Via Edwin Battistella’s Facebook post, I was alerted to Volume 100, Issue 1 of American Speech. I don’t have access to it, but I enjoy just reading the table of contents:
Louise Pound, H. L. Mencken, and the Founding of American Speech: In Memory of Ron Butters
Connie C. EbleThe Politics of Prescriptivism: One Style Manual, One Century
Kristin VanEyk; Anne CurzanDARE, Literature, and Enregistered Regional Identities
Michael AdamsAlgae, Fungi, Binomial Nomenclature, and the Search for “Correct” Pronunciations
Dale F. CoyeThe Representation of Earlier African American Vernacular English By Charles W. Chesnutt
Irene KimbaraDescribing 400 Years of American English Can be Like Comforting, Super Interesting, and Literally Challenging
David JohnsonDiscovering the Many Englishes of North America
Samantha M. Litty
And at least we can read the first page of each! (In the VanEyk/Curzan piece, the manual in question is the New York Times style guide: “By tracing the changing prescriptions over the decades, this study highlights the complicated but important nature of the politics of prescriptivism.”)
They have issues every year. Looking at Feb. 2016, I see 2 articles that might be of interest to some other Hatters:
“hyperbolic numerals”
https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article/91/1/3/6021/Umpteen-Reflections-on-Indefinite-Hyperbolic
“singular they”
https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article/91/1/62/6031/Singular-they-An-Empirical-Study-of-Generic
Abstract of the nomenclature paper:
Interesting. That may be a cultural difference to zoology – I’ve noticed numerous pronunciation variants at conferences, but never a debate over pronunciation.
Only of those that don’t have an abstract; of those that do, we can read the abstract but not the first page.
The scholar who did the “indefinite hyperbolic numbers” piece PlasticPaddy linked to is no mere dabbler, but has a book published by MIT Press about the “history of numerical notation.” https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044639/reckonings/
He also has a blog at which he touts a “Canadian indie linguistics-themed horror film” I’ve never heard of but which he claims (and I don’t have a rival nominee on the tip of my tongue …) is “the best Canadian film of any genre to have an explicitly linguistic theme.”
https://glossographia.com/2024/10/30/memes-genes-and-screams-the-semiotic-underpinnings-of-pontypool/
The scholar who did the “indefinite hyperbolic numbers” (umpteen, zillion, etc.) piece, Stephen Chrisomalis, has been featured at Language Hat before: CHAIRPERSON, EMBUGGERANCE AT GOOGLE SCHOLAR, Epithets: The Case of -o. He’s commented a few times as well.
Binomial nomenclature is also subject to variation as a long-standing debate over the use of anglicized or classical Latin and Greek challenges the need for any standard pronunciation at all.
I’ve been told, maybe here, that the correct pronunciation of a scientific name is the one your graduate adviser used.
I wonder whether the nomenclature paper addresses the pronunciation of “plantain”. The only person I ever heard say it with a schwa in the second syllable, like “mountain”, was a botanist. (He was talking about Plantago, not bananas for cooking.)
My other pronunciation datum comes from birding with a group that included a Mexican man who had studied to be a naturalist. He knew the scientific names of some of the birds here in New Mexico, but few if any of the English or Spanish names, and he pronounced the Latin names exactly as if they were Spanish.
@JWB: … which he claims (and I don’t have a rival nominee on the tip of my tongue …) is “the best Canadian film of any genre to have an explicitly linguistic theme.”
Denis Villeneuve, a Canadian, directed Arrival, although the WiPe says it’s “a 2016 American science fiction drama film”.
@Stu: different folks no doubt take different approaches to evaluating the “nationality” of a movie, but the Canadian authorities have Actual Rules Goddam It, and I would be unsurprised if a Canadian tv station showing Arrival could not count it toward its required quota of “Canadian content” programming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content#Film_and_television
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Filming was done mainly in and around Montreal, Quebec, with Saint-Fabien serving as Montana.[21][22] The team took some time to find the right site to represent the landing of the spacecraft because producers wanted to avoid a mountainous site that might dwarf the scale of the ship, but thought a barren location would be cliché.[23]
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“a barren location would be cliché.” Wonder what that means. I can’t remember a sci-fi movie in which aliens touched down in a barren location. A ways outside town, yes, but there were always trees at least (ET, Aliens vs. Predator 2). In a Wes Anderson sci-fi they might land in the desert, it would be just like him.
“She saves us from cliché.” [The Flower Beneath the Foot]
@Jerry Friedman: reading taxonomic nomenclature with a Spanish pronunciation is, as far as i know, the universal practice in Spanish
In a Wes Anderson sci-fi they might land in the desert, it would be just like him.
In his Asteroid City, they… [no spoilers].
The spelling of Latin plurals in words like fungi and algae produces pronunciation variants and spirited arguments over correctness.
I, of course, use the traditional /ˈfʌnd͡ʒaɪ/ (FUN-jye) and /ˈæl.d͡ʒi/ (AL-jee); I Am Not A Biologist.
They rhyme w/ alumni and alumnae, respectively, innit?
In his Asteroid City, they… [no spoilers].
I am aware. I just wanted to find out if anyone else has seen it. Actually it was in an enclosure in the desert, but that still counts.
@Alon Lischinsky: Thanks. What do they do for debates? All right, I’m sure there are plenty of possibilities.
Edit: I shouldn’t have said “exactly”. I feel sure he pronounced “ae” and “oe” as [e].
What do they do for debates?
debates
I, of course, use the traditional /ˈfʌnd͡ʒaɪ/ (FUN-jye) and /ˈæl.d͡ʒi/ (AL-jee)
I use the traditional /ˈfʌŋgaɪ/ (FUNG-guy) and /ˈæl.d͡ʒi/ (AL-jee). By “traditional” I mean “what I think I heard from my parents, or maybe my teachers”. I imagine that /g/ is influenced by “fungus”, and “alga” is too rare to influence “algae” in the same way, but that’s probably dealt with in the article.
