Thyranosaurs rex

[PESELYG@LYNX.APSU.EDU]

I don't have a large enough Russian dictionary for Tyrannosaurus to
be listed, but I would guess that the Russian form is something like
"tirannozavr" or "tirannozavrus."  The Russian word for "dinosaur" is
"dinozavr" (accent on the "a").  The Russian for "tyrant" is "tiran"
(accent on the "a").

The Greek word "tyrannos" from which Tyrannosaurus is formed starts with
a tau, which becomes t in Russian.  The Greek theta also becomes
a t in Russian in modern formations like "termometr" (thermometer)
(in some older words theta become f, e.g. Fyodor from Theodoros).

I would guess that the person who prepared the English summary and
came up with the form Thyranosaurs didn't have a large enough dictionary
to be able to look up the English equivalent of tirannozavr and
simply made a wrong guess, that in this case the Russian t was the
equivalent of an English th.

Unfortunately I can't verify this...the local library doesn't
carry *any* Kazakh scientific journals.  (Anyone know the journal
name?--maybe I'll try interlibrary loan... :-) ).

George Pesely
Austin Peay State University
peselyg@lynx.apsu.edu