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| Photo identifications L-R: Adenophyllum porophylloides (San Felipe dyssodia), Lagophylla ramosissima ssp. ramosissima (Branched hareleaf), Salvia munzii (Munz's sage) |
| Pronunciation |
Recent discussions have made me think about the pronunciation of the scientific names of plants in California. This is a complicated and confusing subject for a great variety of reasons. These names are often of Latin or Greek derivation or are derived from other languages, or based on proper or geographic names, or arrived at by some other fashion entirely, yet these names need to be spoken by people who are used to their own language and how it sounds to them. Regardless of where these names originated, they are all treated to some extent as if they were Latin. There are at least two basic systems of pronouncing botanical Latin names, the English system used by most gardeners and horticulturists in the English-speaking world and the more traditional reformed academic system utilized by classical scholars and in vogue among botanists in continental Europe. Other systems may exist in different parts of the world. Some pronunciations depend on whether the names are of Greek origin or not. Even within the guidelines of individual authorities, there are contradictions leading to different pronunciations. Many botanists and horticulturists still hold tight to classical rules of Latin pronunciation. And then there are personal preferences that may in many cases influence the choice of pronunciation. I here echo the sentiments of A.T. Johnson who stated in Plant Names Simplified that "the writer claims no infallibility." Several times during the course of researching this essay, I have almost decided not to continue with it because my intention was not to say to other people, "Your pronunciation is wrong," but rather to find out what rules or guidelines there were that would help me to be comfortable in speaking these names out loud, to be as consistent as possible, and to share them with others who might be interested, yet the conflicting opinions and guidelines as expressed by other authorities can be dizzying. I have been around many enough professional botanists to know that they all have their preferred ways of saying these names, ways that they have grown accustomed to in the course of their careers or which they were themselves taught. No doubt in most cases they are as correct as it is possible to be. They more than anyone know how tricky an endeavor it is to try to apply consistent standards of pronunciation, and for the most part I believe they don't feel they need to. For those of us who are less knowledgeable about botanical etymology, there is an urge to develop a nice tidy set of rules that we can apply to any given name. And despite the fact that botanical Latin does its best to resist this urge, even scholars have attempted to outline systems of proper pronunciation. I have been pleased in general to find that about 90% of the time my intuitive manner of pronouncing these names is in accord with or at least does not definitely violate the guidelines as set down here. It is the remaining 10% that causes most of the difficulties. Spelling is something that is determined by the International Botanical Congresses which are held every six years, the most recent being the 19th in 2017 in Shenzhen, China, but this body does not deal with pronunciation. As an aside, the 20th IBC was scheduled for 2023 in Madrid, Spain, but was postponed until 2024 due to the Covid pandemic. There are two things that are involved here: first, how the names are to be divided into syllables and properly accented, and, second, how the vowels and consonants are to be sounded. I quote from Coombes' Dictionary of Plant Names: "Unlike the use of scientific names, their pronunciation is not governed by rules. The majority of people who use scientific names treat them as if they are in their own language. Where pronunciation is ambiguous by this method, it is common to encounter several ways of saying a word." In researching the pronunciation of a specific name, it is often the case that several authors will give contrary pronunciations, which may reflect the fact that they are using different systems, and without knowing what is their preference, it is difficult to explain why one might say 'no-LIE-na' and another 'no-LEE-na.' Thus we are left with those guidelines mainly as outlined in works such as Stearn's Botanical Latin and Borror's Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms, and of course with the pronunciations that we are familiar with hearing. Botanical Latin is not classical Latin. That language was derived from the Roman writers of the early first millenium and remained the single internationally-used language of learning throughout Europe until at least the 18th century. Were this not the case, there might well be no uniform international system of botanical nomenclature today. Herbalists of the 16th century established the tradition subsequently taken up by Linnaeus that plants should be given Latin names. If there had been no common knowledge and usage of Latin, the vernacularly-written works of local botanists would have been unknown outside their own region. Linnaeus' work reflects the fact that a huge advance had been made in the knowledge of the complexities of structure and relationship of plants, and language had to expand accordingly. Botanical Latin however has grown far beyond its original form with the inclusion of vast numbers of new words describing things that were essentially unknown in the ancient world. Stearn makes the point that Pliny the Elder would have well