Australian pronounciation of "PSILOCYBIN"

[MORG]

Basically australian botanists mostly don't have a clue about botanical latin. When you do find an australian botanists who has studied some latin you will find he will agree.

I don't know about this Torsten. I've spent a fair bit of time around botanists and found them to be pretty good on the whole. I'd peg it at roughly 50/50 for the "ee" and "ee-ay" versions of eae (which I guess you could argue is pretty poor). My sample is not exactly country-wide though.

I agree with your "shit-up-hill" sentiments though. In botany, the primary use of a Latin name is as an unambiguous, universally accepted indicator for a taxon. If your mispronunciation of the name can't result in a miscommunication then it really doesn't matter.

[-bijanto-]

I'm very far from Latin, so please help me with the "botanical latin" version of these genus names:

- Nepenthes

- Strobilanthes

Referring to Wikipedia and IPA (International Phonetic Association), Nepenthes is pronounced as: /nə.pɛnˈθiz/ , with the phonems "ɛ" and "ə" being pronounced like the letters "e" and "i" in the word "pencil" respectively, the phonem "θ" being pronounced like "th" in the word "thick" or "thin" and the phonem "iz" being pronounced like "eese" in the word "cheese".

Is it okay or should i say "ni-pɛn-thayz"..?

A source says that "Strobilanthes" is pronounced as "stroh-bil-AN-theez", with "eez" sounds like "cheese". Or is it "stroh-bil-AN-thays", with "ays" sounds likes "says" ?

Am I on the right track or what...?

Edited January 17, 2007 by -bijanto-

[Torsten]

Nepenthes is pronounced as: /nə.pɛnˈθiz/ , with the phonems "ɛ" and "ə" being pronounced like the letters "e" and "i" in the word "pencil" respectively

You sure should be pronounced as the i in pencil? Really, both 'e' are the same sound except the first is short and the second is long. The basic sound is like 'pen' though. if you make the first sound like the i in pencil then that would be the anglicised form. which may be what is presented here, because the ending should be more like '-thays' than 'thees'. So, looks to me that this phonetic representation is from an english text.

Is it okay or should i say "ni-pɛn-thayz"..?

This would be mixing anglicised at the front and classical latin at the back.

A source says that "Strobilanthes" is pronounced as "stroh-bil-AN-theez", with "eez" sounds like "cheese". Or is it "stroh-bil-AN-thays", with "ays" sounds likes "says" ?

same deal. The '-thays' is the classical latin while the '-thees' is anglicised.

If you are going to use '-thays' then you would have to say stroh-bil-UN-thays.

These are very minor differences and I don't think they would be an impediment to understanding - even at an international level.