[Birding-Aus] Pronouncing latin names of Parrots correctly

[Donald G. Kimball]

I know that depending on where you live Latin names in English can take on
different pronounciations. For example friends of mine pronounce
Parula Warbler Pah - Roo - Lah

yet others pronounce it: Pair - you - Lah

So how do folks (especially Australians) pronounce these two?
*Polytelis *(is it Polly - tell - us?) or Paul i tell is?

What about *neophema*?

should it be Neigh - o- fema

or Knee - o - fee - ma?

I sincerely would like to know as I am seeking the proper way to pronounce
these and I know this type of thing varies from area to area. Would love
some imput from the terrific folks who actually live where these 2 parrot
types live. Thanks very much!

Don Kimball
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[John Graff]

Hi Don,

I pronounce Polytelis as Polly - tell - is/us

and Neophema as Nee - o - fee - ma

However, I've no idea if these are the 'proper' pronunciation

Cheers,

John

> Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 18:22:02 -0800
> From: ibwo...@gmail.com
> To: birdi...@vicnet.net.au
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Pronouncing latin names of Parrots correctly

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[Peter....@callista.com.au]

The latin roots of the words usually give a good indicator of how they are
pronounced.
For example, Neophema is comprised of Neo and phema.
Matrix fans should know how to prounouce Neo, and phema is a familar
pronunciation to most americans being the same as FEMA. ;)

Hi Don,

Cheers,

http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/157639755/direct/01/==============================www.birding-aus.org

[David Adams]

> I pronounce Polytelis as Polly - tell - is/us
>
> and Neophema as Nee - o - fee - ma
>
> However, I've no idea if these are the 'proper' pronunciation

And who does? The ancient Romans aren't around to sort us out ;-)
Seriously, It's always amusing to see how mutually incomprehensible
Latin names can be when pronounced by my native Italian wife and
people from the English-speaking world... We run into this more with
mushroom names (Italians are mad keen mushroom hunters) than bird
names as birders tend to use common names more often. Well, in
Italian, bird common names are very often the same as or very similar
to their Latin names (Turdus merula = 'Merlo' in Italian, for
example.)

[Syd Curtis]

Apologies in advance for this bit of frivolity. And not even a parrot. :-(

"Gerygone"

Surely the "Australian" pronunciation should be "Jerry gone"?

Cheers

Syd

[Terry Bishop]

A lot depends on what state you come from. Each state has their own
pronunciations on certain vowels in particular. It is easy to detect a
Victorian who has just moved to Qld or a South Aussie. I say "tom-art-o" you
say "tom-ato"

[Dave Torr]

Interesting that we seem to expect there to be one "correct" pronunciation
for Latin - yet Latin was spoken over a large area and I am sure that - like
most modern languages - there would have been regional variations in
pronunciation.

2009/12/10 Terry Bishop <tbis...@optusnet.com.au>

[Peter Shute]

I think most birders would accept as "correct" the pronunciation that would make the least number of people raise their eybrows.

Peter Shute

[Nikolas Haass]

Initially I didn't want to participate here. However, there is a discussion about "Latin" names; one mentioned "ancient Romans", another one said that Latin was spoken over a large area with possibly different dialects (which is certainly true). So Latin was not meant by everyone in the discussion as a synonym for "scientific name".
The funny part, and that's why I break my silence, is:
Nobody noticed that the examples in the original e-mail (Neophema and Polytelis) are not Latin. They are Greek!

Cheers,

Nikolas

BTW, there are ways to find out how words in ancient languages were pronounced. The Latin name "Caesar" was adopted by the Greek and became "Kaisar" which later became "Kaiser" in German. So most likely the "C" in Gaius Julius Caesar was originally pronounced like a "K". However, later the same "Caesar" became "Zar" in Russian, which apparently shows that there was a switch in the pronunciation of "C" in early and later Latin...

----------------
Nikolas Haass
nha...@yahoo.com
Sydney, NSW

[Helen Larson]

And don't forget that scientific names are not all Latin - but they are always "Latinised". Many names are Greek-derived or taken from other languages. An example - just think of the generic name for the darter - Anhinga is a Brazilian Indian name for the bird. One of my favourites is the Arabic Abudefduf, the genus of the sergeant major damselfish (Aboo-deff-duff). Hypsypops isn't bad either (hip-see-pops), a bright orange damselfish.
So we are pronouncing Latinised words that are often made up of several words stuck together to make a descriptive name for the bird or fish or flower. As student I learned scientific nomenclature among Americans and had to adapt my pronunciation to suit Australian-English speakers. And sorry for the two fish examples, I can think of fish genera much faster than birds.
As long as you make a decent stab at the name and think Latin-ish (the root of all the romance languages) you should be able to communicate.
Helen

<')/////==<

________________________________
From: Dave Torr <davi...@gmail.com>
To: Terry Bishop <tbis...@optusnet.com.au>
Cc: Birding Australia <birdi...@vicnet.net.au>
Sent: Thu, 10 December, 2009 8:06:28

[Lawrie Conole]

> From: Helen Larson <gobywan2...@yahoo.co.uk>

>
> And don't forget that scientific names are not all Latin - but they
> are always "Latinised". Many names are Greek-derived or taken from
> other languages. An example - just think of the generic name for the
> darter - Anhinga is a Brazilian Indian name for the bird.

And therefore, although it is often pronounced by English speakers as
"an - hing - gah", in Brazilian Portuguese it'll be "ah - nyin - gah"!
Though I note its Brazilian common name is 'biguatinga'. :-)

--
Lawrie Conole
Northcote 3070
lconole[at]gmail.com