understood the Latin descriptions of plants in the 15th and 16th centuries, but would have been lost by the divergent Latin of the 18th and 19th centuries. Proof of the giant leap in knowledge from the time of the ancients to the present day can be found in the fact that the early botanists like Theophrastus in the third century B.C. described about 500 plants, Pliny three centuries later described about 1000, herbalists of the 15th and 16th centuries perhaps 4000, Linnaeus in the 18th century around 7300, and modern botanists some 250,000 to 300,000 species of flowering plants. There is therefore little need to utilize strictly-classical Latin pronunciation. Over the years, usage has resulted in certain informal rules of pronunciation, but even these may give way to a person's own preferences, and are naturally influenced by such things as where he or she grew up, and what pronunciations they were exposed to during their lifetimes. It may seem simplistic, but what sounds right is often the best standard by which to decide how to pronounce botanical names. However, consistency of pronunciation is to be strived for, and the person who finds himself speaking such names aloud usually does develop a fairly uniform style. The Jepson Manual emphasizes the following points: (1) classical scholars don't always agree on pronunciation; (2) professional botanists vary significantly in their pronunciation; (3) individual botanists rarely are completely consistent in pronunciation; and (4) people tend to pronounce names the way they first learned them regardless of any subsequently-encountered rules, unless they make a conscious effort to learn a new pronunciation. William Stearn in his Botanical Latin says "Botanical Latin is essentially a written language, but the scientific names of plants often occur in speech. How they are pronounced really matters little provided they sound pleasant and are understood by all." And A.W. Smith in A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names echoes this sentiment by saying: "Within reasonable limits, nobody need be too disturbed about pronunciation." Obviously however some people are disturbed by pronunciation, but I believe that the sound and flow of the words should govern or certainly at least affect how they are pronounced, and therefore awkward or cumbersome pronunciations should be avoided even when they are technically pursuant to some rule. To quote the great horticulturist and Dean of American gardeners L.H. Bailey, "There is no standard agreement on rules for the pronunciation of botanical binomials. Even in the best practice, there may be variations in pronunciation of a given word; this is unavoidable, and no more to be regretted than similar variations in pronouncing many English words. The particular sound to be given the vowels (within the categories "long" and "short") rests with the individual." There are a few guidelines that may be helpful to those learning to pronounce the names I have included in this website. One should try to divide the names into separate syllables on the presumption that each vowel is a different syllable, and try to pronounce each and every syllable. This is not always the case because there are combinations of two vowels such as 'ae,' 'oe,' 'au,' 'ei,' and 'eu' (diphthongs) that form a single sound. In two-syllable words, there is no problem because the accent always falls on the first syllable (MI-nor or AS-per). The vowel of the stressed syllable is short if followed by two or more consonants (Cistus, angustifolia), and long if followed by a single consonant (Rosa). How it is stressed if the vowel is followed by another vowel is unclear. According to the traditional English system of pronunciation, for words of more than two syllables, the accent is customarily on the penultimate syllable where it contains a long vowel (vul-GAR-is or in-de-COR-um). Where that penultimate syllable consists of a short vowel the accent can fall either on that syllable or on the syllable preceding it (EL-e-gans or Di-TAX-is). Although in names of many syllables there can be a secondary stress toward the beginning, the primary stress is never on a syllable before the antepenultimate one. Some additional guidelines on classical systems of syllabification which have largely been preserved but which we need not be overly concerned with are: (1) a consonant between two vowels is united with the following vowel; (2) double consonants are separated between the syllables (stel-lata); (3) the consonant pair 'st' is divided between the syllables within a word (venus-tus); and (4) compound words are divided according to their root elements (tetra-phyllum). Many plant names have been formed from the proper names of botanists and collectors. As with other aspects of pronunciation, there are conflicting guidelines that apply here. The Jepson Manual suggests that the pronunciation of proper names be retained when they are incorporated into a botanical name. Sometimes this may be perfectly appropriate, as with hallii or jonesii, and names like parishii and douglasii may comfortably be stressed on either the first or second syllable. However it is frequently cumbersome as in the case of a name like Krascheninnikovia or with other names where the emphasis is on the first syllable of multi-syllable names such as Pearson ( peirsoniana), Eaton (eatonii) or Johnston (johnstonii). A fairly hard and fast rule of Latin accentuation is that no syllable before the antepenultimate one should be stressed, but exceptions have to be made in cases of names such as kennedyi or lemmonii where it would be awkward to accent any syllable but the first. Nevertheless, as a convention, it would probably