Martin P. O. Davies

Pityusic or Pityusan?

In 1984 three non-British biologists, Heinrich Kuhbier (from Bremen), J. A. Alcover (Tarragona) and C. Guerau d'Arellano Tur (Ibiza) published the word 'Pityusic' for the first time in English in an important scientific book which appeared under their joint editorship, namely "Biogeography and Ecology of the Pityusic Islands" (no. 52 in Springer Verlag's "Monographiae Biologicae" series). The fact that none of them was a native English speaker, that of the 32 contributing authors only one was British (the botanist William T. Stearn; 25 were Spanish and 3 each French and German), and that the book appeared in The Hague (Netherlands) helps account for the fact that 'Pityusic', appeared in its title. This word sounds odd to a native English ear, and would doubtless have been questioned and altered in an entirely English-speaking publishing house.

‘Pityusic’ is not a proper toponymic adjective, but rather a transliteration derived from its Germanic equivalent, ‘Pitiusische’ or ‘Pithiusische’ (both German and Dutch). These adjectives have been established for at least two centuries among travel and scientific literature in those languages. In English encyclopaedias, dictionaries and travel accounts/guides, ‘Pithyusian’ and ‘Pithyusan’ (note ‘-an’ suffix in both cases) are found throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. 'Pityusic' was absent from the entire corpus of literature published in English – until 1984.

I would suggest that the ‘h’ in Pithyusian should be removed, as it is never pronounced in the Pityuses themselves, while the same can be said of the second ‘i’, which makes the word ungainly and unnecessarily long. This makes ‘Pityusan’ my proposed alternative adjective for Wikipedia: it first appeared in print in 1862 (New American Cyclopedia, entry on Spain), followed in 1888 by Marcus S. Dimsdale's Introduction to Book XXI of Livy's History of Rome (dedicated to the Carthaginians), while Kuhbier used it himself in 1984 (Introduction to the abovementioned book), appearing alongside Pityusic. The -ic suffix is actually found most commonly in chemistry, denoting an element entering into compounds with its highest valence (oxidation no.), e.g. sulphuric, ferric, sodic. The suffix is also used in the sense of 'pertaining to a family of peoples or languages', e.g. Semitic, Turkic and Finnic, and finally in the style of certain writers, e.g. Byronic, Miltonic. Chemical and linguistic connotations thus make 'Pityusic' inappropriate as a purely geographical adjective, striking native speakers as an overly Germanic loan word. ‘Pityusan’, by contrast, is the suitably Anglicised adjective which is related to Spanish ‘pitiuso(s)’ or ‘pitiusa(s)’. Geographical adjectives in English most frequently use the -an suffix (Andalusian, Catalonian, Majorcan, Formenteran, Ibizan, Galician, to take just a few Spanish examples), but the only example that occurs to me of the -ic suffix for a geographical location is ‘Balearic: this exists because ‘Balearan’ or ‘Balarean’ are precluded by the repeated ‘a’ sounds before the ‘r’. In the case of Pityusan, the ‘u’ (as well as the ‘i’) before the ‘s’ makes ‘-an’ the most natural-sounding suffix. By contrast 'isch' in German is extremely common (andalusisch, katalonisch, majorkisch, ibizenkisch, etc.), while in English we never say Andalusic, Catalonic, Majorcic or Ibizencic. For this reason, Pityusic is incorrect in every possible way. The adjective leaps out of the page in book/article titles and elsewhere, a Germanism coined by scientific authors who were neither native speakers nor equipped linguistically to understand why it was inappropriate in English.

In some publications (e.g. "The Rough Guide to Ibiza and Formentera", 2003), the (English) author has opted for 'Pitiusan', but this particular spelling derives from the Spanish Pitius(o/a); the 'iu' combination is not appropriate for English, as it is extremely rare, while the 'y' (Pityusan) is much more in keeping with traditional procedure. While proposing that Wikipedia adopts ‘Pityusan Islands’ as its new heading, it should also be said that ‘The Pityuses’ is a much commoner term; but if the heading must include the word 'islands', then Pityusan is preferable to Pityusic, despite the latter's precedent in scientific (and above all biological) literature. It was apparently coined by Kuhbier himself (or one of his biologist colleagues) for the first time in 1984, doubtless unaware of its jarring sound for those accustomed to the nuances of English, both with regard to phonetics and meaning. For a more detailed analysis of the semantic nuances of these two suffixes, see Sections 14.1.9–10 of Laurie Bauer and I. S. P. Nation's "English Morphology for the Language Teaching Profession" (Routledge, 2020), which explains that -AN is for 'creating general adjectives [. . .] from proper nouns denoting countries and regions', and -IC for creating 'formal, scientific, or learned adjectives'.

Wikipedia has a duty to maintain high standards of language control, especially in headwords, and this explanation sets out exactly why a change needs to be implemented. In this case the headword refers to a group of islands, the Pityuses, which enjoys near-iconic status around the world in widely differing fields of academic study - tourism, archaeology, biology (above all herpetology), folklore (above all ethnomusicology), architecture, sociology, philosophy/cultural theory (above all, studies on Walter Benjamin) and youth culture - which makes it doubly important that the correct adjectival suffix is seen and diffused via key online reference sources like Wikipedia; moreover, an increasing number of scholars from non-English-speaking backgrounds are publishing learned articles about the Pityuses in academic journals, and many need editorial guidance from linguistic experts, few of whom are familiar with the history and literature of the Pityusan Islands, and thus their correct name. Martin P. O. Davies (talk) 12:00, 30 December 2021 (UTC)Martin P. O. Davies (talk) 14:43, 30 December 2021 (UTC)Martin P. O. Davies (talk) 15:47, 30 December 2021 (UTC)Martin P. O. Davies (talk) 16:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)Martin P. O. Davies (talk) 10:54, 19 January 2022 (UTC)Martin P. O. Davies (talk) 10:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)Martin P. O. Davies (talk) 11:16, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

