Re: Thyranosaurs rex

[Mikiel <Mikiel@ASU.Edu>]

On Tue, 16 May 1995 PESELYG@LYNX.APSU.EDU wrote:

> I don't have a large enough Russian dictionary for Tyrannosaurus to
> be listed, but I would guess that the Russian form is something like
> "tirannozavr" or "tirannozavrus."  The Russian word for "dinosaur" is
> "dinozavr" (accent on the "a").  The Russian for "tyrant" is "tiran"
> (accent on the "a").
> 
> The Greek word "tyrannos" from which Tyrannosaurus is formed starts with
> a tau, which becomes t in Russian.  The Greek theta also becomes
> a t in Russian in modern formations like "termometr" (thermometer)
> (in some older words theta become f, e.g. Fyodor from Theodoros).
> 
> I would guess that the person who prepared the English summary and
> came up with the form Thyranosaurs didn't have a large enough dictionary
> to be able to look up the English equivalent of tirannozavr and
> simply made a wrong guess, that in this case the Russian t was the
> equivalent of an English th.
> 
> Unfortunately I can't verify this...the local library doesn't
> carry *any* Kazakh scientific journals.  (Anyone know the journal
> name?--maybe I'll try interlibrary loan... :-) ).
> 
> George Pesely
> Austin Peay State University
> peselyg@lynx.apsu.edu
> 

        I think it's more likely that the Russian word is "Tiranozavr" 
with only one "n".  My dictionary doesn't list Tyrannosaurus either, but 
all the English words beginning with "tyran-" are either translated as 
"tiran-" or "despot-".  (Maybe it's a "Despotosaurus rex"?)
         I find the "h" in "Thyranosaurus" a bit difficult to comprehend. 
Even English words beginning with "thy-" are generally translated into
Russian as "ti-", leaving out the "h" sound altogether.  If this is the
same animal as Tyrannosaurus rex, I'd have to guess that the "h" in
Thyranosaurus is either a typo (as was pointed out earlier, "h" is next to
"y" on the keyboard) or the translator had never heard of "Tyrannosaurus
rex" (is that even possible?) and made an incorrect guess as to the
English name.  Alternatively, it could be that "Thyranosaurus rex" and
"Tyrannosaurus rex" have nothing to do with each other and are completely
different critters.
        If anyone has the original reference, I'd like to try looking 
this one up and maybe solving the mystery.

-Mikiel