scientific names should be fixed

article by @bwabam

No, this isn’t about the names that have been named after bad people or named offensively (e.g. when scientists changed caffer to affer (though it should be further changed to afer)). This is about how scientific names are being designed to be read in English instead of Latin.

Take the epithet “chaoyangēnsis”. To a classical latin speaker, this is read as khah-oh-ü-ang-GẼY-sihs (/kʰa.o.y.aŋˈɡẽː.sɪs/), but in English, it is chow-yohng-(G)EHN-sihs, which is closer to the original Chinese word transliterated as Chaoyang. A reasonable replacement to this name would be “tšhavjangēnsis” (/tʃhaw.jaŋˈɡẽː.sɪs/), but more likely “tshavjangēnsis” (/tshäw.jäŋˈɡẽː.sɪs/) with the caveat of merging with a hypothetical *Caoyang-ēnsis

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