{{subst:requested move|Pityusan Islands|reason=In 1984 three non-British biologists, Heinrich Kuhbier (from Bremen), J. A. Alcover (Tarragona) and C. Guerau d'Arellano Tur (Ibiza) published the word 'Pityusic' for the first time in English in an important scientific book which appeared under their joint editorship, namely "Biogeography and Ecology of the Pityusic Islands" (no. 52 in Springer Verlag's "Monographiae Biologicae" series). The fact that none of them was a native English speaker, that of the 32 contributing authors only one was British (the botanist William T. Stearn; 25 were Spanish and 3 each French and German), and that the book appeared in The Hague (Netherlands) helps account for the fact that 'Pityusic', appeared in its title. This word sounds odd to a native English ear, and would doubtless have been questioned and altered in an entirely English-speaking publishing house.

‘Pityusic’ is not a proper toponymic adjective, but rather a transliteration derived from its Germanic equivalent, ‘Pitiusische’ or ‘Pithiusische’ (both German and Dutch). These adjectives have been established for at least two centuries among travel and scientific literature in those languages. In English encyclopaedias, dictionaries and travel accounts/guides, ‘Pithyusian’ and ‘Pithyusan’ (note ‘-an’ suffix in both cases) are found throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. 'Pityusic' was absent from the entire corpus of literature published in English – until 1984.

I would suggest that the ‘h’ in Pithyusian should be removed, as it is never pronounced in the Pityuses themselves, while the same can be said of the second ‘i’, which makes the word ungainly and unnecessarily long. This makes ‘Pityusan’ my proposed alternative adjective for Wikipedia: it first appeared in print in 1862 ( New American Cyclopedia, entry on Spain), followed in 1888 by Marcus S. Dimsdale's Introduction to Book XXI of Livy's History of Rome (dedicated to the Carthaginians), while Kuhbier used it himself in 1984 (Introduction to the abovementioned book), appearing alongside Pityusic. The -ic suffix is actually found most commonly in chemistry, denoting an element entering into compounds with its highest valence (oxidation no.), e.g. sulphuric, ferric, sodic. The suffix is also used in the sense of 'pertaining to a family of peoples or languages', e.g. Semitic, Turkic and Finnic, and finally in the style of certain writers, e.g. Byronic, Miltonic. Chemical and linguistic connotations thus make 'Pityusic' inappropriate as a purely geographical adjective, striking native speakers as an overly Germanic loan word. ‘Pityusan’, by contrast, is the suitably Anglicised adjective which is related to Spanish ‘pitiuso(s)’ or ‘pitiusa(s)’. Geographical adjectives in English most frequently use the -an suffix (Andalusian, Catalonian, Majorcan, Formenteran, Ibizan, Galician, to take just a few Spanish examples), but the only example that occurs to me of the -ic suffix for a geographical location is ‘Balearic: this exists because ‘Balearan’ or ‘Balarean’ are precluded by the repeated ‘a’ sounds before the ‘r’. In the case of Pityusan, the ‘u’ (as well as the ‘i’) before the ‘s’ makes ‘-an’ the most natural-sounding suffix. By contrast 'isch' in German is extremely common (andalusisch, katalonisch, majorkisch, ibizenkisch, etc.), while in English we never say Andalusic, Catalonic, Majorcic or Ibizencic. For this reason, Pityusic is incorrect in every possible way. The adjective leaps out of the page in book/article titles and elsewhere, a Germanism coined by scientific authors who were neither native speakers nor equipped linguistically to understand why it was inappropriate in English.

In some publications (e.g. "The Rough Guide to Ibiza and Formentera", 2003), the (English) author has opted for 'Pitiusan', but this particular spelling derives from the Spanish Pitius(o/a); the 'iu' combination is not appropriate for English, as it is extremely rare, while the 'y' (Pityusan) is much more in keeping with traditional procedure. While proposing that Wikipedia adopts ‘Pityusan Islands’ as its new heading, it should also be said that ‘The Pityuses’ is a much commoner term; but if the heading must include the word 'islands', then Pityusan is preferable to Pityusic, despite the latter's precedent in fairly recent scientific (and above all biological) literature. It was apparently coined by Kuhbier himself (or one of his biologist colleagues) for the first time in 1984, doubtless unaware of its jarring sound for those accustomed to the nuances of English, both with regard to phonetics and meaning. For a more detailed analysis of the semantic nuances of these two suffixes, see Sections 14.1.9–10 of Laurie Bauer and I. S. P. Nation's "English Morphology for the Language Teaching Profession" (Routledge, 2020), which explains that -AN is for 'creating general adjectives [. . .] from proper nouns denoting countries and regions', and -IC for creating 'formal, scientific, or learned adjectives'.

Wikipedia has a duty to maintain high standards of language control, especially in headwords, and this explanation sets out exactly why a change needs to be implemented. In this case the headword refers to a group of islands, the Pityuses, which enjoys near-iconic status around the world in widely differing fields of academic study - tourism, archaeology, biology (above all herpetology), folklore (above all ethnomusicology), architecture, sociology, philosophy/cultural theory (above all, studies on Walter Benjamin) and youth culture - which makes it doubly important that the correct adjectival suffix is seen and diffused via key online reference sources like Wikipedia; moreover, an increasing number of scholars from non-English-speaking backgrounds are publishing learned articles about the Pityuses in academic journals, and many need editorial guidance from linguistic experts, few of whom are familiar with the history and literature of the Pityusan Islands, and thus their correct and long-established name in English.