Plant Pronunciation

[dewalltheway]

As I am sure I don't stand alone on this issue, correct plant pronunciation is difficult to find. For me, I know what a plant is when I see the name of it but am not sure if I can correctly pronounce it. Does anyone know if there is a website that pronounces the names of these plants and if not, would it not be a great idea for someone to create a site for audible pronunciation of aquarium plants. I would love to attend some of the conferences that take place every year, but would be scared to death to pronounce any plants to anyone. I can hear them now..."your looking for what plant?"

I love this hobby and want to expand my knowledge of it and want to start by correctly pronouncing the plants we use. I would love someday to be a speaker at an event to share my trials and errors and my successes with the aquarium hobby, but I need to be able to know how these plants are correctly pronounced.

Please share your thoughts...

[PRSRocker3390]

I am for this. I would LOVE a site to teach me how to pronounce the all the names correctly. I guess if we just learned basic Latin we could figure out most if not all. But I have no clue where to start.

I don't know if you already know but the website www.plantgeek.net teaches you how to pronounce a lot of them. You just have to register there for free and they show you on some plants but not all. It is what I've been doing for now.

Maybe we can start a thread of all the plant names and in parenthesis we can put how it is pronounced phonetically or something. I'd be willing to help contribute to a thread of pronunciations. It could be something like this:

Rotala rotundifolia ( ro-TAY-luh ro-tun-dih-FOH-lee-uh)
Hygrophila polysperma ( hy-GRO-fill-uh pol-lee-SPER-muh)

And so on.... I can keep going

[dewalltheway]

That would be a great start. Anything would be helpful. I would even like to see here on TPT in the Plant Profiles or on APC in their plant profiles, a phonetically pronunciation of that particular plant, but audibly would be awesome!
Also.....I am not much into learning latin, just plant names.

Originally Posted by PRSRocker3390

I am for this. I would LOVE a site to teach me how to pronounce the all the names correctly. I guess if we just learned basic Latin we could figure out most if not all. But I have no clue where to start.

I don't know if you already know but the website www.plantgeek.net teaches you how to pronounce a lot of them. You just have to register there for free and they show you on some plants but not all. It is what I've been doing for now.

Maybe we can start a thread of all the plant names and in parenthesis we can put how it is pronounced phonetically or something. I'd be willing to help contribute to a thread of pronunciations. It could be something like this:

Rotala rotundifolia ( ro-TAY-luh ro-tun-dih-FOH-lee-uh)
Hygrophila polysperma ( hy-GRO-fill-uh pol-lee-SPER-muh)

And so on.... I can keep going

[PRSRocker3390]

Some more basic plants I found:

Cryptocoryne ( krip-toh-kor-RY-nee)
Anubias barteri (an-YOO-bee-as bar-TARE-eye)
Egeria densa (ee-JEE-ree-uh DEN-suh)
Vallisneria americana (val-lis-NER-ee-uh am-er-ih-KAH-nu)
Aponogeton crispus (ah-poh-no-JEE-tun KRISP-us)
Bacopa monnieri (buh-KOH-puh mon-ee-ER-ee)
Marsilea minuta (mar-SIL-ee-uh min-YOO-tuh)
Hemianthus micranthemoides (hem-ee-AN-thus my-KRAN-thee-moy-deez)
Blyxa japonica (BLY-zuh juh-PON-ih-kuh)

[Darkblade48]

I think the problem with this is that there really is no "standard" for pronunciation.

For example, I would say that Blyxa is pronounced as "Blix-sah" rather than "Bly-zuh"...

[PRSRocker3390]

I know, we all say them different. I was just posting a few I found on plantgeek.net that might help some members pronounce some of the names of plants we see often.

I agree though, I like to say blix-sah instead of bly-zuh

[lauraleellbp]

It was funny when Esteroali and I went out for lunch for the first time to "plant talk"- I had to pay attention to what she was saying b/c she pronounced names so differently than I would!

And that is NOT how I would pronounce Cryptocoryne- I say KRYPT - o - cor - een. Probably isn't correct, but it sounds better to me.

And I also say Blyx-ah, with a long "y"

[dewalltheway]

I know there would be some variations in pronunciation of plants but there are some plants I just don't know how to pronounce and as far as "Hemianthus micranthemoides" I will stick to "HM". It would be neat to have a speaker icon next to the plant profile that would give you an audible pronounciation that is most commonly used. I know if I hear someone say it, it helps me pronounce it much easier and faster.

[Darkblade48]

Originally Posted by lauraleellbp

And that is NOT how I would pronounce Cryptocoryne- I say KRYPT - o - cor - een. Probably isn't correct, but it sounds better to me.

I pronounce this similarly; the only difference is the last syllable.

I say it as KRYPT - o - core - in.

Originally Posted by lauraleellbp

And I also say Blyx-ah, with a long "y"

What does a long i sound like? Like the word "I" (subject pronoun)?

I've always thought of it like a short i sound (like in the word "bliss").

Who knows

Originally Posted by dewalltheway

I know there would be some variations in pronunciation of plants but there are some plants I just don't know how to pronounce and as far as "Hemianthus micranthemoides" I will stick to "HM".

HM, HC, those are horrible to try and pronounce. I can always get the Hemianthus part down, but the species name kills me

[MrJG]

If you want to have some fun with it and you have an Apple workstation you can use the speech software to pronounce some things. Go into system preferences>speech, check the box for "speak selected text when the key is pressed", and set the mapping for a key on your keyboard.

I have no idea if the text to speech engine is getting the pronunciation of some of these plant names right but its pretty funny. Some things after hearing how the mac interpreted them I realized that I was missing a whole section of the word with the pronunciation I thought it would be.

[Darkblade48]

Originally Posted by MrJG

If you want to have some fun with it and you have an Apple workstation you can use the speech software to pronounce some things. Go into system preferences>speech, check the box for "speak selected text when the key is pressed", and set the mapping for a key on your keyboard.

You can do a similar thing in Windows with Microsoft Sam (Control Panel -> Speech -> Text to Speech)

I believe later releases of Windows come with Michael and Michelle voices too

And the best part is that you can sometimes trick the text to speech software and it'll just say random jumbled nonsense.

[Diana]

Hemianthus micranthemoides= Hem' e an' thus my cran' thi moi' des

Hem' - short e, medium accent
e - long e
an' - short a, strong accent
th - short theta, like the or this
us - short u, s is the clear hissing s, not much of a z creeping in there.

my - long i, or just the way it looks, the word my
cran' - Like cranberry- short a, medium accent
th - short theta
i - like a long e, but not too long- don't drag it out
moi' - like oil, or toy, strong accent
des - long e or slight hint of 'days', but do not drag it out. The s does take on a little more of a z sound.

Easy way:
'aich em'

If a Latin name is derived from a person's name then try to retain the pronunciation of the person's name.
The Blue Ram (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi) is named after Ramirez. Just add an i.
Ra-mer'-ez-eye is how I have heard it most often.
Ra- short a
mer'- long e (actually is the Spanish i)
ez- short e
eye- long i ??? is the part I am not sure of.

[Gatekeeper]

Diana, I am speechless on that. I actually was able to follow that perfectly through. Well done.

[mistergreen]

Hey Diana,
Are you the same Diana on loaches online? or Diana k on APC?

If you are , long time no see!

[Darkblade48]

Great "walkthrough", Diana!

Now for the pronunciation of HC?