Garden Dictionary Word: caerulea. Meaning: Dark blue.

Latin Pronunciation: see-ROO-lee-uh

Dave

From caeruleus, sky-blue.

Pronunciation: "kair-roo-leeya". A hard 'c', as in e.g. Caernarvon, Caerleon, etc. 'C' is always hard in Latin, never like an 's'.

Resin

as in kennish speak ...

care - roo -- lee -- ah

close enough ... thanks guys ...

now.. if i just had a visitor who cared ... or would that be.. kaired .... or caer-ed ....

most non-conifer folks black out.. and fall to the ground in fits.. before they ever make it to this one.. lol ... please.. stop .. i dont Kair any more .... let me go home...

NOW i will remember it ... lol

ken

Cerulean, the word, is usually pronounced sa ru le an. The Latin K sound is irrelevant because Latin died a while back -- have you noticed? -- and its conventions do not bind us unless someone is out there checking a priest doing Mass. So Ken, have at it and eschew affectations. Just be Ken (pronounced as in the dead Latin cen) and don't worry about right and wrong ways to pronounce scientific names. You'll just get your knickers (as in nikkerz) in a knot.

as a former watercolorist.. i never thought of Cyrillian blue ..

or cerillion blue ...

how many derivations can there be on a word based on an old dead language ..

naw.. it doesnt really matter ... nice plant.. pronunciation is more of a curiosity ...

ken

Probably not with latinised names like Mr Cels's;that would be too Far 'n' completely out. T.

This is another one of those subjects prone to a trans-Atlantic division. Pronunciation guides give different "correct" pronunciations depending on where they are written. Classical pronunciations used by some in UK etc. are liable to produce chuckles or quizzical looks over here. The only times I have heard such used with seriousness were when British plantsman R. Lancaster gave a talk at Edmonds Community College, and when a commercial shopper came into the wholesale office at a local nursery and asked for a pee-nus (I heard about this rather than actually witnessed it, it of course being a source of amusement here in the land of pie-nus).

Botanical Latin is essentially a written language, but the scientific names of plants often occur in speech. How they are pronounced really matters little provided they sound pleasant and are understood by all concerned. This is most likely attained by pronouncing them in accordance with the rules of classical Latin pronunciation. There are, however, several systems, since people tend to pronounce Latin words by analogy with words of their own language....

In English-speaking countries there exist two main systems, the traditional English pronunciation generally used by gardeners and botanists and the 'reformed' or 'restored' academic pronunciation adopted by classical scholars as presenting 'a reasonably close approximation to the actual sounds of the language spoken by educated Romans'. This academic pronunciation comes closer to the usual Latin pronunciation of Continental people than does the conventional English pronunciation

--Stearn, Botanical Latin (1992, David & Charles, Newton Abbot)

But note from the above excerpt from Stearn . . .

... This is most likely attained by pronouncing them in accordance with the rules of classical Latin pronunciation ...

Resin

Preceded by "How they are pronounced really matters little ..." Classical pronunciation is unfamiliar here and produces a distraction when attempted. The hard c's etc. sound far from "pleasant" to us. Start firing off abbey-ayz, pie-kee-a, pee-nus and so on and what you are saying about the plants will not be what is heard.

Where is a-verbis-ad-verbera when you really need him?

tj

"Classical pronunciation is unfamiliar here"

I don't see that as any reason to descend to the lowest level of the uneducated. That does appear to be a very regrettable tendency espoused by some here, as also seen in e.g. the rejection of sensible English names for species and the continued promotion of inaccurate names as 'correct'.

Resin

Dave's version is the preferred pronunciation. The 'c' in botanical Latin is not always pronounced hard, like a 'k'. It is when followed by 'h', as in Chamaecyparis or Chionanthus. And also when followed by 'a', 'o' and 'u'......but not always :-) The combination of 'cae', which is pretty common throughout botanical Latin, is always pronounced soft or like the letter 'c' itself - "see". And 'c' followed by 'e', 'i' or 'y' is also pronounced soft like an 's' - Picea is pie-SEE-ah.

