“Coelognathus radiatus

Example: see-log-NATHUS ray-dee-AHTIS”

You did pretty well….

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It’s a hot item because some very experienced, knowledgeable, esteemed zoologists can screw this up and often pronounce the word as they learned it, right or wrong.

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To add more confusion is that there are a couple of different schools of thought on pronouncing Latin, including Church Latin, Modern Latin, and ancient Roman Latin.

“Biological Latin” is a mix.

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Short answer - In this case in your example, Coelognathus:

• Coelognathus becomes “See-log-nath-us” with emphasis on “log”.

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Longer answer:

• “Coe” is “see”.

The digraph (two letters pronounced as one) “OE” is pronounced “EE”. When a “C” precedes this, it is pronounced as “S”.

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• With this word with several syllables, the third to last syllable is emphasized.

This one is a little confusing.

There is a rule that says that the second to last syllable is emphasized if the vowel of that particular syllable is followed by two or more consonants….. BUT …..The “th” is looked upon and pronounced as one letter sound (much like “ph” as the “f” sound), so the “a” is followed by only one consonant (sort of)! (Just a few other examples are PH, CH, BR, DR, TR, PL, QU.)

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• This also makes the vowel a short “a”.

(Interesting note that the “g” is silent when followed by a consonant in “gnath”, if this is the first syllable.)

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radiatus becomes “ray-dee-ay-tus

(first and second “a” is long.)

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• The second “a” is long because its followed by only one consonant. If there was a word spelled “radiattus”, the second “a” would be short.

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• With this word with several syllables, the second to last syllable is emphasized. This is because of a rule that says that the second to last syllable is emphasized if the vowel of that particular syllable is long.



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Good Luck. Bottom line… As long as the person you are speaking to knows what animal you're speaking of, you’ve achieved successful communication.

The most learned herpetologist who speaks technically correct, but still has not identified the animal to the audience, has failed at “communication”.
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Regards, Bill McGighan

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