Pronouncing neolatin proper names

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adrianus
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Pronouncing neolatin proper names

Post by adrianus »

Propriorum neolatinorum nominum sonus

The only systematic approaches to pronouncing neolatin proper names I see in practice today are those for scientific naming. I dug up these online sources:
Soli modi systematici ad nominum propriorum neolatinorum nominandum hodiè usi quos video sunt ei ad nomenclaturam scientificam pertinentes. Hos fontes ex interrete eduxi:

The Coues Check List of North American Birds, with a Dictionary of the Etymology, Orthography, and Orthoepy of the Scientific Names. 2nd edn. Boston: 1882.http://www.archive.org/details/cihm_06202

It has the following proper names (among others):
in quo sequentia (inter alia) legantur:

hĕn'-slow-ī (Henslow)
bŭl'-lŏck-ī (Bullock)
hŭd-sŏn'-ĭ-că (Hudsonian)
nŭt'-tăl-lī (Nuttall)
stĕl'-lĕr-ī (Steller)
lĕ-cŏn'-tĭ-ī (Le Conte)
rĭch'-ārd-sŏn-ī (Richardson)
sāy'-ī (Say)
lăw-rĕn'-cĭ-ī (Lawrence)
traīl'-lī (Traill)
hĕn'-ry-ī (Henry)
hăm'-mŏnd-ī (Hammond)
ăl'-lĕn-ī (Allen)
vaūx'-ī (Vaux)
strĭck'-lănd-ī (Strickland)
hăr'-rĭs-ī (Harris)
wĭl-sŏn-ĭ-ā'-nŭs (Wilsonian)
kĕn-nī-cŏt'-tī (Kennicott)
măc-căl'-lī (McCall)
măx'-wĕl-laē (Mrs M A Maxwell)
frănk'-lĭn-ī (Franklin)
hŭt'-tŏn-ī (Hutton)
căs'-sĭn-ī (Cassin)
smĭth-sŏn-ĭ-ā'-nŭs (smithsonian)
nĕl'-sŏn-ī (Nelson)
lĭn'-cŏl-nī (Lincoln)
ŏr-ĕ'-gŏ-nŭs ([adj.] to the Territory of the Oregon)
ŏr-ĕ-gō'-nŭs (no. 305 "To the Oregon River. Quantity of the penult in question, perhaps better ore'gŏnus.")
aūd'-ŭ-bŏn-ī (Audubon)
ū-nă-lās'-caē (Island of Unalaska)
bĕn-dī'-rĭ-ī (Bendire)

ă-lĭ'-cĭ-aē (Alice Kennicott)

Nota quoque Appendix C: Latinisation of geograpical and proper names, Code international de nomenclature zoologique http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/iczn/ ... _names.pdf
or http://ia600405.us.archive.org/14/items ... a00intern/

Porrò, in sito citaturo est locus ad rem aptus:
http://capewest.ca/pron.html wrote:Commemorative names (eponyms):

Taxa may commemorate personal names or surnames such as Alice Eastwood's Daisy, Virginia's Warbler, and Wilson's Honeycreeper. These names are treated as latinized possessive nouns (Alice's = aliciae, Wilson's = wilsoni). The classical accent may be determined by the Latin form of the name. If Wilson were latinized as Wilsonius the pronunciation of wilsoni would be "wil-SO-nye." If Wilson were latinized as Wilsonus, the pronunciation of wilsoni would be "WIL-so-nye." Archival records indicate inconsistency in latinization of names, so some flexibility exists in pronunciation, and there is precedent in both classical and modern Latin for conservation. Thus "WIL-so-nye" (Rule 2c ) is preferable to "wil-SO-ni," whereas andersoni is best treated as "an-der-SO-ni" rather than "an-DER-so-ni."

aberti = "a-BER-tye" = Rule 2a
aliceae = "al-IS-ee-ee" = Rule 2c
calderi = "CALL-de-rye" = Rule 2c
hendersonii = "hen-der-SO-nee-eye" = Rule 2c
lewisii = "lew-ISS-ee-eye" = Rule 2c
virginiae = "vir-JIN-ee-ee" = Rule 2c
Are there other good online sources? (Practice will vary; just interested in the evidence.)
Exstantne alii fontes interretiales? (Consuetudo variat, de quo vestigia justa mihi curae sunt.)
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

adrianus
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Re: Pronouncing neolatin proper names

Post by adrianus »

Double-post mistake.
Perperàm eandem epistulam misi.