The arguments that botanical Latin and corresponding plant names are too hard to learn have no merit. It is just like learning someone's name when they come from a foreign country - it's awkward and uncomfortable until you get used to it. Learning botanical Latin is not all that dissimilar from learning any other foreign language, except that it's a lot easier since it's all nouns and you don't have to learn tenses and other confusing grammatical niceties. Why Americans in general have such issues with learning and/or using any language other than our bastardized English is beyond me. And classical pronunciation - at least as best we know it - of botanical Latin is part and parcel of any plant ID class at the college level so why it should be considered unfamiliar or distracting when used makes no sense at all.

gardengal...thank you for your voice of reason amid all the confusing statements and opinions in this thread.

I do find pronunciation very difficult and have a tin ear when it comes to differentiating subtle sounds, blaming it on my lazy American speech habits. Plus,even with botanical Latin pronunciation standardized, you'll find variations from one dictionary to another.

Did come across this online botanical dictionary recently.(complete with annoying adds)
Does it seem to correctly use Latin pronunciations?

Looking forward to you opinion,
Barbara

Here is a link that might be useful: Botanical Dictionary

remind me every now and then .. to never ask about latin ...

it is redickulous .... all these latin fist fights ....

some day i might go to a nomenclature compendium ... just to see how much blood is shed ...

regardless.. the problem with all the replies .... I AM MORE CONFUSED NOW.. then when i first axed ....

from here on out... mine will be known as: Picea glauca 'THIS ONE HERE' ... while pointing at the tag .... followed by whatever point i had to make.. lol ..

and if they ask how to pronounce the name..i will say .. i am not sure.. two people died trying to figure it out ....

who named this plant?????? oh for crying out loud ... ACS database.. after all this.. no one pointed out that the name is wrong:

Picea glauca 'Coerulea'

iseli provided the pic... i wonder how they pronounce it?????

what is it now.. coo - roo -lee - ah???

or see - roo-lee -ah ... which is where dave started ...

whatever.. see-ya-later

ken

Yeah, poor Ken.
He goes to the work of posting dozens of pictures with nary (is that really a word?) a comment from you folks, then when he posts a seemingly simple question all h311 breaks loose.
Though, these threads do rank high on the entertainment scale...

Lets start a movement to standardize botanical pronunciations!!!! Who to contact first.....the United Nations?

Barbara

"Lowest level of the uneducated" pineresin? My God I didn't know the lowest of the uneducated even give a rat's buttocks about proper, appropriate and indubitably correct, even righteous,Latin pronunciation. Now I feel much better about being one of them. Can't really control what class one is born into, can one?

Strictly a po-tay-to/po-tah-to issue, with nobody having a superior position.

As I said except for the two instances mentioned as far as I can remember I've never heard anyone use the classical pronunciations here. And I've been around a bit - no college instructors, no lecturers, no nursery people, nobody.

The word-form with which I'm most familiar is 'cerulean' - and I give it the 's' sound. Related words - such as 'celestial' and 'ceiling' - have an 's' sound, as well, and so this pronunciation is perfectly natural, in my opinion.

Josh

or see - roo-lee -ah ... which is where dave started ...

I am capable of starting a lot of things...I can look up 6-10 more interpretations but I can't guarantee they will be correct.

As Ken says:...whatever... see-ya-later

Dave

had to resurrect this interesting discussion from the perspective of an italian born.

"c" in latin was not pronounced as "s", "see" or whatever other anglicization that came afterwards. It was (and still is) either hard, as in "k" , or soft as in "ch" of "church" . Some geographical variations certainly existed but we do know how official latin was pronounced.

I still have absolutely no idea why latin is deliberately anglicized in botanical circles when we know very well how it was pronounced. For example, pinus is indeed pronounced p-ee-nuh-s, and picea 'p-ee-cheh-ah', and acer as ah-cher with cher pronounced as the musician. None of the sounds that are necessary to pronounce latin correctly and unambiguously are absent from the english language. There is no excuse, really. The assertion that latin is only a written language is incorrect: the Vatican has been holding ceremonies in latin for 2000 years and they have been very careful in its preservation.