Likewise with French (-us [ˈys], -um [ˈɔm]).
In German, a varying number of minimal concession is made, in particular various attempts to apply Latin stress rules.
What debates?
(Debate is whatcha put on de hook to catch de fish.)
[scientific names]
Likewise with French (-us [ˈys], -um [ˈɔm]).
So “au” is [o] or [ɔ]? Final -n nasalizes the previous vowel? They use Sprachgefühl to decide what to do with “e”?
[o], except presumably for people who don’t have [o] in closed syllables anymore and use [ɔ] there.
Final -n nasalizes the previous vowel?
Yes.
Absolutely; it is largely predictable. (There’s variation in whether to pronounce final -es, though.)
@JF:
Now that would be a new one to me. Both /a.e/ and /o.e/ are phonotactically kosher in Spanish (cf. /kaˈeɾ/, /koˈete/).
That said, I just looked up some videos mentioning Aedes aegypti and I’ve found at least one person saying /aˈe.ðes/ but /eˈɰip.ti/. The mind boggles.
That’s because Aedes does not contain the “ae” diphthong — it’s Greek ἀηδής (aēdḗs).
Fungie (/ˈfʌŋɡi/), the Dingle Dolphin, was named after a bearded local fisherman, himself nicknamed from his face fungus. The name is not a variant spelling of plural “fungi”, but rather a clipping of singular “fungus” + adjectival “-ie”. Hence the pronunciation.
@Alon Lischinski: Despite the evidence of the video you found, I could easily have remembered wrong. I was pretty much just thinking that I’d have noticed if he said /oe/ or /ae/.
@David M.: Thanks. I won’t trouble you with any more questions.
I will just mention that the worst ones are the ones named after people. Some say you should pronounce the name part as closely as possible to the way the name is pronounced, and others will laugh at you. (I hope Scarlet Gilia’s ears are burning, and it’s not even in Gilia any more.) Then poor Fuchs gets taboo deformation.
Uh, feel free, it’s no trouble! I did my PhD in Paris, so I can read taxonomic names in French on demand.
@languagehat:
I’m not sure that signifies, because in Spanish /a.e/ requires a hiatus and can never be a diphthong.
Just like English neutralises that etymological distinction into initial /eɪ/ for both words, I’d have expected /a.e/ in both in Spanish.
I’m not sure that signifies, because in Spanish /a.e/ requires a hiatus and can never be a diphthong.
But we’re not talking about Spanish-Spanish, we’re talking about Latin-Spanish. In Latin, the ae diphthong became e even before the Romance languages separated, and there is no reason it should have been artificially separated into two distinct vowels. I would expect people with any linguistic awareness to use /e/ — but not in aedes, because that does not contain the diphthong. I would point out that my hypothesis accounts for the facts on the ground; if you reject it, what is your explanation?
Just like English neutralises that etymological distinction into initial /eɪ/ for both words
Nope. Aedes is three syllables: ā-ˈē-(ˌ)dēz (i.e., /eɪˈiːˌdiːz/; you can hear it said at that M-W link). Note that there is no alternative pronunciation given, and that is how I have always said it.
As long as we’re still on this, I’ll ask DM and AL or anyone else whether, in French or Spanish pronunciations of scientific names, “c” and “g” before “ae” and “oe” are pronounced as if before “e”, as in English “Caesar” and “algae”. E.g, Fringilla coelebs, Larus vegae. (With exceptions for words with hiatus in the original language?)
This Spanish guy says [friŋ’xila koe’lebs]. (Broad transcription. Nuances welcome but probably not understood by me. I almost thought the ŋ was more like a nasal vowel.) The “g” and “coe” are as in Spanish, but not the “ll”.
@JF: The traditional German pronunciation of Latin, which is also reflected in the way loans from Latin are pronounced, doesn’t distinguish between the position before front and back vowels for “g”; both are [g], so I would not expect such a distinction in scientific names. It makes a distinction for “c” ([k] before back vowels and consonants, [t_s] before front vowels), so here it’s possible; tradionally, “ae” is treated like a front vowel monophthong, but “oe” is often pronounced [ø] and treated like a back vowel.
The pronunciation taught in school nowadays (even back in my time, almost 50 years ago) tries to approach the classical one, with diphthongs being diphthongs and velar stops always pronounced as velar stops.
I don’t know which of the two pronunciations actual scientists use. Here I must defer to our resident biologist.
In French, yes.
In German for c, usually, as well (so coelebs starts with [t͡søː]); very few people use a more Classical pronunciation (I wasn’t even taught it in school, only 30 years ago). G is invariant anyway as Hans said.
Thank you, Hans and David. I didn’t realize that the question could be relevant to German, which I don’t know much about.
To Jerry F@April 9, 2025 at 10:27 am:
Wiktionary.en has decided to mark nasality on Spanish vowels that are followed by nasal consonants, which would include the first syllable in Fringilla. (In narrow transcription; they don’t claim a separate phoneme). But this is a very natural phonotactic phenomenon and as far as I can tell it also happens in German, English, Danish and Swedish, though Wikt.en does not mark it in those languages. (I did find a scholarly article measuring the degree of nasality produced in such contexts by male peninsular speakers [and one from Mallorca]).
Thank you, Lars. I don’t remember noticing it so much with other speakers, or having such a strong feeling that there was no completely nasal consonant in the word, but maybe that’s just because I was paying attention to this speaker’s pronunciation, whereas usually I’m trying desperately to catch up.
Probably varies in all of them. It happens pretty consistently in my dialect but not in my Standard accent.