Pronouncing Oyster Species Names with a Latin Expert

Over the years, I’ve heard many different ways to pronounce the scientific names of our most commonly consumed oysters. Is it Magallana gee-gus (hard g) or gye-gus (soft g) or jee-gus (soft g)?? Surely, not all of them can be correct, right? It was time to get to the bottom of this debate, once and for all.

I enlisted the help of Andreas Morehouse, a Latin educator and co-founder of Latinitas Animi Causa. It turns out, as Andreas explains in the first few minutes, that there are meaningful differences between classical Latin and modern/scientific Latin. Most notably, scientific Latin takes on the vernacular flavor (e.g., vowel structure, soft/hard letters) of the speaker’s native tongue. Had I elected to take Latin in high school, I probably would’ve known this by now, but better late than never!

As we went through the different species, Andreas also took time to explain the meaning of the Latin root words, which was fascinating. If you are curious about oysters and language, then I am sure that you’ll enjoy this video.