RE: paleonet Re: Latin (written/pronounced)

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I fear the problem is entirely with the ENGLISH pronounciation of Latin.  If
English pronounciation of English is not logical, why would you expect the
English pronounciation of Latin to be logical?

Shirley van Heck
Houston, TX

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert L. Fleisher [mailto:forams@flash.net]
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 3:01 PM
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: paleonet Re: Latin (written/pronounced)


I have a pronunciation question that doesn't seem to be fully addressed in
the
link provided by Jere Lipps, and I don't have either of the books Roy
Plotnick
mentions.  Perhaps somebody on the list can give me some guidance.
Basically,
it's always been my understanding that pronunciation of taxonomic names
should,
to some high degree, honor the roots of the word.  The problem comes up
when,
breaking the name into its roots, the pronunciation of one or both of the
roots
differs from what you would expect for the single name.

My best example, and a friend and I have collected several of them, is
Archaeopteryx.  Customary, indeed virtually unanimous pronunciation, of
course,
is Ar-kee-OP-ter-ix.  But the root words, as I understand it, are archaeo
(ancient) and pteryx (wing).  So it seems to me that the appropriate
pronunciation is  Ar-kee-o-TER-ix (which is, I gather, how the PT diphthong
would
be pronounced in Latin--or in Pterodactyl).  It also has the advantage of
satisfying the "rule" that the accent should be on the second-to-last
syllable in
words of more than two syllables.  Similarly, I would think that the genus
of
large Silurian arthropods should be pronounced You-ree-TER-a, rather than
You-RIP-ter-a, and that the dinosaur named after Lambe should be pronounced
Lam(or Lamb)-o-SAWR-us, rather than Lam-bee-o-SAWR-us. All three fly
completely
in the face of common usage, I realize, but the logic seems inescapable to
me--although not worth a crusade.

Opinions?

Bob Fleisher
Houston, TX