Re: Latin pronunciation puzzle


Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> "Franz Gnaedinger" <frgn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > 1) Zaglossus attenboroughi
> >
> > 2) dsa-glOssous ad'n-burO-phy
> >
> > 3) dsa-glOssous ad'n-b'rO-w-y
> >
> > 4) dsa-glOssous ad'n-b'rO-phy
> >
> > Antonius Marcus told me that we are free to pronounce a zoological
> > name (1) as we please (2, 4) - as long as we are getting understood.
>
> You mean only as in 2, 3, or 4? Sounds odd. I have _never_ before heard a "z"
> pronounced as [ds] or such pronunciation recommended; instead, [ts], [z],
> [dz] have been used or proposed, and some people might use [s]. I'm not
> saying that [ds] is wrong (though I think it is odd); just that from the very
> first letter, there is considerable variation that exceeds the variation
> in 2, 3, 4.
>
> I think the realistic approach is that the pronunciation of scientific names
> of species varies so much that everyone has to select a pronunciation that
> works best for the intended audience. There is little hope of having the
> pronunciations understood across languages and cultures. This isn't as
> serious as we might think, since the names are mostly just written. When
> spoken, they are typically spoken within a culturally narrow community
> (say, Finnish ornithologists, or German aquarium fish hobbyists, or
> Californian linguists). Such a community can develop, one way or another,
> some consensus on the "right" pronunciation; and that will be right for them.
>
> > The w (2) amalgamizes the English name and Latin ending, and is
> > justified by the Middle English burw(e), precursor of burg / borough.
>
> If you get deep into the etymology and history of proper names, I'm afraid
> you will have trouble in finding people who agree with you on the
> pronunciation, even if they would follow your reasoning and agree with its
> linguistic correctness.
>
> The logical, though not always practical, approach to pronouncing words like
> "attenboroughi" is to read the proper name in its base form according to the
> language it belongs to (here, a version of English) and to append the Latin
> suffix -i pronounced by the particular rules of Latin you are applying in
> general (probably [i] or [ai] or [i:]). If you have problems in the
> transition from the base to the suffix, you just have to find a way that
> makes it possible to you. I don't see much difficulty here, even though a
> hiatus between a schwa and (e.g.) [i:] doesn't sound very natural.
>
> In practice, even proper names change their pronunciation according to the
> native language of the speaker, more or less. In isolated occurrences, such
> as scientific names, we might still make it an _ideal_ goal to use the
> original pronunciation, but in normal fluent speech, nobody pronounces all
> foreign names that "correctly" unless he wants to sound very... er...
> original. In practice, I would probably say [tsaglossus ætenboroui] and have
> myself understood in Finland (by anyone who knows the name in written form).
> If I had to say the name to an American, I wouldn't - I would write it down
> instead. But if I really had to, I would probably try to read it as if the
> entire name was English, and pronouncing the final -i would be among the
> least of my problems then.
>
> --
> Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Thank you for the long and well considered reply. People like you
are making the Usenet a precious resource. Now for the way you
would pronounce the name attenboroughi: {tsaglossus aetenboroui].
The -oui contains an inevitable w, the w I transformed into ph, softer
than f. The -gh of borough testifies to a former aspirated ending of
the word, which is still there in rough tough enough. The aspirated
ending is also present in the old forms, burw(e) and barrow. My
feeling for language tells me that a submerged ending resurfaces
when a word gets a new ending in another language. It does
naturally resurface in your version -oui owi owhy. So I make it
-boroui borowi borovii / borophi, in order to give the English name
a proper Latin ending. A similar thing occurred when the Italian
word lingua was adopted by the French and turned into langue
and langage, and then by the English who turned it into language.
They could have coined the word tonguage, but language sounds
much lovelier, and they must have liked how the tip of the tongue
moves along the palate - language, savor that word. Now French
langue, when spoken, is lang with a nasal a, the u of lingua is
omitted, also in langage. But when the English adopted the word,
the original u returned: language laenguidsh.

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

.

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