(UNIFINISHED)Pronunciation of Various Prehistoric animals

[Stegotyranno420]

I am working on a hopefully accurate pronouncing guide for various scientific dinosaur names.
These will be in IPA(for the most part) and will consist of Classical Greek/Latin roots and followed by contemporary English pronunciation based on standard English. For some names/name components that are neither of the 3, for example Guanlong and Rajasaurus, they will be given special treatment on pronunciation.
As for now we will cover the guidelines on how the consonant letters should be in Classical Greek.

ANCIENT GREEK UNIQUE:
/ph/=[p^h], not [f](that is late stage). More like a hard /p/ sound
/th/=[t^h], not [θ]. Less like "thorn" more like "tall"
/ch/=[k^h], not [k], [�×], [χ], [c], [ts]  or [h]
/z/=[dz] or [zd] depending on who you ask.
/rh/=[r_°] (r as in Spanish "correr" or "churro" without the vibrating of the throat)
Plosives followed by Plosives(so PTerosaur) are both pronounced, so the Greeks could hear Pterandon' p.
Palatalization and Lenition has not occurred yet, but that does not mean there was a point in ancient times when Greek sounded more modern.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

This could be an interesting thread, I've been thinking about name pronunciations recently.

[Duna]

Scientific names are pronounced in vulgar latin. Not in Greek. Neither are they pronounced in classical latin; that's another error.

Here you have (I mentioned it in the other thread) a complete explanation about the prononuntiation of scientific names the way they should be in vulgar latin (the video is in mexican Spanish, but very accurate in pronuntiation). You can use the authomatic translate option, too.

It's very similar about how they are pronounced in Spanish today (as Spanish derives directly from vulgar latin), with only few changes in some letters and diphtongs (for example -dae is -de, -nae is -ne, ch is either qui/k/c sound, ph is f.

[Stegotyranno420]

@Duna I think you have gotten the wrong idea of what I am trying to say. You are correct in the way of pronunciation, but the point here(so far, this is an unfinished thread, and i still need to add the entry for "Vulgar Latin", as I am doing this chronologically) is to so how Ancient Greek was really pronounced. As it gets more updated I will display "Vulgar" Latin, do not worry.

Also, I am not sure of the lexicon that is used in Spain, but from where I am from, we do not use the term Vulgar Latin much more. This video by Luke Ranieri(who is also a partial dinosaur channel aswell) gives some points on why Vulgar Latin as a term should not be used in certain contexts.

I do appreciate you for the information, but there has been a slight misunderstanding .

[Duna]

It doesn't matter @Stegotyranno420, it's very easy to get confused in this. Vulgar latin exists and its meaning is the spoken form of non-classical latin. And YES, in the video you put he explains it's a very wide term and it's best not to use the term "vulgar latin" but "informal latin of period blahblah" instead to make sure you distinguish that period from other periods that may have some differences in words.

But ALL "those diferences" in vulgar latin have no impact in how it's pronounced to be used in scientific names, as the paleontologist Paleos has explained. All the letters and dipthongs included in informal or vulgar latin as in the video are pronounced the same (-dae will be -de, -nae will be -ne...). So it's perfectly ok to say vulgar latin.

[Halichoeres]

Nobody should be expected to pronounce sounds that don't occur in their own language(s). English doesn't distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated p, so we approximate with an f sound. English phonotactics don't permit initial "pt," so we just pretend the p is silent when initial. I agree with ceratopsian's take here: https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=10680.msg341332#msg341332
Beyond just making yourself understood, trying to be correct is not generally a fruitful endeavor. Having been to a lot of biology conferences, I assure you that nobody ever says of the speakers, "They pronounced that name wrong." They're too busy saying, "They used a poorly specified model," or, "Their taxon sampling was insufficient." I tell my students that the right way to pronounce scientific names is confidently.

[ceratopsian]

I agree with @Halichoeres on the importance of sounding confident when pronouncing scientific names.  So many speakers in our cactus and succulent society (one of my other hobbies) are experts in the field of their plants - for instance they might have explored habitats and found new taxa, which have then been formally described.  Or they might be superb cultivators.  But embarrassment about whether they are pronouncing a name "correctly" often means that when the come to the name, they drop their voices and gabble through it without looking anyone in the eye.  It's no different with dinosaurs really - hold your head high, speak clearly and with authority and make sure people could hear what you said.  Then all will be fine!

[Stegotyranno420]

@Halichoeres this is not meant to be a "do this right or you will be ostracized " thing, i hope it doesnt come off as that. Rather its a fun experiment to see and show how sounds/language changes overtime, and it id completely fine to pronounce the way one wishes.

On another note, i have not been able to give the proper updates to this thread because of my AP examination. Once June comes I will be more active.