How do you say "eheim"?
- Thread starter dwarfgourami7
- Start date
Good point on the "chicliday".
Greek elements in scientific names are common, but the pronunciation of Greek transcribed into Latin follows Latin rules; the Romans wrote Greek as they heard it, and most modern Neo-Latin neologists have followed the Roman conventions. There are exceptions, of course; I can't think of any fish examples off the top of my head, but Palisot de Beauvois named a snake genus "Agkistrodon", which is a direct transliteration of the Greek; subsequent herpetologists tried to emend it to "Ancistrodon", which is how a Roman would have spelled it (and how both Greeks and Romans would have pronounced it).
The pronunciation of Neo-Latin names by local vernacular conventions is a recent and still incomplete change that has only set in since the traditional classical education began dying about a century ago. You can see it in the way many scientists insist on "ch" being pronounced as a hard "c", but let simple consonantal "c" followed by "e" or "i" be pronounced as a soft "c"- just as in our Cichlidae example.
I don't use genuine classical conventions either, I just think the current mishmash of pronunciations is funny.
Greek elements in scientific names are common, but the pronunciation of Greek transcribed into Latin follows Latin rules; the Romans wrote Greek as they heard it, and most modern Neo-Latin neologists have followed the Roman conventions. There are exceptions, of course; I can't think of any fish examples off the top of my head, but Palisot de Beauvois named a snake genus "Agkistrodon", which is a direct transliteration of the Greek; subsequent herpetologists tried to emend it to "Ancistrodon", which is how a Roman would have spelled it (and how both Greeks and Romans would have pronounced it).
The pronunciation of Neo-Latin names by local vernacular conventions is a recent and still incomplete change that has only set in since the traditional classical education began dying about a century ago. You can see it in the way many scientists insist on "ch" being pronounced as a hard "c", but let simple consonantal "c" followed by "e" or "i" be pronounced as a soft "c"- just as in our Cichlidae example.
I don't use genuine classical conventions either, I just think the current mishmash of pronunciations is funny.
I bring a notepad and pen =/
"Do you carry this?" *point to notepad*
also, I realize this thread is 4 months old but I'm betting it's still relevant...maybe?
When I saw people typing it "e-hime" I thought the same thing you did. I myself have always pronounced it eee-high-mmm. and LOL @ the "chi-ch-lid" pronunciation, I used to have a co-worker who pronounced it that way. "sick-lid" is how I've always said it. Just made more sense to me that way.
When I saw people typing it "e-hime" I thought the same thing you did. I myself have always pronounced it eee-high-mmm. and LOL @ the "chi-ch-lid" pronunciation, I used to have a co-worker who pronounced it that way. "sick-lid" is how I've always said it. Just made more sense to me that way.
The cichlid mispronunciation comes from misreading it as "chiclid". It's a wrong spelling which is at the root of the problem.
