Re: paleonet Re: Latin (written/pronounced)

[Sara Burch <sara@xxxxxxxx>]

on 7/26/02 4:00 PM, Robert L. Fleisher wrote:

> 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).

Actually, the "ae" dipthong in latin is pronounced as "ay", so a
theoretically correct pronunciation would be "ar-kay-o-TER-ix"

Of course, its also very common among the layperson to pronounce
Ankylosaurus, "an-klee-o-SAWR-us" instead of "an-kie-lo-SAWR-us". And, I've
heard paleontologists pronounce Ornithischia "or-ni-THIS-kia" (with a soft
TH), and "on-ni-THISH-ia". Same with Saurischia.

So my point is, there are lots of mispronunciations and different
pronunciations. In fact, they vary a lot from country to country. Even if it
was standardized now, I have a feeling it would be like changing
Brontosaurus to Apatosaurus, but worse! :)

Sara