Nota: genetivo casu sunt plerusque nominum supra citatorum.
Note that most names above are in the genitive case.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

Alatius
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Re: Pronouncing neolatin proper names

Post by Alatius »

Benigne fecisti, Adriane, qui hos fontes nobis praebuisti.
adrianus wrote:The Coues Check List of North American Birds, with a Dictionary of the Etymology, Orthography, and Orthoepy of the Scientific Names. 2nd edn. Boston: 1882.http://www.archive.org/details/cihm_06202
The author of this work seems in most cases to propose an accentuation of the Latin words in such a way that the accent of the word in the original language is retained. In itself, this is not unreasonable, but he draws it too far, I think. This principle of his is explicit in the case of names of three syllables (p. 21): "Modern proper names of three syllables with the accent on the first, keep it there after addition of the i of the genitive case; as, aud'uboni, rich'ardsoni." Thus it is not surprising that we also find hăm'-mŏnd-ī (Hammond), strĭck'-lănd-ī (Strickland), and lĭn'-cŏl-nī (Lincoln). But accentuations such as these, which blatantly breaks the normal accentuation rules of Latin, makes me very wary. While this may have been or even be the current practice when pronouncing these scientific names in an English context, I'm very sceptical of introducing this pattern into the Latin language proper. Of course, accentuations such as frănk'-lĭn-ī (Franklin), hŭt'-tŏn-ī (Hutton), nĕl'-sŏn-ī (Nelson), etc. do not break any rule, but for the previously mentioned reason I don't think this particular book is a very good authority when it comes to accentuating the names in a purely Latin context (i.e. when using Latin as an actual language in its own right, rather than merely as a scientific code).
adrianus wrote:Nota quoque Appendix C: Latinisation of geograpical and proper names, Code international de nomenclature zoologique http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/iczn/ ... _names.pdf
or http://ia600405.us.archive.org/14/items ... a00intern/
While interesting, I did not find anything here directly pertaining to the accentuation of proper names.
adrianus wrote:Porrò, in sito citaturo est locus ad rem aptus:
http://capewest.ca/pron.html wrote:Commemorative names (eponyms):

Taxa may commemorate personal names or surnames such as Alice Eastwood's Daisy, Virginia's Warbler, and Wilson's Honeycreeper. These names are treated as latinized possessive nouns (Alice's = aliciae, Wilson's = wilsoni). The classical accent may be determined by the Latin form of the name. If Wilson were latinized as Wilsonius the pronunciation of wilsoni would be "wil-SO-nye." If Wilson were latinized as Wilsonus, the pronunciation of wilsoni would be "WIL-so-nye." Archival records indicate inconsistency in latinization of names, so some flexibility exists in pronunciation, and there is precedent in both classical and modern Latin for conservation. Thus "WIL-so-nye" (Rule 2c ) is preferable to "wil-SO-ni," whereas andersoni is best treated as "an-der-SO-ni" rather than "an-DER-so-ni."
This is also interesting. Regarding the last remark, I suppose that "an-der-SO-ni" would be preferable to "an-DER-so-ni" because the conflict with the original accentuation "AN-der-son" is diminished by moving the stress two syllables rather than one (and so enabling a secondary stress on the first syllable, if you wish). At least that was the purely subjective reason why I preferred "e-ver-SO-nus" instead of "e-VER-so-nus".

