São Tomé Island (1 Viewer)

[Gonçalo Elias]

São Tomé is an island in the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa.

There are several endemic birds and most of them they carry names that refer to this place. Most of these names end in -ensis, like Corythornis thomensis, Columba thomensis, Estrilda thomensis, Dreptes thomensis, Tyto alba thomensis, among others.

However the Sao Tome Weaver is called Ploceus sanctithomae. And the Sao Tome Green Pigeon is called Treron sanctithomae.

My question: is the form sanctithomae a correct toponym / demonym for Sao Tome? This is not a feminin word, nor does it refer to a woman or end in "a", how come the specific names end in ae?

 

[l_raty]

Yes, sanctithomae is correct.

-ae is also the correct genitive ending in Latin for masculine a-stem Greek nouns/names, which end in -as (-ας in Greek) or -es (-ης in Greek).
São Tomé means Saint Thomas. In Latin, Thomas is assimilated to a Greek word, Saint Thomas being rendered as Sanctus Thomas, the genitive of which is Sancti Thomae.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sanctus#Declension
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Thomas#Declension

 

[Gonçalo Elias]

I see, thanks Laurent.

And this means that thomensis is just the genitive for the Portuguese form Tomé, is that right?

 

[l_raty]

No, thomensis is an adjective in the nominative singular feminine or masculine, formed from Tomé/Thomas, plus the suffix -ensis; -is, -e https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ensis (equivalent to Portuguese -ense).