psitacina - how do you pronounce it?

[back2eight]

As the title says - how do you pronounce psitacina? Is the P silent?

 

[xantius]

My understanding is that it's sit - uh - SCENE - uh

 

[limeslide]

I was thinking about that too! I don't pronounce the P, like in pseudo. I may be wrong, though.

 

[amphirion]

i say sit-uh-sin-uh.

dont listen to my pronunciations though, i had the reputation of pronouncing things quite differently in my ichthyology class...

 

[Exo]

I always thought it kinda rhymed with Pistachio....

 

[BigBella]

Sit-uh-seen-uh -- the spitting "P" is, thankfully, silent . . .

 

[Capensis]

I have it wrong, but my pronunciation is Piss-tah-see-nuh.

 

[sarracenia]

i pronounce it like xantius said, whether it's correct or not, i don't know. It's my understanding that since Latin is a dead language, there's no right or wrong way of pronouncing it.

 

[BigBella]

i pronounce it like xantius said, whether it's correct or not, i don't know. It's my understanding that since Latin is a dead language, there's no right or wrong way of pronouncing it.

I don't know that Latin is a dead language, per se (pun intended), since I had to take plenty of it for the sciences -- and others require it for theology and the law. It saturates a whole number of disciplines, where its pronunciation is quite clear.

Aramaic -- now there's one plugged into the machines . . .

 

[SirKristoff]

i also pronounce it like sit-uh-scene-uh

 

[BigBella]

i also pronounce it like sit-uh-scene-uh

And well you should, you slack-jawed punk!

(heh, heh, heh) . . .

 

[SirKristoff]

hey hey leave my jaw out of this ;D
not my fault i have an underbite rofl ._.

 

[Capensis]

Wow, I pronounce t worst than I thought I did. xD

 

[sarracenia]

I don't know that Latin is a dead language, per se (pun intended), since I had to take plenty of it for the sciences -- and others require it for theology and the law. It saturates a whole number of disciplines, where its pronunciation is quite clear.

Aramaic -- now there's one plugged into the machines . . .

dead language as in no one speaks Latin as their native language.

 

[Brokken]

I guess I'm in the minority. I pronounce it "sit-ah-sine-ah". I base this on the fact that psittacina gets it's name from the psittacine birds (parrots) - the beaks of which psittacina pitchers resemble:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot

When you click on the pronunciation guide, it seems to point to the pronunciation of the 'cin' as 'sine' rather than 'seen'. I'm no Latin expert though so it's just opinion.

 

[back2eight]

I've been pronouncing it sit-uh-scene-uh as well but didnt' know if that was correct. Brokken has a good explanation of why it should be SINE instead of SCENE.

I had a customer who is a veterinarian come to my house to buy some neps from me a few months ago and I asked him about pronouncing some of the names. Since he had med school which has a lot of latin, he was very helpful in how to pronounce some of the names that I was doing wrong. Like N. Smilesii or N. Bellii - the double ii on the end is pronounced ee-eye, or E - I (long vowel sounds) if that makes sense. I was prnouncing them completely wrong.

 

[xantius]

That's good to know on the 'ii' thing. I knew Lowii was that way, but didn't make the correlation with Bellii or others.

 

[jimscott]

I've been pronouncing it sit-uh-scene-uh as well but didnt' know if that was correct.

That's how I've been pronouncing it... minus a Southern drawl!

 

[Hermopolis]

P as in Phonics. English is such a messed up language.