Talk:-iana

RFM discussion: March–November 2016

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-iana

New Latin suffix, non-gloss defined as "used to form taxonomic names, often from non-Latin stems". Request for move to its own Translingual section. It forms taxonomic names, which are Translingual, and, as the definition states, sometimes forms them on non-Latin bases. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:54, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Move to -ianus#Translingual. "Translingual" sometimes follows its own rules. DCDuring TALK 20:25, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this should probably be moved per nom. IMO there should be both an -iana#Translingual and an -ianus#Translingual (at which point any redundant, taxonomy-only stuff could be removed from the Latin sections), but whether -iana#Translingual should be treated as a mere inflection of -ianus#Translingual I don't know. If -iana forms new words from scratch from non-Latin roots, that suggests it should perhaps be its own "full" entry with a definition like the one it has now, merely linked to -ianus rather than defined as an inflection of -ianus, but I'm not sure. @JohnC5, Metaknowledge, you speak Latin, what do you think? - -sche (discuss) 17:47, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

This needs to be deleted, not moved: I don't see how the New Latin sense is different from the Classical Latin ones. The mere fact that it's applied to non-Latin names isn't enough to separate it: the taxonomic codes make it clear that non-Latin words are treated as Latin for the purpose of constructing taxonomic names. Really, "used to form taxonomic names" doesn't define the term at all- it could be applied to a great number of endings such as -cola, -ensis, -fera, -oides, etc., not to mention the genitive case. In all of the taxonomic uses I can think of, the meanings of the compounds are easily inferred using the Classical Latin definitions. The suffix -anus is used as well for the same thing, so this isn't distinct in that way either.

Also, any specific epithet ending in -iana will become one ending in -ianus when transferred to a genus whose name is masculine, so I don't see any reason for this being a lemma. It does seem to be customary to use feminine gender when constructing new taxonomic names that are nouns, but that isn't a lexical property of any morpheme used when doing so. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't really care how this is resolved, but I'd like it to be resolved before I create entries for "Latin" terms like arminjonianus, defilippianus, gindianus, derbianus, boycianus, smithsonianus, geelvinkianus, and wyvillianus. DCDuring TALK 19:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

@DCDuring, -sche, Chuck Entz: I've deleted it. @DCDuring: What have all those -ianus adjectives got to do with the suffix -iāna? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:41, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

@I'm so meta even this acronym: I was taking advantage of the audience to determine whether there was some agreement that the kind of terms I would be adding would be accepted as Latin. DCDuring TALK 17:24, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Presumably they are roughly or exactly equally worthy or unworthy of a Translingual section or separate definition and should be treated the same. - -sche (discuss) 23:15, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Are they attested in any form beside the nominative singulars for the three genders (viz. -us, -a, -um)? Are they attested in any form in Latin running text? If the answer to those two questions is "no" and if it is the case that these "adjectives" only occur as epithets in binominals and the like, then they should only be given entries as Translingual terms, IMO. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 17:55, 29 November 2016 (UTC)