When Matching common names with botanical names …
Botanical Latin matters
Many academics dismiss vernacular / common names for being inaccurate, not reliable and non scientific. Botanical Latin the language of scientists, is disregarded by non botanically inclined people and on the whole mostly not understood. Actually both are needed. The value of the botanical names does not need to be argued, it is simply what the kind of work this project addresses is based on. It should be understood however that botanical Latin is not that stable either. It is a dynamic “language” evolving with science. Reclassifications are common occurences and are bound to generate name changes, this leads to headaches for translators and intruduces extra errors. An example of drastic change :
Rosmarinus officinalis L. becoming Salvia rosmarinus Schleid.
Other examples of botanical Latin leading to mistakes: Salvia grandifolia W.W.Sm. the currently accepted name has a number of homonyms such as
Salvia grandiflora Sessé & Moc. -> Salvia fulgens Cav. ?
Salvia grandiflora Sessé & Moc. -> Salvia gesneriiflora Lindl. & Paxton ?
Salvia grandiflora Hornem. -> Salvia nutans L. ?
Salvia grandiflora Née ex Cav. -> Salvia patens Cav.
Salvia grandiflora Ten. -> Salvia officinalis subsp. officinalis
This proves that even for taxonomists bot. Latin can be confusing. As for translating in those cases it is better to transcribe the binomial because if the authority name is absent it can lead to huge mistakes.
In conclusion botanical Latin is a little more accurate and reliable than vernacular but not a lot more.
Vernacular nomenclature matters
What is the contribution of common names ? Let’s acknowledge their problems first. They are usually very localised and occasionally a plant and an ingredient coming from it will have the same name.
Sometime a name is simplified to its bare minimum and ends up being just the original location of that plant. This is particularly the case when the epithet of the binomial is based on a geographical location in a non Latin language.
Names travel with plants. Within a language a name can be adopted in a whole country when the plant is exported to a foreign country, its name can be translated losing some accuracy because it may relate to a specific area only or a foreign person. The adopting country does not necessarily know that. The end result is that the name can be adapted / changed. As a consequence different plants can be given the same name by mistake or by design for commercial advantage.
Sorting all this out is already a mighty task to accomplish. We will leave aside the disappearing, disused native languages issues. These should be addressed in the future based on our preliminary work.
On the positive side common local names are generally well understood by every speaker of a language, may be with the help of a dictionary sometime. In today’s world plants are traded internationally ever more. This means that some plants unknown in a country need to have a label, so the original name is translated. A good common name will be easily converted, that is if it is descriptive enough. If it is based on the botanical name a little difficulty will creep in. This is where A.I. will fail almost every time because the base of data to work from does not have enough names translated correctly in the first place. A coping mechanism is to transcribe the botanical name as opposed to translating it into living vernacular. This process can lead to illarious results. A recently found example is the botanical epithet ‘betonicifolia’ translated as ‘beton-leaved’, a francophile first reaction would be to think of a plant with concrete leaves. However what the French call bétoine is simply betony in English. Indeed a well known online translation device gives us “ Sauge à feuilles de béton” for Salvia betonicifolia - robot logic.
Common dictionaries are notoriously poor when it comes to translating plant names at the specific level, let alone at the cultivated species level. Since the beginning of this century, the last twenty years or so, many names in non roman characters have started to appear in commercial catalogues and the botanical literature. They are attempts at reproducing the sound of the original name which can be the botanical or vernacular. This is the worst nightmare for A.I. : trying to transliterate back from such names to the originals.
I think I have demonstrated the worth of our project, so let’s get on with the task.
Recommended articles on these topics :
Riggsby, Matthew , Archaeology, Boston University, answers the questions on the forum Quora :
Why is it that different countries call the same plants different names? Why don't they just call them all by Latin names to uniform the plants ?
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Alex x comments on
Why is it that different countries call the same plants different names?
“Choosing The Best Common Names For Plants: Challenges & Solutions”.
by Alex Zorach on < https://bplant.org/blog/30 >.April 2024.
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