Re: Huaxiagnathus orientalis

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Quoting Dino Guy Ralph <ralph.miller@alumni.usc.edu>:

> OK, so how do we pronounce this new compsognathid?

Hm.  Half Mandarin, half Latinized Greek.  Ugh.

"huaxia" would be something like "hwah-shyeh", but the *h* is rougher than in
English (technically speaking it's a uvular fricative), and the "eh" sound is
actually closer to the vowel in English "cat", but there's no good way to
indicate that sound at the end of a syllable using pronunciation-spelling.

I'd go with "hwa-shag-nath-us".

Nick Pharris
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan