they also pronounced their G's hard. People pronouncing Geniculata as "JEN-yeh-kyuu-lah-dah" just plain bothers me... It kind of sounds hillbilly to me.

This is kind of like tarantula measurement... The diagonal is obviously the best approach, but not everybody chooses to comform to the diagonal standard. Not that its impossible to measure a tarantula by other methods, but they are not as accurate and the number of different systems in use causes confusion.

Stoic

 

[Michael Jacobi]

Although well meaning, this debate is little more than mental masturbation. True Latin scholars argue pronunciation; I don't think some arachnid enthusiasts who have studied Latin can argue what is wrong and what is right.

Furthermore, the argument regarding pronunciation has a negative impact on the American hobbyist at large increasing his or her use of scientific names. In my experience, one of the things that makes many American arachnoculturists reluctant to use scientific names, which are not Latin names but names derived from Latin, Greek, geographical places, honorifics and more, is that they are worried that they will mispronounce them. I would argue that there is no such thing. Although I base my pronunciations on what I have gathered from casual research of the phonetics of ancient dead languages like Latin and old Greek, I disagree that any pronunciation is "right" or "wrong". As long as the individual can say the name in a manner that conveys which name is being said, it's all good. Any pronunciation is preferable to the use of common/popular/vernacular names. Additionally, these scientific names provide international hobbyists with a mutual language, and each person's pronunciation is going to be affected by regional accents, dialects, and the way certain letters are pronounced in his or her native language.

If you have time to debate linguistics ad nauseum... hey, have fun. But an overemphasis on what may or may not be correct, will only further the use of common names. And it is this name usage that we need to discourage.

Cheers, Michael

 

[Stoic]

In my experience, one of the things that makes many American arachnoculturists reluctant to use scientific names, which are not Latin names but names derived from Latin, Greek, geographical places, honorifics and more, is that they are worried that they will mispronounce them.

But what good is a latin name if everybody pronounces them differently? My argument is that latin pronunciation should be based on set rules that do not change "just because". This is the entire problem with latin, which ironically is very easy to overcome.

My mother's name is Judy. In spanish, the J is pronounced as a Y. Just because that's the way spanish works, does that make "Yudy" correct? No. Do you still understand what the person is talking about when they swap a J for a Y? It can definitely get confusing.

...an overemphasis on what may or may not be correct, will only further the use of common names. And it is this name usage that we need to discourage.

I agree that common names should be discouraged. However, given that so few people can pronounce latin names correctly, is latin really all that much better? If my latin pronunciations are so drastically different from somebody in Germany for example, then how are we supposed to understand each other? As long as we're going to change the pronunciation of names, why not just go ahead and totally rename them alltogether to something more locally acceptable?

My point is that we all (worldwide) should adhere to set pronunciations.

As it currently stands, when little Joey looks at the latin name written atop a deli cup containing an Androctonus australis, he has to think to himself "How in the hell do I pronounce this? Is it latin, german, greek, swahili, chinese, american or yiddish based?". If latin simply meant latin, this would not even be an issue.

Stoic

 

[Michael Jacobi]

An additional point concerning the ATS pronunciation guide:

It was written by Beechold, who is a professor of linguistics. I certainly do not have the background to determine how accurate his list is, and wouldn't suggest that it is without fault. However, since he is a language scholar, I'd be interested to hear the qualifications of those who would discredit it.

Cheers, Michael

 

[Stoic]

An additional point concerning the ATS pronunciation guide:

It was written by Beechold, who is a professor of linguistics. I certainly do not have the background to determine how accurate his list is, and wouldn't suggest that it is without fault. However, since he is a language scholar, I'd be interested to hear the qualifications of those who would discredit it.

Cheers, Michael

Ok, fine. Lets say that I give up. Lets say that there is no system to "amalgam of latin and every other language that ever existed on this planet, ever, including mispronunciations of every language" pronunciation, and I'm willing to go along with the flow.

Now how exactly am I supposed to pronounce things then? Beechold's list barely scratches the surface of, quite literally, every classified thing on the planet. How do I tell the difference between greek based and inuktitut (eskimo) based names? Or am I supposed to just convert everything to "american"?

Is it just me, or does this seem a whole lot harder than simply treating latin as latin?

Stoic