HA RDWI CKE 'S S CI EN CE - G OSSIP. 



193 



THE PRONUNCIATION OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES. 



By GEORGE NEWLYN. 



jIIE suggestion of " E. C.," 

 who differs from Mr. 

 Boulger (p. 164) in the 

 pronunciation of ch in 

 some botanical terms de- 

 rived from English and 

 French names, as in the 

 two examples quoted — 

 viz. Rkliardsonia and 

 Lachcnalia — seems not 

 unreasonable. Much con- 

 fusion is caused by the fact that the rule applying 

 the old Latin pronunciation to the corresponding 

 characters of the Greek gutturals, as c (e), ch {x), 

 and g (7), does not, to some educated persons, 

 appear admissible in all cases ; whilst others, who 

 may be a little fastidious about uniformity of pro- 

 nunciation, jjursue a rigid consistency in assimilating 

 the g and ch sounds to those of the Greek ganuna 

 and chi, yet entirely ignoring the same guttural 

 claim of the kappa representative. But it may be 

 seen, on looking into the matter a little, that there 

 is not, even among the latter authorities, that strict 

 regard for the guttural rights for which they plead 

 that one should expect to find. The g in Geiiiii may 

 be guttural or sibilant, but there seems to be no 

 choice in the articulation of the same initial character 

 in Geranium. Yet why ? Both names have come to 

 us through the Latin from the Greek by the same 

 process, only the latter has crept into our English 

 vocabulary, and is rendered a vernacular term, and 

 botanists in this case yield to the common pronun- 

 ciation. It may be nrged in palliation that English 

 orthoepists are not consistent with words adopted 

 into the English language ; to wit, Jameson and 

 Knowles retain the Greek guttural sound in the ini- 

 tial letter of gymnastic and gyves resi^ectively. Mr. 

 Randal Alcock points out in a rule, that in words 

 direct from the Greek, especially modern sciciifific 

 terms, the g is pronounced hard. Really, this is 

 implying that the older terms may go their own way 

 as regards our dealing with this letter in any of them, 

 No. 153. 



and the young student in botany must be utterly 

 l^uzzled in his attempts at utterance of scientific lan- 

 guage. Mr. Boulger argues (p. 191) that a scientific 

 name being "Latin, not English," it "must be pro- 

 nounced, if not spelt, accordingly." That would be 

 all very well if we knew how the people of ancient 

 Greece and Rome spoke Greek and Latin. We pos- 

 sess no certain guide beyond the information pointed 

 out to us by the poets in mere accentuation of words ; 

 but even in this the precepts are often obscure. Sci- 

 entific persons, who may be also classical scholars, 

 now articulate, when reading those languages, ac- 

 cording to the usage of their own, yet with the con- 

 sciousness that such pronunciation would have sounded 

 exceedingly strange to the ears of an ancient Greek 

 or Roman. 



Phonetic change is even going on in our own lan- 

 guage ; and although the printing-press and the Bible 

 have combined to preserve intact the orthographic 

 element, there is no doubt, as Mr. Peile observes, 

 that the pronunciation has so much altered that our 

 language would have scarcely any resemblance in 

 sound to that as spoken contemporaneously with the 

 discovery of the art of typography. Moreover, the 

 guttural articulation which our ancestors liked — a 

 noteworthy example in the old guttural .^//—English- 

 men of the present day disliice. What would the 

 Greek and Latin purists say to this ? And further- 

 more, critical opinion on the articulation and ac- 

 centuation of those languages is constantly changing, 

 to say nothing as to the impediment to correct Greek 

 or Latin speaking (whereby international intercourse 

 might be effected by the tongue of scientific men), owing 

 to the peculiarities of speech that each people of a nation 

 develops as its exclusive own ; as, for instance, the 

 consequence in the euphony of the French language 

 by the dislike of the h or zu by the people, or in the 

 German by the same inability to master the th sound. 

 University men know all these difficulties, and it seems 

 utterly absurd to say that men ofscience can do more than 

 university graduates in the laying down of rules for stu- 

 dents' guidance in the mode of accurate pronunciation. 



K 



