Philip is not alone in finding the Latin bird names confusing. I know I risk being boring here but there may be one or two strange people like me interested in this!
Those of us who had to sit through tedious Latin classes in high school do note that the taxonomic names do not follow the rules. That is because there is a peculiar kind of Latin which taxonomists
use – or misuse!
The Painted Honeyeater is a good example. The genus
Grantiella is named after a taxidermist called Robert Grant, while ‘-ella’ is a way of making Grant feminine, a trick used by taxonomists and not ‘proper’ Latin. Just why whoever coined the Latin wanted Grant to have a sex change I do not know, or perhaps
he was dedicating the bird to Mrs Grant! Grant now being feminine, the namer did go on to correctly twin the femimine Genus name with a feminine adjective – picta.
I do not know why so many Genus names are feminized – like Salmonella the bacterial genus which is named after Daniel Salmon. Taxonomists have their own rules which do not accord with classical Latin,
notably in how they Latinize words from English and other languages.
The Painted Finch Emblema pictum is one name which more or less obeys the ancient rules! Emblema is Latin not just for emblem but for pattern and mosaic etc which is an appropriate Genus for its
now sole member, the Painted Finch. As Emblema is a neuter noun, the namer has correctly twinned it with a neuter form of the adjective – Emblema pictum.
But Philip is right. There are no rules, and taxonomists with little interest in classical Latin have coined some curious Latinisms. I am not being an elitist nerd here. There is no reason why a
person who discovers or names a species must know and use classical Latin! But don’t tell that to the formidable Miss Butler whom I met in First Year at Parramatta High School in about 1951. I still quake at the thought of her.
From: Philip Veerman <>
Date: Thursday, 21 December 2017 at 5:51 pm
To: chatline <>
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Origin of a common name?
Presumably the story of
picta and Painted is the same for the Painted (Firetail) Finch, that has over time been frequently shuffled between various genus names, as for the Honeyeater. Except
there is a difference between the gender of picta / pictum. For reasons about Latin grammar, that I find incomprehensible.
Thanks Mark for the extra.
Philip
From: John Harris [
Sent: Thursday, 21 December, 2017 4:30 PM
To: Bill Hall;
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Origin of a common name?
‘Painted’ comes from the species name. Whoever named it Grantiella
chose the descriptor pictus which is Latin for painted, more or less, and no doubt refers to the distinctive yellow markings.
From: Bill Hall <>
Date: Thursday, 21 December 2017 at 4:16 pm
To: chatline <>
Subject: [canberrabirds] Origin of a common name?
Der All, does any-one know the origin of the common name; Painted Honeyeater (Grantiella picta) for this bird?
Bill Hall
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