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CAISSACA on 2008-01-18
Peter84Jenkins: Laurenti named the GENUS Naja.
Linnaeus described the Indian spectacled cobra as Coluber naja, which then became Naja naja when Laurenti coined the genus name Naja.
Cheers,
WW
boomslangandrew on 2008-01-18
what a cool snake. hope they find more!
Peter84Jenkins on 2008-01-15
No, but it still interests me as a person who loves language, history and herps this is quite a topic. I would have to disagree and say that the linguistical intentions of the person who named Naja can be proved definitively through a bit of research historians do it all the time. But dialects do come into play in every language. Being from Georgia even the “southern” dialect is different all over this state. Example…. I know a mountain man who says kwild instead of coiled. Also folks in south Ga usually replace the d with a t or say it so fast you can’t here a d or t.
Cro on 2008-01-15
I do not think there will ever be an agreement on this issue, as there are far too many human dialacts out there.
What good was the "tower of bable," if folks got back togother and "babled" about pronounciations ?????????????
Apparently the folks who wrote the Bible never invisioned the internet and world wide communications.
Best Regards and saying it is still a very cool spitter, no matter what it`s scientific name is...............
JZ
Peter84Jenkins on 2008-01-15
Carl Linnaeus originally named the genus Naja?I thought it was Joseph Laurenti in 1768. I got that from Fitzsimons and Wikipedia also has it and described Laurenti as having published much work on the subject. But who knows what his linguistical motives were for naming naja weather it Sinhalese or Arabic. 1768 puts it in the time range for Arabic since Swahili is speculated to have developed in the early 1700s. But then again Swedish is ages older!
Chris_Harper on 2008-01-15
Found it. Here's what Wolfgang Wuster wrote: "Etymologically, the word comes from the Sinhalese (majority language of Sri Lanka) word for cobra, which is pronounced Nah-yah. When Linnaeus called it "Coluber naja", he was undoubtedly doing so on the basis of what he was told the animal was called in its home country, and against the background that "j" is pronounced as "y" in Swedish - his intention was clearly Nah-yah.
However, all over the world, people (including scientists) with different mother tongues pronounce the same scientific names differently - for instance, in the Spanish-speaking world (and also the Philippines, once a Spanish colony), Naja is universally pronounced as Nah-hah....
Conclusion: etymologically, the correct pronounciation is "Nah-yah", but a lot of the time, it's a lot easier to just go with the flow. ;-)
Cheers,
WW"
Cro on 2008-01-15
It is still a pretty impressive spitting cobra, no matter what the linguist decide to call it, or how they decide to pronounce it.
There will always be localized pronunciations of scientific words, no matter how we try to stop that. It is a "Southern Thing."
Post again Wolfgang`s post on the subject, and hopefully some folks will pay attention to it..........
He makes a very good case for the correct usage.
Best Regards JohnZ
Peter84Jenkins on 2008-01-15
Here is my take on the Najuh Nyah pronunciations.
From what I gather Naja is an African word (or Arabic which makes it an Asian word as well) and has several meanings. Now I pronounce it Najuh and here is why.
First…. from what I know of the Kiswahili language (Arabic based) the J does not ever say yuh it is pronounced like juh. Like Jambo or saa moja asubuhi or injini or ijumaa.
I took Swahili lessons for 2 years.
Also…from what I know about the Asian languages (this coming from my Pilipino wife) the J also is used as is (except in Hawaiian they have no j's ) It’s rarely used as yuh.
The only linguistical exception I can find is the Navajo have a word naja meaning “crescent”. Latin languages like spanish pronounce the J as huh or yuh and such but I am convinced that even though Naja is used in context as a Latin or Linnaean name that its origins are still African or Asiatic. I believe it is Arabic based. And it’s also female.
There is also a similar Greek word “Naiya” but I don’t know too much about it.
I am curious about WW’s article and what it says I’ve never seen it. I would like to know for sure how Naja is pronounced and its historical origins when it comes to the Genus. I love learning and I love intellectual discussions. Thanks Chris I was hoping someone would spawn this topic.
Chris_Harper on 2008-01-15
I still pronounce it ny-uh, not noj-uh. And I think WW's post about that summed it up. We should pull that out and make it an article.
CH
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