HA RD Wl CKE 'S S CTEN CE - G OSS IP. 



25 



THE PRONUNCIATION OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES, 



By RANDAL II. ALCOCK, F.L.S. 



T is a source of satisfac- 

 tion, I should imagine, 

 to all authors, when 

 they find that their 

 works are read ; and 

 I feel flattered that Mr. 

 Newlyn should quote 

 from my work, "Bo- 

 tanical Names for Eng- 

 lish Readers, " especially 

 as, in the half-dozen 

 pages I wrote on the pronunciation of scientific 

 names, I aimed only at giving a few plain, though to 

 the best of my knowledge correct, hints on the 

 subject to those who might wish for them ; but by 

 no means at assuming the position of a teacher of 

 this matter to those who, by their knowledge of 

 Greek and Latin, are competent to form a judgment 

 of their own. But Mr. Newlyn, in his article on the 

 pronunciation of scientific names (No. 153, p. 193), has 

 misunderstood my meaning. He says : " Mr. 

 Randal Alcock points out, in a rule, that in words 

 direct from the Greek, especially modern scientific 

 terms, the g is pronounced hard " ; and remarks, 

 " Really, this is implying that the older terms may 

 go their own way as regards our dealing with this 

 letter in any of them, and the young student in 

 botany must be utterly puzzled in his attempts at 

 utterance of scientific language." Perhaps these 

 words of mine, thus separated from their context, 

 may seem to imply what is stated, but not other- 

 wise. The sentence immediately preceding the one 

 quoted is : " Those Greek words that come to us 

 through the Latin, and have been long in use with 

 us, generally follow English usage, and are pro- 

 nounced soft, though not always ; for instance, both 

 gymnastic and jymnastic may be heard." In an 

 earlier part of the same chapter, I endeavoured to 

 show how much pronunciation must depend upon 

 usage, and how futile it is to lay down hard-and-fast 

 rules to meet every case. I have, therefore, not left 

 it to be inferred that any class of terms " may go 

 No. 15S. 



their own way," but I have said the rules must be 

 modified by usage. 



Mr. Newlyn disagrees with my view that the g in 

 scientific names from the Greek should be pronounced 

 uniformly hard, as in Geum and Potamogeton ; in- 

 deed, he asserts that it should not be in these cases, 

 though he allows that authorities differ. I entirely 

 agree with Mr. Boulger (No. 152, p. 191), when he says 

 that " a scientific name is a Latin and not an English 

 word, and must be pronounced, if not spelt, accord- 

 ingly." This being so, the only question is how to 

 pronounce Latin, a question which cannot at present 

 be answered decidedly, as both the traditional English 

 pronunciation and the new pronunciation are being 

 taught. Which will ultimately prevail remains to be 

 seen ; but if the new pronunciation become universal, 

 there will no longer be any difficulty, or ambiguity, 

 regarding such names as have been written about in 

 your journal. Mr. T. D. Hall, M.A., in "A Child's 

 First Latin Book," which aims at leading "step by 

 step to the acquirement of the pronunciation of Latin, 

 as set forth by the professors of Latin at Cambridge 

 and Oxford," says, "c has always the sound of k : 

 as Cicero, pronounced Kikero ; Cresar, Kaysar ; 

 clvis, keevis ; scilicet, skeeliket ; scio, skio. g is 

 always sounded hard, as in go, gun: as genus, gigno, 

 regina." We do not meet here with the pronun- 

 ciation of ch, but in Dr. Smith's "Principia Latina, 

 Part I.," we find, ' ' Latin c, ch = English &." This 

 would give us, or the "utterly puzzled" young 

 student, without any doubt, Rikardsonia as the pro- 

 nunciation of Richardsonia ; Rikardia of Richardia, 

 Lakenalia of Lachenalia ; Fuksia of Fuchsia ; Gera- 

 nium, Totamogeton, Geum, with g like g in gun. 



I am very much in favour of the new pronunciation 

 myself for many reasons, which it is not necessary to 

 enter upon. I merely say that it has been arrived at 

 by competent authorities, and is now very extensively 

 taught. " The usage of our universities " is rather a 

 vague expression, as they do not all agree ; and so long 

 as we have English teachers who have studied 

 abroad, and distinguished foreign savans visiting us 



c 