I would think latin was chosen as a universal language in the categorization of species to simplify and remove confusion. It helps a lot less now if 95% of the people that use it don't know how to pronounce it and make themselves understood efficiently. Anglicizing latin only brings to latin the massive challenges of ambiguity that exist in the pronunciation of english. With proper pronunciation, any latin word can be written and spelled without doubt because there is only one way to write a word that has a certain pronunciation.

I am sorry if this looks like a rant but it is really funny to sit around expert plantsmen who have to repeat names 5 times, and do spelling to get a latin name figured out properly... and then you have the coerulea issues and the mislabeling...

Here is a link that might be useful: good guide on latin pronunciation

LIke I said, po-tay-to vs po-tah-to - with neither being the "right" one no matter how much forum participants with British or European backgrounds want to make out goofy sounding classical pronunciations to be the only acceptable ones.

Or how many times it is stated that only Eurocentric common names are "correct".

This is the kind of rubbish that internet discussion sites seem to be peculiarly good for promoting and hosting in abundance; people with quite sclerotic opinions that would be laughed at in a group of informed persons interacting face-to-face can go on and on with their nonsense, for sometimes years. And get novices doing tailspins or going off in the wrong directions.

This post was edited by bboy on Sat, Nov 30, 13 at 21:26

wow, bboy, you really outdid yourself here.

in three short paragraphs you managed to:
(i) not address any of the points raised
(ii) try to ridicule me
(iii) state nonsense as fact ("neither being the right one...")
(iv) try to shift the discussion into a laughable Europe vs USA argument

I am truly amazed that, at your age (I assume you are even older than I am), you still seem to approach discussions with strategies appropriate to a playground bully. You might realize one day that stating something doesn't make it true, regardless of how forcefully and matter-of-factly you do it. And that when you behave like that, the fact people do not dissent with you has more to do with compassion than with the validity of your arguments.

I am really done with the gratuitous aggressiveness and condescension of this forum. Knock yourself out.

my solution to the dilemma.. presented to garden visitors...

is to say.. in the art world ... they have cerulean blue ... and below is how every art teacher i ever had.. said it .. lol ..

then i proceed to tell them that the tag is an unpronounceable latin bastardization of such ...

lol ...

stick around lcad.. life's to short to get pissed off on latin translations of unpronounceable words ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: sir-ill-i-anne blue

Maybe I mentioned this earlier in the thread but anyway Stearn said in his substantial book on the subject called Botanical Latin that if everyone knows what you are talking about how exactly you say it probably doesn't matter. With different people using differing botanical pronunciations with such frequency that is the only practical way to approach it.

Bill McNamara (ED of Quarryhill Botanical Garden) tells the story of taking a group of 'ladies' around QH and one asked how a particular plant name was pronounced and he replied 'it's Greek, it's a dead language, pronounce it however you wish' and it turned out that another member of the group was the wife of the Greek ambassador!

Yeah, the "dead" language is Latin although of course many botanical names have a basis in Greek.

So then after that oopsie maybe Bill was dead, as in his goose being cooked.

Yeah, the "dead" language is Latin although of course many botanical names have a basis in Greek.

So then after that oopsie maybe Bill was dead, as in his goose being cooked.

and why in the hell do you peeps have to always litter my inbox with these things ...

here i am sitting minding my own business ... and this flies thru the either to me..

lol ...

are you all perhaps suggesting that i post too much???

crikey..and blimey .... all rolled in a pshaw ... lol

ken

As italian and former latin student (at the highschool) I felt a bit involved in this topic.
The correct pronunciation of Caerulea is:

Che like in chestnut
ru like in ruler
le like in lecture
a like in amazing

Sorry, but I'm not familiar with phonetic transcription....

I saw that it is sometimes spelled as Coerulea, which I think it is not correct. Anyhow the pronunciation would not change: oe and ae are equal to e, unless there is a diaeresis (Umlaut in german) above them.

Unfortunatly latin is no more so important as in the past, even in science, since english is nowadys the new latin, it's the standard.

Even italian speakers, who know the correct pronunciation, are used to pronunce latin names in international conferences or meetings the english way, otherwise they would be misunderstood or maybe just because it sounds cooler or more international....anyway I can't hold back a smile when I hear that.

I hope it helped....

RIP latin!

Alberto