Scientific names..
- Thread starter Zardozi
- Start date
Most of genus and species have a common Latin name.
For example:
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Artemisia
Species: Artemisia vulgaris
Species could have addition on latin mostly. As you could see above, vulgaris, communis, officinalis.
By color: album, nigrum, purpurea,...
Or by the leaf description: grandifolia, angustifolium
By areal where specie resides: cretica, maritima, europea, bulgaricum, etc.
But sometimes, other languages could be used in specie's name. Often not as a description, mostly as a name (surname) of founder or as local terms modified in Latin.
For example: Iris reichenbachii , by Reichenbach who found this specie.
Or by local areal: Daphne blagayana, where Blagay is part of Stara Planina mountain in Bulgaria.
Of course that each specie has it's local, common name on other languages, but it would be real mess without scientific classification in Latin.
For example:
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Artemisia
Species: Artemisia vulgaris
Species could have addition on latin mostly. As you could see above, vulgaris, communis, officinalis.
By color: album, nigrum, purpurea,...
Or by the leaf description: grandifolia, angustifolium
By areal where specie resides: cretica, maritima, europea, bulgaricum, etc.
But sometimes, other languages could be used in specie's name. Often not as a description, mostly as a name (surname) of founder or as local terms modified in Latin.
For example: Iris reichenbachii , by Reichenbach who found this specie.
Or by local areal: Daphne blagayana, where Blagay is part of Stara Planina mountain in Bulgaria.
Of course that each specie has it's local, common name on other languages, but it would be real mess without scientific classification in Latin.
Latin used to be what english is now, probably even more prolific...or maybe I'm speaking too soon. Its Ironic, Romans invaded the Earth, yet instead of speaking Italian or vanacular, they prefered Latin. Further suggestive to the fact that Romans annihalated themselves.
yes, latin.
take a semester or two.
Latin genus/species names are always written in Latin in all Western languages. In Asian languages, however, they translate the genus and/or species into characters, but this is not a translation from the Latin, and it is not a literal translation of the same words for genus and species. It is not as straightforward and simple as the Linnaean Latin binomial nomenclature system. They use the Latin when writing scientific journals in international publications. For example, in Chinese:
Homo Sapien = 智人 (literally: "wise man")
Centipeda minima = 鵝不食草 (literally: "insect that does not eat grass"), but this is the shortened version. The Chinese scientific name for the genus centipeda is 10 characters long. Homo neanderthalensis is 6 characters but ends with the genus name "man": 人 . So it's not really the same as genus and species, but it is a scientific "descriptive" classification.
I have a dictionary at home but don't know of any online, although I did find one for traditional Chinese medicinal (TCM) herbs: http://alternativehealing.org/18_strokes_of_first_characters.htm
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Also, my question: I just sequenced the DNA of some Noth American Grizzly Bears and found out that there are now four distinct clades. I call them the Southern Grizzly, Northern Grizzly, Northeast Grizzly and North Northeast Grizzly. Or should I not capitalize and call it the northern Grizzly, northeast Grizzly, etc. Or should I use all small letters and say: "I just discovered that there is a southern grizzly bear, a northern grizzly bear and a northeast grizzly bear." Or: "there is a new grizzly bear in the south part of the Rockies and in the north part. Or: "In the South part of the Rockies and in the northern section...."
Homo Sapien = 智人 (literally: "wise man")
Centipeda minima = 鵝不食草 (literally: "insect that does not eat grass"), but this is the shortened version. The Chinese scientific name for the genus centipeda is 10 characters long. Homo neanderthalensis is 6 characters but ends with the genus name "man": 人 . So it's not really the same as genus and species, but it is a scientific "descriptive" classification.
I have a dictionary at home but don't know of any online, although I did find one for traditional Chinese medicinal (TCM) herbs: http://alternativehealing.org/18_strokes_of_first_characters.htm
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Also, my question: I just sequenced the DNA of some Noth American Grizzly Bears and found out that there are now four distinct clades. I call them the Southern Grizzly, Northern Grizzly, Northeast Grizzly and North Northeast Grizzly. Or should I not capitalize and call it the northern Grizzly, northeast Grizzly, etc. Or should I use all small letters and say: "I just discovered that there is a southern grizzly bear, a northern grizzly bear and a northeast grizzly bear." Or: "there is a new grizzly bear in the south part of the Rockies and in the north part. Or: "In the South part of the Rockies and in the northern section...."
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John Connellan
Valued Senior Member
Most taxonomic classifications for all life on Earth are named with Latin words, but it's not really a rule. Just a convention.
And if you're asking if, for example, a German scientist would refer to a wolf as Canis lupus, then the answer is yes. I think the names are supposed to be universal, so that everyone would know exactly which organism you're referring to. Otherwise you'd have to deal with a slew of different words for the same thing, even within the same language.
For example, I might talk about a cougar, and you'd think "What? What's a cougar?" And then someone else would mention mountain lions and we'd both think "What?" And again someone might go "A what now?" if you start talking about pumas. And then what if a scientist from Brazil doesn't know the English word for the suçuarana! To avoid this, everyone would just talk about Puma concolor.
What?
And if you're asking if, for example, a German scientist would refer to a wolf as Canis lupus, then the answer is yes. I think the names are supposed to be universal, so that everyone would know exactly which organism you're referring to. Otherwise you'd have to deal with a slew of different words for the same thing, even within the same language.