But going back to Wilson, which seems sufficiently analogous to Dodgson, you are of course right that this source clearly advocates "Wilsŏnus", and relying on this alone, I would have been mistaken with "Dodgsōnus". However, the usage of poets paints a very different image. Searching for "Wilsonus" in Google books reveals a dozen verses, all of which indicates "Wilsōnus". (In case you wonder, these are not cherry-picked; I went through all the Google hits, and was surprised to not find any counterexamples):
Attulit hanc nostras Thomas Wilsonus ad aures,
Utilis et patriae sic fuit ille suae.

Audiit haec, λογικὴς, Wilsonus forte, magister
Qui fuerat, nostros addideratque sonos

Wilsonus, patrio sub quo sermone magistro,
Pierides Musae perdidicere loqui.

Wilsoni hic teanem Lectores cernitis rumbram, [sic...]
Longe hac clava magis stella micansque fuit,
Sic fuit in vita Wilsonus sicque recessu,
Sic nobis detue vivere sicque mori.

Haec eadem patrio Thomas sermone polivit
Wilsonus, patrii gloria prima soli.

Officiis, Donisque itidem Sanctissimus Heros,
Wilsonus, tacitis Protulit Ex Tenebris.

Wilsonus nostras, nostrati voce locutus

Est patriae Wilsonus amans, populique salutis
Et graviter patitur publica damna seri.

Sed Wilsonus ovans cedendis floreat hydris

Qui bibulam Tyrio tingebat murice lanam,
Wilsonum nobis mors inimica tulit
(I can give links to these hits, if you wish, but I have to do it in a separate post. The forum did not allow me to post more than 10 links in one post.)

So it seems that the usage varied, either over time or in different domains. Perhaps Dodgson himself would have gone for "Dodgsŏnus", seeing that he was closer in time to the authors of the handbooks for accentuations of scientific names; I don't know. But I don't think the 16th century poets, who were writing in a much more living tradition, should be so quickly disregarded. Considering also that "archival records indicate inconsistency in latinization of names, so some flexibility exists in pronunciation", it would be unfair to call "Dodgsōnus" an error, I think.

Alatius
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Re: Pronouncing neolatin proper names

Post by Alatius »

Links to the sources for the verses. (Some of these may give a different view than I see; Google gives different results depending on your country. Here in Sweden I can see most of these hits only in the snippet view.)
Attulit hanc nostras Thomas Wilsonus ad aures,
Utilis et patriae sic fuit ille suae.

Audiit haec, λογικὴς, Wilsonus forte, magister
Qui fuerat, nostros addideratque sonos

Wilsonus, patrio sub quo sermone magistro,
Pierides Musae perdidicere loqui.

Wilsoni hic teanem Lectores cernitis rumbram,
Longe hac clava magis stella micansque fuit,
Sic fuit in vita Wilsonus sicque recessu,
Sic nobis detue vivere sicque mori.

Haec eadem patrio Thomas sermone polivit
Wilsonus, patrii gloria prima soli.

Officiis, Donisque itidem Sanctissimus Heros,
Wilsonus, tacitis Protulit Ex Tenebris.

Wilsonus nostras, nostrati voce locutus

Est patriae Wilsonus amans, populique salutis
Et graviter patitur publica damna seri.

Sed Wilsonus ovans cedendis floreat hydris

Qui bibulam Tyrio tingebat murice lanam,
Wilsonum nobis mors inimica tulit

adrianus
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Re: Pronouncing neolatin proper names

Post by adrianus »

George Don, A general history of the dichlamydeous plants, comprising complete descriptions of the different orders......the scientific names accentuated...the whole arranged according to the natural system (London, 1831) (http://www.archive.org/details/mobot31753000734738) prefers typically -ius names, to give "Adanso'nii" "Richardso'nii" "Nelso'nii" "Commerso'nii", no doubt because it sounds better.

Hic auctor nominibus propriis terminationem per -ius assignat, ratione euphoniae, non dubito.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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