Disputatio:Juno (genus)

Name

I think we've agreed (somewhere ...) that we would retain the letter j when it is part of a scientific name, because this is the standard scientific orthography and we shouldn't change it. So I've reverted Xaverius's move today. If I'm mistaken, please tell me! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:40, 13 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Whether anybody agreed or not, it seems the right thing to do; otherwise, biologists & others unfamiliar with the convention that J = I will be confused. If, however, Vicipaedia decreed that all jays would become eyes (giving us oddities like President Andreas Iackson, the writer Henricus Iames, the unit of measurement known as the ioulium, and that famously untranslatable dance the iitterbug), then maybe it'd be OK. IacobusAmor 13:44, 13 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

The way I would put it is: Letter J is a Latin letter, though this particular letter, which was added late in the middle ages, aquired a great variety of correct ways to pronounce it in Latin ranging from "dz" to "i-consonant". This wide range of correct pronounciation makes it convenient when writing foreign and technical words whose sounds do not correspond exactly to the sounds of classic latin speech; on the other hand J is superfluous for spelling words of purely latin origin.--Rafaelgarcia 15:10, 13 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's all true too. Everybody is in agreement! (Well, three of us anyway.) IacobusAmor 15:45, 13 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

One more argument. Iuno as genus was not known in classic time.--Skrod 09:37, 14 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Florens

One important thing for English-speaking users. In English "flowering plants" are more or less synonymous with "angiosperms", but in Latin "florere" is "to blossom". So "plantae florentes" are "plants that are now in flower" (e.g., in spring). For the taxon there is only one Latin name, Angiospermae, -arum. Ailamnos (disputatio) 16:32, 17 Martii 2023 (UTC)

I hadn't ever thought about it. I now think you're right. Of the few examples of "plantae florentes" that a Google search offers, most of them are (a) mirroring Vicipaedia, or (b) examples of automatic translation: in both cases, not reliable sources for Latin, and in the second case, not Latin at all.

If we wanted a common-language paraphrase for "Angiosperma" sg. or flowering plant, true and in simple words, what would it be? This is a necessary question, because "Angiospermae" appears in the infobox but Latinists who are not botanists won't necessarily understand anything much by "Angiospermae" in the text. I guess we might say "plantae floribus regignentes", maybe rather "... florendo ..." or "... florescendo ...", plants that reproduce by producing flowers? But regigno is a rare word. Better suggestions? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:39, 18 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Stearn's Botanical Latin gives the Latin for 'flowering' as florens with no explanation, leaving us to assume it can mean both 'in flower' and 'able to flower'; indeed, in botanical descriptions & diagnoses, which refer to abstract & inherent qualities, it'll necessarily be taken to mean the latter. Under floridus ('abounding in flowers, profusely flowering'), Stearn lists florifer and floriger, both defined as 'bearing flowers, flowering'. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:47, 18 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Florifer and floriger are both fine (rare, like regigno, but from the same good author -- Lucretius). So either of those adjectives would give a precise paraphrase, neater than my initial suggestion and more accurate than our current "planta florens". Great. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:53, 18 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for taking my comment so seriously. It is interesting to see your perspective which is apparently rather different from mine. I am a botanist and not a native speaker of English, so for me "angiosperm" is a quite natural term and "flowering plant" is a doublet of dubious utility, all the more that it is not self-evident - in palaeobotany "anthophytes", so more or less the same as 'flowering plants' (but in Greek), refers to a more inclusive group (angiosperms plus some fossils). I agree some Latinists may not be familiar with 'angiosperms', this is why I put "genus plantarum angiospermarum", which seems (to me) a good compromise between precision and general intelligibility; in a professional botanical text I would put just "genus angiospermarum".

Conversely, in my opinion any Latin equivalent of 'Angiospermae' would be neither universally nor precisely understood. For example, 'planta florifera' will probably be understood by most botanists rather as a 'plant that is actually flowering'; for example in a Polish iconography that has both Latin and Polish legends, a normal description of a general view of a plant is "habitus plantae floriferae", as opposed to "habitus plantae fructiferae" (Mądalski, Fl. pol. Iconographia II, 5, pp. 42-43 - 1990). I suppose that most people interested in reading a Latin entry on a plant genus will be familiar with basic botanical terminology.