For example, I might talk about a cougar, and you'd think "What? What's a cougar?" And then someone else would mention mountain lions and we'd both think "What?" And again someone might go "A what now?" if you start talking about pumas. And then what if a scientist from Brazil doesn't know the English word for the suçuarana! To avoid this, everyone would just talk about Puma concolor.
What?
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Uh, I don't know where to begin. How about this way...
The language in which "Beowulf" was written is called Anglo-Saxon, because it was the Germanic language or dialect (distinction is a little fuzzy in tribal cultures) that was brought over by the Angles and Saxons. Sensible enough, right? However, when I was a kid it was called Old English, because it was the language spoken in England during the era before the Norman invasion. It is the direct ancestor of Middle English, the language of England post-1066.
So, let's look for an analogy. The language of the Caesars is called Latin because it was the Indo-European language of the tribe that can be identified with a place called Latium. It is the language that was spoken in Rome, and then later in the Roman Empire as the Romans spread throughout most of Europe and some nearby lands, up until roughly 600-700CE, when the Western Roman Empire collapsed. However... it could just as sensibly be called Old Italian. It is the direct ancestor of the languages of the various Italian city-states when they were first recorded around that time. Unlike Anglo-Saxon, Latin spawned a whole family of languages from Romanian to French to Portuguese, but all of those examples bear heavy outside influences (Slavic, Germanic and Arabic, respectively), whereas even the Italian of today is rather pure in its Latin heritage. (Much closer than English, with its dumpload of French and Latin words, is to its Germanic roots, for example.)
There's no really good reason not to refer to Latin as Old Italian, or to Italian as Modern Latin. (As we refer to Modern Greek and Modern Hebrew.) The point is: there was never a time when both Latin and Italian were spoken, because they are time-lapse snapshots of the same language. So to say that the Romans did not spread Italian is a meaningless sentence.
It's actually rather difficult to speak of "Italian" up until very recently. Florence, Rome, Sicily and each of the other principal medieval city-states had its own language. There was a lot of travel and commerce among them so they influenced each other, but they remained distinct. Around the end of the 19th century the nation pulled together politically and decided to pull its language together at the same time. I believe it was the Florentine dialect, not Roman, that has the greatest influence in Modern Italian. There's another thread on this forum with a URL to a nice article about the history of Italian.
Or to put it more succinctly as John did:
BTW, you forgot that in much of the South they're called "panthers."
You're kidding? They keep breaking up what used to be the genus Felis. Even after lions and tigers got moved to Panthera, mountain lions were still called Felis concolor. I suppose this means that despite the greatest efforts of dedicated scientists, no one has succeeded in getting a housecat to breed with a cougar?
Yes but perhaps we should make clear that in many cases that is simply Latin syntax, not true historical Latin words from the tongue of Caesar. The most common bacteria in your intestine, the usual culprit in food poisoning, is Escheria coli. Escher is just the name of the scientist who discovered it. Poinsettia, Wistaria, the names of many genera are a history book of botanists, with their names taking Latin grammatical suffixes.
Start from the foundation that "grizzly bear" is not capitalized. English names of species are not, unless they contain a proper name like "Oregon junco," "Przewalski's horse" or "African elephant." Therefore there's never a reason to capitalize "grizzly." Northern and southern? Regions are not usually capitalized. Exceptions include the Civil War and its aftermath: Southern politics maybe, but not southern grizzlies. Historical events: the Northwest Passage, but not northwest grizzlies. Regions that have taken on identities of their own: Northern California and Northern Virginia, but not northern Delaware and not northern grizzlies.
Stick with lower case unless one of the words comes with its own capital, and even then be skeptical.
BTW, you forgot that in much of the South they're called "panthers."
Really? I had always thought it was a different species of cat, one similar to cougars but black (and sometimes pink
).It can also mean a leopard or a jaguar. Panther is used to address all three species.Really? I had always thought it was a different species of cat, one similar to cougars but black (and sometimes pink
No, there wasn't.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Sure, but there aren't any leopards or jaguars in the South. Give the poor folks a break, they have cougars and alligators!
No wonder they're so into the politics of fear!
I suppose the sperm from any type of cat could inseminate an egg from any type of cat to produce offspring, one syngameon, species is a meaningless term.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
When I learned biology back in the Dark Ages, the definitions were easy:
Species: animals that will naturally mate and can produce offspring.
Genus: animals that will not naturally mate but if they do (or if not then by AI), can produce offspring.
I think the definition of species is still in effect. Genus, however, has fallen by the wayside. I'm familiar with parrots, and the blue and gold macaw of genus Ara can mate with the hyacinthine macaw of genus Anodorhynchus, and produce offspring, the Colson macaw.
Some biologists apparently place the ocelot in genus Leopardus, yet hybrid offspring of domestic cats and ocelots are so common that you can order an ocicat from a pet shop.
Species is truly a meaningless term, odd that it should be kept onboard.
Undoubtedly, the term species is not discarded because it is in "The Origin of Species," and so is sacred ground to the Darwinists, plus, when the reasoning behind discarding species as a category is explained, the concept of the syngameon comes to the fore, to reveal that Darwin's finches were just a syngameon of bird with variable beak sizes.