Some
time back I heard some fishkeeper (a Texan, because only a Texan
would be so pragmatic) explain why it is impossible to mispronounce
the names of the fish we keep:
“They
have Latin names, and Latin is a dead language. And obviously
you can’t mispronouce a word from a dead language.”
Sounds
good to me! I’ve since used this handy excuse on several
occasions.
From
a practical standpoint, however, it does have a few flaws. For
instance, it can confuse a conversation. On the phone a few days
ago, the caller (a non-Texan, naturally!) was inquiring about
a fish. Specifically, he wanted to know about our demon-sunny.
With
his “foreign” accent too, it took some time to decipher
that he was inquiring about Pseudotropheus demasoni (dee-mason-eye).
Why
dee-mason-eye and not demon-sunny?
Well,
first understand that the i at the end of a species name
is always a long i—pronounced like eye.
Next,
understand that species are commonly named for people—in
this case, for Laif DeMason, the well-known fish importer.
Then,
it’s simple to come up with dee-mason-eye the first
time you see the word.
(Now,
if the fish had been named after Mrs. DeMason, it would be Pseudotropheus
demasonae, pronounced dee-mason-ee. If named for a
male, the species name gets the i ending; if named for
a female, it gets the ae ending, pronounced like ee.)
Knowing
these basics, we can refrain from calling a Tropheus duboisi
as du-boys-ee, when it should be du-boys-eye. (That
is, assuming Mr. DuBois pronounces his name du-boys.) If you want,
you can even smirk when you hear someone refer to a lel-oop-ee
instead of lel-oop-eye.
Every
once in a while one might encounter a species name like ansorgii—with
two i’s on the end. Not to worry. Just follow the
rule and you can correctly pronounce it an-sorg-ee-eye.
Or
encounter a name like tenuidentatus or afromastacemelus—and
you can do what I’d do: say Latin is a dead language anyway,
and who needs to pronounce it?
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