Re: Pronounciation of Giganotosaurus

[pharrinj@PLU.edu]

On Thu, 11 Jan 1996, Amado Narvaez wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Jan 1996 Adgonia@aol.com wrote:
> 
> As someone else 
> pointed out, the correct pronunciation of the species name "carolinii" is 
> "kare-oh-lee-nee-eye" with both "i's" at the end as separate syllables.
> Teachers who plan to use the Giganotosaurus song I posted should make 
> that adjustment.
> 

Yes; the species name consists of the (Italian) surname "Carolini" plus the 
Latin genitive ending "-i" (equivalent to "of" or "belonging to").

> Norman King pointed out in a separate post that there is a lot of 
> uncertainty about how Latin is pronounced, 

There is no doubt that "g" and "c" in Latin were originally always hard.

> The German word for 
> dinosaur is "Dinosaurier" and is (correct me if I'm wrong, Klaus) 
> pronounced "Dee-no-sour-ee-er," and I would expect that the German 
> pronunciation of the first syllable of "Tyrannosaurus" would reflect an 
> umlauted "u" almost like the German word for "door."
> 

An undoubled "s" in the middle of a word is usually pronounced like "z", 
hence "dee-noh-ZOU-ree-er."  As for "Tyrannosaurus," the Germans are 
closer to the original Greek than we are.  Greek upsilon (transliterated 
as "y" or "u"), when by itself, i.e. not part of a diphthong, was 
pronounced like German umlauted "u."

> If "dinosaur" means "terrible reptile" and "Deinonychus" means "terrible 
> claw," and if both come from the Greek, why aren't they spelled and 
> pronounced similarly? We also have "Deinocheirus" and "Deinodon" so 
> maybe we should have "deinosaur" instead of "dinosaur." :-)
> 

The diphthong "ei" (epsilon, iota) was originally pronounced "ay."  
Later, however, the pronunciation shifted to "ee", and that is how it is 
often transliterated into Latin (as a long "i"), hence the alternation 
between "dinosaur" and "deinonychus."  More modern usage appears to be 
favoring the Greek spelling so perhaps the "terrible lizards," if named 
today, *would* be "deinosaurs."

> I've often wondered, too, about the pronunciation of the first two 
> syllables of "Stegosaurus" and "Stegoceras." In this case, the "o" is 
> inherent in the Greek word for "roof."

I think it has more to do with the accent in English than anything else.  
an accented, short "o" usually comes out as in "off," 
("steg-OSS-er-us) but an unaccented one usually comes out "oh" 
(STEG-oh-SAWR-us).

> A year or two ago I started a long thread about dinosaur pronunciation 
> among amateurs and professionals, and the general feeling was that 
> variances in pronunciation exist in the professional ranks and that the 
> pros don't grind their teeth when a lay person mispronounces a 
> dinosaur's name. (They tend to grind their teeth most when glaring errors 
> of information occur--like lay people calling "Dimetrodon" a dinosaur.)

I don't think pronunciation matters much, personally (but, as I told the 
dinosaur flatware woman, if _Dimetrodon_ is a dinosaur, so am I!).

> ----- Amado Narvaez (der kein Spanisch kann, der aber gut Deutsch kann?!:-)
>       anarvaez@umd5.umd.edu
> 

     Nick Pharris
     Pacific Lutheran University