Will "A-kee-knock-tee-eye-antha" do?

Where did you acquire these rarities, Ken?

Ok, I'm new to hosta, but not new to Latin. :) The ae is pronounced like the ai in aisle. So you get "Aye-quin-ock-tee-antha"

The word Aequinoctium is a combination of "equal" and "night" and it is where we get the term "equinox."

Three years of Latin just became worth it, as I actually got to teach ken something for ONCE! :)

What is is this week, Ken? Stump the hosta forum?

It's interesting, anyway.

bk

I didn't take Latin...but refer to Latin names for perennials to ensure I get the right one....I thought when there are two ii's together in a word e.g. Paniculata 'Davidii'... they are pronounced separately ... one short, the other long....is that correct, Jadie?

Totally right, Jo! at the end of a word ii denotes a plural, and the i's are pronounced as you said. The tricky thing is that in the middle of a word, two i's together are both short, but they break syllables. Its that a after the ii that throws me off though...usually you'd see another consonant, which makes the syllable break easier to say.

One thing for sure, I would never have guessed this was the name of a hosta! :)

it was big quite a while back.. for its red petioles ... and its bloom period i think ... its wavy too ...

ken

Totally right, Jo! At the end of a word ii denotes a plural, and the i's are pronounced as you said. The tricky thing is that in the middle of a word, two i's together are both short, but they break syllables. Its that a after the ii that throws me off though...usually you'd see another consonant, which makes the syllable break easier to say.

One thing for sure, I would never have guessed this was the name of a hosta! :)

So..the name refers to the blooming time, which is about the time of the equinox. Ergo equinoc-tiantha.

http://myhostas.be/db/hostas/aequinoctiiantha

Might have to have this species plant.

Sandy

is it available anywhere ... ???

might have to track me down

ken

Link to a picture of the thing.Looks like another little green lancifolia type, nothing special unless you are hunting down the various species types.

Sandy

Here is a link that might be useful: aequinoctiiantha

Ohigan Giboshi is it's Japanese name, might be able to find it by that. I looked briefly but didn't see a source. I'm busy, got boxes with hostas in them to open!

Where's my knife......

Sandy

As long as you are not pronouncing latin names in American English, you are correct. I often get in trouble when I pronounce a latin conifer name like I think it should be (coming from Europe) in an American nursery. Bernd

Ken

to pronounce it ...

ihhhh .... with a hard 't' at the end.

it.

*wipes brow* Crikey.

not that tough.

TAPE that!

dave

Ken,

Stopped by OBrien's Hosta gardens in North Granby, CT today to view some of his mature hostas and he has this plant for sale. It's listed on the website too. www.obrienhosta.com.

Would never have noticed it except for this interesting post about the plant.

FWIW,
Pat

We have to take all Latin pronounciation rules with a bit of salt. In fact, since Latin is a dead language, no one actually knows how it was originally pronounced. We have lots of hints, but the rules were created by scholars.

Unfortunately, more than one set of rules exists. The proper pronounciation is simply whatever a group of people agree to - so groups that use Latin regularly agree on a set of rules.

My brother is a pharmacist. He routinely "mispronounces" Latin when we walk the garden - because the pronounciation the medical community has agreed upon is quite different from the pronounciation used by horticulturalists.

Try Huechera... a Latin professor gave me three alternative pronounciations, all correct depending on who was doing the speaking... and then said a native-Latin speaking Roman would probably look questioningly at all three!

Now Sagae - that's Japanese and there really are rules for how to pronounce that... and yet we refuse to use them... so I've given up on the Latin.

Sometimes common usage rules--even if it isn't technically correct. Like Forsythia--For-seye-thia (after the discoverer, Forsythe)-- or Kalanchoe--Ka-lan-ko-ee, to be correct. But who ever says it that way? Or, who wants to correct anybody, that says it "wrong", lol!

Is it Pee-oh-nee, or Pe-a-ney, or Pie-nee, as my grandmother called it? I think the pronounciation of peony might be regional.

It's interesting to untangle the roots of a Latin or botanical (or any language, for that matter) to see why it's named that (like equinoc-thiana), and to see how the pronounciations and spellings have changed through the years. Sometimes words have startling roots!

Sandy

This post was edited by mosswitch on Sat, Aug 17, 13 at 10:05