Re: Die Voegel

[HPB1956@aol.com]

On Friday, 19 October 2001 T. Michael Keesey wrote:

> No we're looking for a german equivalent to "avian" (adjectival form).
> I find it hard to believe that there isn't one ("avisch"?), although I guess
> that's Anglocentric thinking for you.

> So there's no good way to translate "non-avian dinosaur"?
> ("unvogelischer dinosaurier"?)

This is quite a problem in German. 

Just took a look at "Der Ursprung der Vögel und ihres Fluges" in Spektrum der Wissenschaft (April 1998, p. 38) by Padian and Chiappe. This is the german translation of "The Origin of Birds and Their Flight" in Scientific American (February 1998, p28). I've got both copies and found the following:
- "avian theropods" becomes "Vogel-Theropoden" (bird theropods)
  "maniraptoran theropods" becomes "Maniraptor-Theropoden" (maniraptor theropods)

In both cases a combination of an adjective with a noun in English is replaced by two nouns in German. So "avian dinosaur" could be translated as "Vogel-Dinosaurier".

This works as long as you don't try to negate this term. If you say "nicht Vogel-Dinosaurier" or "nicht-Vogel-Dinosaurier" (non bird dinosaur") it can be everything exept an avian dinosaur (e.g. Triceratops or non dinosaurs like Dimetrodon).
If you say "nicht-Vogel Dinosaurier" it may be correct bound sounds terribly in German.