Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!sunic!tut!ra!misan From: misan@ra.abo.fi (Annika Forsten DC) Newsgroups: rec.birds Subject: Re: English & Latin Bird Names Message-ID: Date: 15 Jan 90 08:48:23 GMT References: <1990Jan10.212757.22128@utzoo.uucp> <53546@oliveb.olivetti.com> Sender: misan@ra.abo.fi Organization: Abo Academy, Finland Lines: 48 In-reply-to: mjm@oliven.olivetti.com's message of 12 Jan 90 00:03:23 GMT In article <53546@oliveb.olivetti.com> mjm@oliven.olivetti.com (Michael Mammoser) writes: > It seems that the British had this habit of giving the generic > family name as the common english name to those birds represented in > Britain by a single species of the family. Other examples are the Wren, > the Jay, and the Nuthatch. In North America we know the Wren as the > Winter Wren, in order to tell it from the eight other wren species that > we have. Yes and a list of more distinct names has been published by BTO(?) which is currently under consideration. All names like those above have been changed to include a 'qualifier', like Northern Wheatear, Azore Jay etc. There has been a lot of negative reaction to this proposed change though (as well as positive). We'll see how it turns out. > I think that the AOU has taken some decent strides recently in > trying to standardize the common english names used in North America > with those being used in other parts of the world. Some more examples > would be Black-Shouldered Kite, Northern Harrier, American Kestrel, > and Merlin; just to name a few raptors. However, it seems that the > BOU would have to reciprocate a little in order to alleviate the some- > what confusing situation mentioned above. That's a good idea. I suppose the English and the Americans should both be allowed to keep some of their names, so a compromise would be best. The names are different for a surprisingly large number of species. Norther Harrier, by the way, is Hen Harrier in English, I don't see why it wasn't called that when the name changed from Marsh Hawk. Marsh Hawk was worse of course, since there is a species called Marsh Harrier in Europe which is another species. I also think it would be a good idea to keep the same name in all languages, I mean just a simple translation if it's possible. It's very confusing when different species have the 'same' name in two languages, like Rodspov (translates Red Godwit is Black-tailed Godwit) in Swedish, Punakuiri (translates Red Godwit is Bar-tailed Godwit) in Finnish. It is a stupid name in both languages, of course, as both Godwits are more or less red. But you sure are lucky having to know the names in American only, I've had to learn the European species in Finnish, Swedish, English, Latin and now I'm struggling with German, Dutch and French. I subscribe to a French magazine which doesn't include Latin Names and it isn't always possible to guess which species they mean. Fortunately French names resemble Latin names somewhat. Using a dictionary all the time would be too timeconsuming. European birding magazines for birders generally include Latin names, but the more general birdwatching-conservation magazines do not. Annika Forsten, Abo Akademi, Finland misan@ra.abo.fi