TommyMacLuckie

I recently heard that the Saba banana is pronounced sah-bah. This was from a woman who is from the Phillippines. I've always heard it as Say-buh.

The Betrock books for palms give pronunciations for each Latin name. Is there anything like that for bananas?

Gabe15

Since many of the common bananas are from all over the world, the names are in all kinds of different languages and will vary in how they should be pronounced. There are too many varieties to make a comprehensive naming guide, but if you post specific ones you are curious about we can help.

Saba is definitely "sah-bah".

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Abnshrek

This is a good thread for inquiring minds wanna know. :^)

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I'm a Nannerhead :^)

DaveE

I am interested in finding out how many I am pronouncing wrong also. LOL

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LilRaverBoi

The one I always questioned was Ensete Superbum....I wasn't sure if it was super-bum or superb-um. I'm pretty sure the discussion came up in the past, though and the consensus seemed to be superb-um.

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TommyMacLuckie

A friend of mine pronounces Butia as boo-tee-ah instead of byew-tee-uh as it is correctly pronounced. It always makes me laugh.

I've been saying leer-ee-ope for years but it's actually Luh-rye-uh-pee.

It's good to know the correct name, especially the latin. I've talked with people at Home Depot, who sometimes get in different bananas than just zerbrinas and dwarf cavs and asked whoever if they knew what it was. They replied "Read the tag". I did - it's wrong. "Well it's whatever the tag says it is."

Which, of course, is not always true. They often confuse Mediterranean fan palms and Windmills - even with the tags, which come from the place that grew the damn things.

I try to stick to nurseries. But even they can get things wrong and go by old ones like Cocos Plumosa...if someone comes in looking for Syagrus romanzoffiana and the nursery person doesn't know the latin and only knows it by Cocos Plumosa...well, now there is a problem.