Re: Homonymy

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----- Original Message -----

From: s*@wanadoo.fr

To: i*@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 6:52 PM

Subject: [iris-photos] Homonymy

It?s difficult to find a good name for a new variety, and the work of the registrar is more and more delicate: sometimes a problem appears.

Loic Tasquier raised one of them, when he drew attention about the homonymy between ALIENOR D?AQUITAINE and ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE.

These two names allude to the same person, but are expressed in two different languages.

Mike Greenfield says that there is no homonymy because all the words used are not the same, and are not written in the same order.

For me, homonymy exists if we refer to the meaning of the name.

That is the same thing between LADIES ONLY and its translation in French POUR DAMES SEULEMENT.

In both cases the persons who gave the names wanted to say the same thing.

The homonymy is in the meaning, even if the words are different.

If the homonymy would appear only when the names use the same words, that seems to me too restrictive, and I regret that the instructions about registration would be not more precise.

A doubt can appear all at once when the names are expressed in languages which are parents, like English and French.

But when a name is written in a very different language, homonymy  exists too,  even though it is more secretive: GOLDEN CROWN and ZOLOTAYA KORONA are homonymous, but we can observe this homonymy only if we understand the English and Russian languages !

To avoid these difficulties, I suggest that when a name is expressed in anyone else language but English, the originator gives the English translation of this name.

Because the registrar cannot know the whole languages of the world.

And another advantage would be, because every people could understand what the name means.