June 2021 - POTM Contest - Vote now!

[Josh's Fish]

Gonna sound pretty dumb but how do you actually pronounce bichir

Not dumb at all, it's a great question with a rich story behind it, and one people often get wrong!

Abushir and Abshire are the names used by fishers along the Nile River for bichirs. Saint-Hilaire (who first 'discovered' them during Napoleon's conquest of Egypt), heard the fisher's names for them and wished to use the same name when describing them, although he mistook the first letter as the word 'A', believing them just to be 'Bushir'. In typical French spelling, he spelled the name Bichir (Biʃir), with the 'ch' making a 'ʃ' / 'sh' sound. So, depending on your type of accent, Bih-sheer, Buh-sheer, (Western) Boo-sha, Bih-sha (African) are regarded as the correct pronunciations.

There could be an argument for the pronunciation 'Biker', as the ICZN says scientific names should follow Latin pronunciations, however the first description of bichir was not latinized, and by the time it was the following year, biʃir / bih-sheer was already accepted. There's a lot more to it than this of course, however most scientists prefer to leave old nomenclature untouched, as unearthing centuries of publications to find out what should be valid requires a lot of work with no real advance in science.

Hope this helps!

 

[Josh's Fish]

Fantastic entries, tough decision this month!

 

[FJB]

"There could be an argument for the pronunciation 'Biker', as the ICZN says scientific names should follow Latin pronunciations, however the first description of bichir was not latinized, and by the time it was the following year, biʃir / bih-sheer was already accepted."

ICZN deals with issues of nomenclature of animals, construction of names, and validity status of names based on the concept of priority among others. It does not deal with pronunciation. It couldn't because it is meant to be applicable to all languages (worldwide). Although name construction is mainly based on latin, pronunciation is not considered.

 

[bettapatua]

Yes voted!

 

[Rtc/tsn]

What type of fish is picture 4? Very beautiful kind of want one lol don’t have space though

 

[fishguy1978]

What type of fish is picture 4? Very beautiful kind of want one lol don’t have space though

Rotkiel Severum

 

[Rtc/tsn]

Rotkiel Severum

Thank you

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

Definitely so many noteworthy entries this month. Probably a first i had to struggle on which species category to go for. I loved them all. Not everyday I can vote for a catfish species then put it up head to head vs a L46, and pit them against the prettiest cichlids out there as well compare them to the anicent fish, oddballs , characins, cyprinds. Thank goodness there was not one native US fish shot in there or i would have had a fried circut board having a permanment meltdown. All 18 of them did deserve my vote, i had to whittle it down to flip of coins/chances to the last two vote and had someone pick a random number. Wonder if we can start printing up MKF type of posters as im sure some of us want to have some cool pictures hanging up in our fish rooms giving credit to the photographers ?

 

[Charlied81]

I liked you #10 that color was beautiful!! So many great pictures thus time!! I can't even see my fish anymore let alone get any pics

 

[Josh's Fish]

"There could be an argument for the pronunciation 'Biker', as the ICZN says scientific names should follow Latin pronunciations, however the first description of bichir was not latinized, and by the time it was the following year, biʃir / bih-sheer was already accepted."

ICZN deals with issues of nomenclature of animals, construction of names, and validity status of names based on the concept of priority among others. It does not deal with pronunciation. It couldn't because it is meant to be applicable to all languages (worldwide). Although name construction is mainly based on latin, pronunciation is not considered.

Hi, no the code very much does deal with pronunciations, infact it was a considerable part of what now retired ICZN commisioner Pekka Lehtinen handled, and a subject of debate with specialist of Latin language, Dr. Michael Covington.

Lehtinen and the ICZN say: "The Codes are MAINLY created for regulation of written text, but as SCIENTIFIC NAMES OF ORGANISMS are by definition either Latin words or Latinized words of variable origin, which must be treated according to the Latin grammar, it is obvious that this definition provides also that their pronunciation agrees with Latin pronunciation and not with the pronunciation of any local language. When a name is LATINIZED as a part of a scientific name, its pronunciation will be CHANGED from the original language to the pronunciation of Latin, INDEPENDENT IN THE ORIGIN OR DERIVATION OF THE NAME. Sometimes this change is phonetically insignificant, but often quite radical, especially in regard to names which are dedications to French personal names. According to ICZN there are no EXCEPTIONS FOR LATINIZED NAMES. They are just Latin and nothing referring to the original language of the name. In applying this RULE to pronunciation of these names we often get really FUNNY results, but when the CODE will be followed, the name must be pronounced as a LATINIZED word, which may have no more meaning in its original language."