BirdLife South Africa, a bird conservation organisation, is working on a list of bird names in isiZulu. They are also working on more listings in other South African official languages.
Andrew de Bolcq, avitourism project manager at BirdLife South Africa, says it’s important to raise awareness about birds and birds and what better way than to have the name of the bird in the language of the people you’re trying to reach.
“One of the aims of BirdLife South Africa is to increase awareness of the diversity of birds in South Africa, and also to increase support for conservation. There is a very clear language barrier… Until this project completes the isiZulu list, there is only a complete list of South African birds in English and Afrikaans, which reinforces the unfair stereotype that birds are ‘white people’,” says De Bolcq.
He said the process of compiling the list was very long. They have to go through extensive research, including academic literature and “grey literature”, documents that are not published through conventional commercial channels.
“This is then supplemented by a consultative approach with linguists, native speakers and local communities, especially elders and active birds who speak the language. When you are done, list all the names of the birds there, there is a process based on the workshop.
The workshop is attended by linguists, birding enthusiasts, local guides who speak the language, and birders who help guide the process.
“This workshop is the first to conclude the most common names if there are many names for birds [for the sake of standardisation, and then where there is not a name for a bird in a language there is another process to create one.”
Naming birds
The process of giving bird’s names is quite interesting, De Bolcq says. The group first considers the most important features of the bird that help to distinguish it, for example colour, behaviour, shape, size, distribution and habitat.
“This is then formed into a sensible name within the linguistic structures, sometimes joining it to a stem name — an English example is cinnamon-breasted bunting, with the colour of the breast being the descriptor and bunting the group — and other times being a standalone name, for example Cape gannet or isicibamanzi, which means ‘the spear into the water’).
“This name is always decided on by consensus of the language and cultural representatives present. Then, once the list is finalised, we put it out for public comment for a year before adopting it, which is where we are in the process for isiZulu.”
De Bolcq says BirdLife is open to having as many people as possible participating in the projects, because the wider they consult the representative and inclusive the list becomes.
For the isiZulu bird list, BirdLife worked in KwaZulu-Natal and had nearly 30 BirdLife trained Zulu-speaking bird guides who surveyed the areas where they lived.
“That portion of the work was led by Professor Adrian Koopman and Professor Noleen Turner of UKZN [University of KwaZulu-Natal]. Our work to finalize the list for South Africa involved a selection of guides, a Zulu-speaking representative of BirdLife South Africa, the two Zulu linguists mentioned above, and a panel of bird experts.
Make connections
He said the key to this initiative is having a mother-tongue connection with the birds that makes for a deeper and more personal engagement.
He quoted Nelson Mandela as saying, “If you speak to a man in a language he understands, it will be his head. If you speak to him in his own language, it will be his heart.”
“Birds are culturally and spiritually significant to all cultures and groups in South Africa in one way or another, and there is no reason why people who do not speak English or Afrikaans should be able to refer to every bird that is beautiful in its own language. ,” said De Bolcq.
“Try that the Cape gannet was previously known as iCape-gannet because it never had a name, and now there is an evocative, rich image, beautiful Zulu name isicibamanzi. It’s great. Having a name for a bird is really just the first step.
Birdlife is in the process of having its premier birding app, Birda, translated into isiZulu. The organization uses the Zulu bird’s name in educational and environmental awareness projects, as well as in social media and Zulu web content.
“We are confident that this work will drive future interest in birds from a previously neglected demographic in South Africa,” said De Bolcq.
“Publish the list in isiZulu [for peer review] bringing the total list to three: isiZulu, English and Afrikaans. We are currently looking for the next language to work on, and the most likely candidates are Sesotho, Sepedi, and isiXhosa [all dependent on the availability of language champions and funding]. We hope to create a list in a new language once a year.
Lesego Chepape is a climate reporting fellow, funded by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa