Re: Pronouncing Dinosaur Names

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.NCR.COM>]

 From: Amado Narvaez <anarvaez@umd5.umd.edu>
 >  
 > 1. Ankylosaurus: "An" as in the indefinite article; "ky" as in the thing

This is tricky.  In Classical Greek, the upsilon (usually romanized
as a 'y' in scientific names) was pronounced like a French 'u',
or like the German 'u-umlaut'.

Most English speakers cannot make this sound.
In general, some variant of 'ee' or short 'i' is a good
Anglicized form.

 > 2. Apatosaurus: "pat" as in "Patrick" or as in "pot" like you cook with?

Either seems reasonable to me.  Neither is entirely correct
historically speaking.

 >    The initial "A" -- is it "uh" or "a" as in "at"?

The latter.
 > 
 > Are there variant pronunciations from country to country? I would expect,
 > for example, that the German pronunciation of the "Tyr" in Tyrannosaurus
 > would be pronounced like "tu" with an umlaut over the u (sort of like the
 > German word for "door".)

Yes, there is quite some variation.

I doubt anybody really uses the classical Greek and Latin
pronunciations.  (Not even the Greeks!)

swf@elsegundoca.ncr.com         sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.