pronunciation

I agree with Joe.

It's interesting that the modern Italian name (or one name) for L. stoechas
is steca, which is typical of the way Italian has transformed the Latin oe
and ae diphthongs into a simple e, as in feto (foetus), ameba (amoeba),
equilibrio (aequilibrium). Spanish is similar, with feto, ameba, equilibrio
the same as Italian. Unlike Moira I would be quite happy if 'English'
English followed the American and abandoned these dipthongs in words like
encyclopaedia and oesophagus. After all we did it long ago for many other
words such as oeconomy and aestuary (examples courtesy of Joe).

I know next to nothing of Greek, but I always understood that Latin
diphthongs were assumed to have been pronounced as a single syllable -- 
which is not to say that there were not other vowel combinations treated as
two syllables, often indicated by a diaeresis sign. My ancient Latin
dictionary has Stoechas, adis (French lavender), immediately followed by
Stoicus, a, um (a stoic) with a diaeresis sign on the -i-.

Nearly all the Greek elements in botanical names come to us via Latin and we
normally use Latin conventions for both their spelling and their
pronunciation. The Romans had their own rather complex conventions for
transliterating Greek characters and 'naturalising' Greek borrow words.

In England toward the close of the 19th century the 'reformed' pronunciation
of classical Latin took hold in schools, reflecting some very scholarly
research on how it was probably pronounced. Its influence changed the way
many Latin or Latin-derived (or Greek-derived) words were pronounced by
English doctors, botanists and others -- thus the soft c and g before vowels
e, i and y were changed to the hard versions in encephalitis, gynaecology,
etc. But the changed practice has been very half-baked. Many may say
Gelsemium with a hard g, but who does likewise with Geranium? And how many
pronounce family names with the ending -ah-kay-eye as opposed to -ay-see-ee?
And what about Julius Caesar?

In America it seems that botanists and gardeners were not so easily weaned
away from the traditional English pronunciation of botanical names. Dipping
into my copy of Wyman's Gardening Encyclopedia I find Cercidiphyllum
(ser-sid-i-FILL-um) for example, Cyclamen (SIK-lam-en), and Digitalis
(dij-it-AY-lis).

There's a popular belief that Continental Europeans speak Latin more
'correctly' than Anglo-Saxons. It's true that their vowels are probably
closer to the classical versions, but the consonants are all over the place.
The Italians are among the snootiest, but their 'church Latin' comes from a
later period than the classical, with ci- pronounced as English ch-, etc
etc.

My extremely slight knowledge of Russian suggests that the first syllable of
Eucalyptus in that language is pronounced yev-, and of Helichrysum g'yel-.
So the traditional English-style Latin is not alone in being a long way
removed from the supposed classical.

Tony Rodd,
Sydney, Australia
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