be preferable to to try to retain the proper name's pronunciation when it can be done in a graceful manner, but there is no absolute right or wrong. When plant names are derived from foreign proper names, it presents another set of problems. Stearn makes the point that when the names are from languages we are familiar with such as the western European ones, we commonly try to retain their pronunciation, but when they derive from less familiar languages we often ignore this practice and just try to say them as though they were English names. Thus Gilia should be pronounced 'JEE-lee-a' because it derives from the Italian proper name Gilii and in Italian the 'g' is soft and an 'i' following a 'g' is pronounced as 'ee.' Similarly, Pluchea should be pronounced 'PLOO-shuh' because it derives from the French proper name Pluche and in French the 'ch' is spoken as 'sh,' and Viguiera should be pronounced 'vig-wee-AY-a' since the name it derives from is the French Viguier (VIG-wee-ay). Generic names (and those of species and subspecies) are typically made up of two, three, four, five, six or occasionally even more syllables. As a general rule, all vowels are to be spoken as separate syllables. Stearn gives the example of Cotoneaster, which should be pronounced 'co-to-ne-as-ter' and not 'cot-on-easter.' However, an exception is that certain diphthongs or other vowel combinations such as 'ae' as in Chamaesyce, Chaenactis or Suaeda, 'oe' as in Oenothera or Foeniculum, 'ei' as in Cheilanthes, 'ou' as in Acourtia, 'ai' as in Descurainia, 'eu' as in Eucnide, or 'au' as in Daucus, produce a single spoken sound and would be difficult in the extreme to pronounce individually. 'Ia' when at the end of a word is often spoken as a single sound, as in Ambrosia (am-BRO-zhe), but is more correctly pronounced as two syllables as in 'am-BRO-see-a', the sound of the 's' being somewhere between an 's' and a 'z'. My dictionary gives 'am-bro-zhe' as the proper pronunciation, but that refers to the common substance and not the botanical name. Artemisia and Freesia are two other similar names in which the 'ia' is often pronounced as 'zhe,' and although Fuchsia is commonly pronounced as 'FEW-shuh,' maintaining the pronunciation of the proper name it is derived from would require its being sounded as 'FEWK-see-a.' In the case of other such names as Aloysia, Ivesia, Jamesia, Bowlesia, Langloisia, Simmondsia, or Venegasia, it has not seemed proper to pronounce the final 'ia' as a single vowel sound. Incidentally, a Latin 'i' was pronounced as 'ee,' thus explaining pronunciations such as 'lat-i-FO-lee-us,' (latifolius) and 'am-AN-ee-a' (Ammannia). The general rule of Latin pronunciation as previously alluded to is that in words of more than two syllables the accent properly falls on the penultimate syllable when it contains a long vowel or diphthong, or when two or more consonants separate the last two vowels, but either on the penultimate or the antepenultimate (last syllable but two) syllable when the penultimate syllable contains a short vowel. Therefore the pronunciation could be either 'a-bro-NI-a' or 'a-BRO-ni-a' because the penultimate syllable is short, but 'cor-on-O-pus' instead of 'cor-O-no-pus' because the penultimate syllable ('o') is long. A.W. Smith, who gives phonetic spellings according to the English system, says, "There is no hard and fast rule. When at a loss, use the one that sounds best." Sometimes names are pronounced with either three or four syllables, such as Ambrosia (am-BRO-zhe or am-BRO-see-a) or Ivesia (IVES-ee-a or i-VEES-ee-a) and this may alter where the stress is placed. Some names may be correctly pronounced according to two different aspects of the rule. A good example would be Sarcostemma, which since its penultimate syllable is short should have the stress placed on the antepenultimate syllable, thus accenting it as 'sar-COS-temma.' This also corresponds with the rule about separating the consonant pair 'st.' However, since its final two vowels are divided by two consonents, it could be equally correct to say that the stress should be placed on the penultimate syllable, thus making it 'sar-co-STEM-ma.' This corresponds with the advice to maintain the integrity of the root words that make up the name, in this case, STEMMA, a crown or garland. Another example would be Porophyllum (either por-OFF-il-um or por-oh-PHYLL-um). In both of these cases, I have heard them pronounced either way. Other names that would seem to fit under both rules of pronunciation, such as Haplopappus, Chamomilla, Keckiella, and Coreopsis, all of which have both penultimate syllables with short vowel sounds and two consonents dividing the final two vowels, are pronounced in a single fairly standard and commonly-accepted fashion. It appears to me (and I will continue to study further examples to see if this really is the case) that the rule about two consonents dividing the final two vowels has usually but not always trumped the rule regarding the penultimate syllable with a short vowel in cases where both apply, but there will never be total consistency. Borror's Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining
Forms has the most extensive explanation of pronunciation
that I've found. He includes the following rules. In names beginning
with Ps (Psilocarphus), Pt (Pterostegia), Ct (Ctenium),
Cn (Cnicus), Gn (Gnaphalium) or Mn (Mniopsis),
the initial letter is silent, but when these letters appear together
within a name, the initial letter is pronounced as in Eucnide (yook-NY-dee) or ignota (ig-NO-ta). Interestingly, he does
not mention Pn (Pneumonanthe) which follows the same principle
and which we are more familiar with from the word 'pneumonia.'
