rr. 



rrr 



H II 



^ ♦ 



20 



liEMAIiKS ON THE USE OF NAMES. 



N followed by c hard, k, g, or x has a nasal or twanging sound of ng ; as in 

 English aid/c, auger, pronounced ang-kle, ang-ger. rrcccdod by m or g, it does not 

 destroy tht-so letters : as Mntotilta, Gnathodon. 



P is not silent before t; thus \n psallria artieulatc both. So in the digraph ph, 

 some direct to sound both, as in vp-hill. It is difllcult, if not impossible, to 

 articulate both letters, especially when, as often hai)pens, a th succeeds. For 

 example, in erythrophthalmus we find tluit we cannot make four sounds for the 

 phth as in vp-hill and hot-house. Practically pli becomes something between / and 

 t\ just as \\\ Stephen or Steven. So also the original Indo-European asi)irate3 />//, 

 rM, (/A are not retained in any Uuropoau language; there is nothing to correspond 

 to log-house. 



QU is sometimes followed by another m, as in altiloquus, propinquus. It would 

 seem to be rendered by kwooce. 



R is strongly pronounced with a trill. It is heard at the height of its power in 

 the combination rrh ; as in catarrhactes, pgrrhoirhoa. 



S invariably retains its sharp hissing sound. Thus essence is a rhyme with 

 fuscescens (as far as the s-sound is concerned) ; so also virens = virragnce, not 

 n/-rem. Compare hiss or this with his. So particular were the Komans to avoid 

 tlie z sound of s, that they even altered antecedent consonants ; saying, for example, 

 urps and pleps for vrbs and plebs. 



T always preserves its sound. There is nothing to correspond with the English 

 -tionz= shun, «&c. K.g., gra-ti-a, rat-i-o, itiit-i-um. 



V is directed b^- some to be sounded like English w in we. But this is rarely 

 done. 



X i.s always ks or cs, never gz or s, even when initial, as in Xema, Xanthocephalus. 



Z, which only occurs in Latin words of Greek extraction, is a double letter 

 equivalent to r/r, and the best authorities recommend the d sound to be articulated. 

 Thus Aphriza, Spiza, are pronounced A/reedza, Speedza. 



A word in regard to the pronunciation of modern i)roper names, as of persons and 

 places, so often recurring in ornithology'. After mature deliberation, we have decided 

 to mark tlicm for their pronunciation in the language to which they belong. It seems 

 finical and pedantic to attempt to Latinize them ; for to carry out that plan to its 

 logical result would be to give Irunonis instead of hrowni ; and even then some 

 names would utterl}- defy us, unless changed beyond all recognition. So we have 

 adopted the rule of preserving the orthography and orthoepy of all modern proper 

 names, even though containing the letter w. Barbarous geographical words of 

 unsettled or no known orthography may, however, be sometimes dressed in quasi- 

 Latin ; thus it is perfectly permissible to render anonalasehkae by unalascce. We 

 make this remark to explain what must seem inconsistent in our use of diacritical 

 marks in some places ; for we mark the vowels long or short as the syllables are 

 pronounced in the language to which the word belongs, not as they would be in 

 Latin. 



