[pbs] Ferraria/Spelling rules
Jane McGary
janemcgary at earthlink.net
Fri Dec 12 11:39:01 EST 2008
Dylan wrote,
>Some languages are not "latinizable" and a scientific epithet based on
>a local name in such a language may appear in its original form as a
>specific or generic epipthet, e.g. Dypsis bejofo, Caryota no,
>Kaempferia galanga or Alpinia zerumbet.
Epithets such as this are considered (and often are in fact, being
the native-language names of the plants) nouns rather than
adjectives. We also see Latin and Greek nouns occasionally used as
epithets, and this is usually why a species name does not exhibit
gender agreement with the genus name.
And yes, I know English spelling is not phonemic (though it once
was), but unlike Germans, we do not usually produce consonant
clusters such as "schtsch" when transliterating a single alphabetic
character from Russian. English-speaking linguists are, however,
capable of even worse deeds when devising practical orthographies, as
anyone who has ever read Siberian Yupik (Eskimo) can attest.
Jane McGary
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