A vowel placed at the end of a name takes the long sound (Cakile, cooperi), except for 'a' which is elided to sound like
'uh' (Clarkia). The vowel before a consonant in the final
syllable of a name takes the short sound (Carex, Chloris),
except for 'es' which sounds like ease (as in Fragmites).
An 'x' sounds like 'z' at the beginning of a name (Xanthium),
but like 'ks' within the name (Ditaxis). 'Ch' usually has
the 'k' sound except in names derived from languages other than
Greek. When a 'cc' is followed by an 'i' or a 'y,' it sounds like
'ks' (occidentalis, 'oks-i-dent-al-is' or flaccidus,
'flak-si-dus'). In his section on accentuation, he includes the
following as cases of stress being placed on the penultimate
syllable: words ending in '-ina' (he gives Spartina as
an example), words ending in '-ica' (he gives Melica as
an example although other sources put the stress on the antepenultimate
syllable), and word ending in '-pogon' (Tragopogon would
surely be an example but as with the previous reference, other
sources stress the antepenultimate syllable). These may well be
examples of the more classical pronunciation as used in Europe and thus may not
be in common use in America. because I have seen for instance
sources that pronounce 'flaccidus' as 'fla-si-dus.' Apparently in the system commonly used in the U.S. and Great Britain, a 'cc' followed by an 'i' or 'y' can be pronounced as 'ks' or 's' or 'k.' Thus, ok-si-den-talis, flas-i-dus, and brek-ee-ar-um. Many names exist about which it is difficult to know for certain how they should be properly pronounced. Vowels in particular present problems. An English 'a' can be pronounced as in 'car,' or 'cat,' or 'call,' or 'care,' or 'came,' or 'capacity.' An 'e' can be pronounced as in 'pet,' 'penultimate,' 'personal,' or as the second 'e' in 'pendent.' Depending on how one pronounces the 'a' in the penultimate syllable, it could be either 'FY-lah-go' or 'fy-LAY-go' and 'PLAN-tah-go' or 'plan-TAY-go,' and if you just see the name written down without knowing from what it is derived, you would have no idea whether the 'a' should be long or short or something in between. A European gardener would probably choose the former in many cases, while an American gardener would choose the latter, but both would be bound to follow the pronunciation of the root word. Each individual when confronted with a name that could be pronounced in two or more ways should make a choice as to which he prefers and then should try to develop a uniform style. Roland W. Brown in Composition of Scientific Words says "... the essential problem is not What is right or wrong? but What is the best, consistent usage." And the Jepson Manual says, "... practice what sounds good to your ear; conviction is important." I will probably continue to pronounce Achillea as 'ak-ILL-ee-ah' and not 'ak-ill-EE-ah as Stearn says, because it sounds better to me. As a final point, and again quoting from the Jepson Manual, "When someone presumes to correct your pronunciation, a knowing smile is an appropriate response." There is to my knowledge no complete authoritative list of California plant names (or other plant names for that matter) that gives their pronunciation. Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names (1972) provides syllabification and a table (included below) of the sounds of various vowels, diptthongs and consonants which require explanation in both the Roman reformed academic system reflecting the classical Latin pronunciation and the traditional English system in customary use today. However many names have come into use since this work was published. Robinson's New Pronouncing Dictionary of Plant Names gives both accenting and phonetics, but is dated 1939. Borror's dictionary came out first in 1960. Additional information is available in the other sources mentioned at the end. Most of these sources are also either British or so old that they do not include many of our current names, and so are of limited use. The table I include here is excerpted from Stearn's
Dictionary of Plants Names (with additions from Borror) and
will provide information about the sound of various vowels, diphthongs
and consonants that will help to illuminate how plant names should
be pronounced. The user of Stearn's work should be aware that
as the Jepson Manual says, "As a classical scholar, he clearly
prefers the system of 'restored' academic pronunciation."
This may explain the occasional oddity in his pronunciations.
Before I leave off this essay on pronunciation, I feel I must quote a lovely poem from Johnson and Smith's Plant Names Simplified about the genus Cyclamen, a Mediterranean member of the Primulaceae, which goes like this:
And when struggling with what appear to be inconsistencies,
it is best to recall the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "A
foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," Oscar
Wilde, "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative,"
and finally, Aldous Huxley, "Consistency is contrary to nature,
contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the
dead."
Sources Books and journal articles: |
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