So, in an entry on botanical systematics, I would advocate using botanical Latin rather than a paraphrase, unless there be a the consensus view that classical Latin equivalents should always be preferred. In the case we are discussing I would opt for 'plantae angiospermae' (perhaps with the additional explanation scilicet quae semina intra fructus inclusa habent, but this can as well be done using the hyperlink). Ailamnos (disputatio) 11:40, 20 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. The point on which I disagree with you is about the expected readership. OK, let's face it, few people read an encyclopaedia article in Latin at all! But ignoring, for a moment, the language we're writing in, we write a general encyclopaedia for readers of all backgrounds: they might have some scientific knowledge, they might have none. They want to learn but don't necessarily know the technical jargon. Why would botanists, in particular, go to a general encyclopaedia to read an article about a botanical species? but if they do, they are welcome, and if they want the taxonomy, there it is in the infobox.

I can use myself as an example. I'm a food historian. I often use botanical information, I use some specialist botanical sources (most recently some excellent but none-too-user-friendly monographs in PhytoKeys), I talk to taxonomists and botanists and, believe me, I admire what they do, but I don't have the higher classification levels (as they currently stand) present at the front of my mind. You, no doubt, do. On the other hand, the flexible use of hyperlinks (it looks as if hyperlinks came to you as an afterthought when you were writing your comment!) has saved me a lot of time and puzzlement over the last couple of decades.

So if I can put the classification in the infobox, and write "species [[angiospermae|plantarum florigerarum]]" (or whatever might be better) in the text, I'm really happy and I am also reminding non-specialist readers of an important equivalence that might not have been at the front of their minds. That's good, surely? ... So what I hope for from a botanist is a suggestion as to the best possible paraphrase for a technical term, which I can then show alongside the technical term itself. If the botanist tells me there is no equivalent, and I should only ever use the technical term, I would feel I am being led to write obscurely. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:37, 20 Martii 2023 (UTC)

PS: We do in general have a fall-back preference for classical Latin, and that's why I mentioned (above) that the three terms that came into discussion were all used by Lucretius (it's hard to imagine a better classical authority in this context!) The justification for our preference is that all Latinists have aimed at this standard -- and then, of couse, in their own technical fields, gone far beyond it. We also aim to use botanical Latin in a botanical context, hence Iacobus's citation of Stearn. (Personal note: as an undergraduate I found a cheap secondhand copy of Stearn and bought it. A botanist friend was very cross with me: he said I would never need it and I should have left it for a botanist student to find. Luckily, 55 years later, I am proving him wrong.) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:57, 20 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed answer and for the story about Stearn's book. I managed to buy it secondhand too. I also have quite a few books I bought many years ago and that proved to be useful only several (in some cases more than twenty) years later.

I agree we write for a general reader. I would say, however, that a reader of an encyclopaedia should be expected to possess some level of general knowledge. I learnt 'angiosperms' (in Polish) as a schoolboy probably when I was in the sixth class (I do not know the precise equivalent in the English system, but this simply means the sixth year of schooling, so I was probably about 12 years old). If I insisted on the point that I was not a native speaker of English, this is because English is one of the few languages I know that has a "popular doublet" for 'angiosperms' (namely 'flowering plants'). If you compare other wikipedias, you will see that corresponding entries in other languages (those I can check) mostly either use a vernacular version of "angiosperms" (French: angiospermes, Spanish and Portuguese: angiospermas, Italian: angiosperme) or a precise translation of the Greek anatomical term denoting closed carpels (German: Bedecktsamer; Polish: okrytonasienne; Ukrainian: Покритонасінні). I found only one other language that uses something similar to 'flowering plants', this is Russian: Цветковые растения).

You say "I don't have the higher classification levels (as they currently stand) present at the front of my mind. You, no doubt, do." Neither do I, they change too often. I fully agree we should not use "eudicots" or "eurosids" (to cite just a few groups from the new classification) in a text intended for a general reader. However, "angiosperms" was coined in mid-19th century (the authorship is by Braun & Doell, 1857) and never changed the meaning. This is one of the most stable units of plant classification. Well, yes, you can say it is a technical word, but if you describe a plant genus, even in very general terms, you cannot avoid using technical words like calyx and corolla.

To sum up, from the three possible equivalents (plantae florentes, floriferae and florigerae), I would consider 'plantae florigerae' as the least bad, as in my opinion the other two quite unequivocally refer to plants that are actually in flower (before fruiting). Still, for me 'plantae florigerae' is rather a calque from English into Latin. I am not sure that, for example, any Romance language speaker would consider finding a replacement term for 'angiosperm' necessary. Ailamnos (disputatio) 10:52, 22 Martii 2023 (UTC)

OK, it's an unnecessary calque. Let's call each such plant an angiosperma going forward. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:50, 22 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Fine. Interesting discussion, good conclusion. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:04, 22 Martii 2023 (UTC)