We had an Entomologist come to our club for a presentation. During the talk he said that you could always tell a fly fisherman because he pronounced Callibaetis wrong.

He said that the double vowel ae should be the long second vowel sound not the first vowel sound.

Calli—be—tis not Calli—ba—tis the way I learned in fly fishing.

So my question is: How would the POPE say it at Mass? Is there a Latin Expert out there with the facts on this and not just a opinion.

bareabou-

I would refer you to Pronunciation Of Biological Latin including Taxonomic Names of Plants and Animals , which indicates that "ae" is pronounced as "e". In other words, I believe Callibaetis would be pronounced as CALEY-beet-iss. Also, the name of its respective family, Baetidae, would be pronounced BEET-ah-dee.

Having said that, only two flyfishing entomology books that I have seen provide phonetic pronunciation for scientific names, Hatches II by Caucci & Nastasi, and Mayflies, An Angler’s Study of Trout Water Ephemerotera by Knopp & Cormier.  Both of those books offer phonetic pronunciation of caley-bait-iss for Callibaetis, which I believe to be technically incorrect.  In other words, I believe the entomologist who spoke at your club was technically correct.

On the other hand, I have heard there is considerable debate, even within the scientific community, concerning the proper pronunciation of taxonomic names, so who knows.

Roger

Created: 05/29/2006   Last modified: 08/25/2006    www.FlyfishingEntomology.com