Re: Huaxiagnathus orientalis (pronunciation)

[bh480@scn.org]

Re: Huaxiagnathus orientalis (pronunciation)
From: Ben Creisler bh480@scn.org

I have not seen the original paper yet but I assume that 
the name comes from Huaxia, an ancient name for China. 
Huaxia would be pronounced approximately hwah-shyah 
according to the pinyin transcription. When combined with 
the Greek -gnathos, the "g" should be pronounced--the "g" 
is silent for English speakers at the beginning of words 
and names but NOT internally (see Greek-derived English 
words such as prognosis). Where the accent goes is a bit 
tricker. Since scientific names are considered a form of 
Latin, the standard Latin rules can be applied and the 
main accent falls on the antepenultimate (hwah-SHYAHG-na-
thuss) because the "a" in gnathos is short. However, when 
names are made by combining Latin or Greek with other 
languages a good case could be made for putting the 
accents on word roots--hwah-shyahg-NAY-thuss.