Zulu Bird Names Project 2013-2016

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Latin-based scientific names for birds such as Lanius collaris and Bucorvis leadbeateri are not commonly used by the average person who would usually prefer to refer to them as the Fiscal Shrike and the Ground Hornbill, or the Fiskaallaksman and the Bromvoël if they are Afrikaans-speaking.

Names such as Jackie Hangman, Jan Fiskaal, and Turkey Buzzard are also commonly used for these birds.

Fiscal Shrike and Bromvoël are “common names” or “vernacular names”, and unlike scientific nomenclature, are not used universally but are specific to a particular language.

Fortunately, for the non-academic and non-professional birdwatcher and amateur ornithologist, all the South African bird guides that we are aware of record both the scientific names and the common names. And even more fortunately, the work done by committees and interest groups such as the BirdLife South Africa List Committee and the Afrikaanse Voëlnaamgroep has led to there being distinct English and Afrikaans common names for every single species of bird found in South Africa.

This has not, however, been the case for bird names in the South African vernacular languages from the Bantu language group. A quick glance at any bird guide that records the names of birds in isiZulu, Xhosa, Tswana and other South African languages will show a similar pattern:

1. Many birds have more than one name. In isiZulu, the Black-headed Oriole has the three names umqoqongo, umbhicongo and ungongolozi.
2. Many birds share the same name. In the 5^th edition of Roberts (Maclean 1984), the Zulu name ukhozi is assigned to the Black Eagle, the Tawny Eagle, the Martial Eagle, the Crowned Eagle, and the Blackbreasted Snake Eagle.
3. A considerable number of birds have no African vernacular name at all recorded.

Professor Noleen Turner of UKZN’s School of isiZulu Studies first became interested in the problems in the Zulu avian nomenclatural system in 2004 when she received a limited amount of funding to investigate indigenous bird names in KwaZulu-Natal.

A chance meeting with Clint Jardine at Phinda Game Reserve in 2013 revived her interest in Zulu bird names, and she enlisted the help of Adrian Koopman, a retired professor of isiZulu Studies at UKZN. Koopman had worked with Gordon Maclean on the Zulu names in Roberts V, and had previously published on different aspects of Zulu bird names.

In 2013, Turner sourced a group of Zulu mother-tongue bird guides to take part in a ‘bird naming workshop’ to address the three problems outlined above. Their work was to try to select only one commonly used name for birds when two or more names existed, to distinguish between various species having the same name, and (perhaps most importantly) to coin new names where none had existed before.

Space does not allow us to give full details of the methods used to achieve the objectives, but by the end of the third such ‘naming workshop’ in November last year, Turner and Koopman felt they had achieved what they had set out to do. (At the end of this article examples are given of 10 species of birds which had naming issues.)

Their task now is to collate all the results of the 2013, 2014 and 2015 workshops and to publish their results in a variety of academic journals, ornithological as well as linguistic.

Turner and Koopman are also working on a book on isiZulu bird names and bird lore in which the results of the naming workshops will play a prominent part.

Ten examples of bird names suggested during the three workshops

Steppe Buzzard – isanxa: derived from -sa- ‘something like’ + (i)nxae ‘side’, ‘edge’, this suggested name refers to this bird occurring on the edge of forests (as opposed to the Forest Buzzard, which occurs within the forest).

Gymnogene – ijikanyawo. It is surprising that this large, common and distinctive bird has no Zulu name. It was agreed that its distinctive feature is how it can turn or bend its foot to get into the nests of other birds, hence the suggested name, based on jika ‘turn’ + (u)nyawo ‘foot’.

Blue Waxbill – isicelankobe (lit. ‘that which asks for mealie pips’). This was an existing name in Doke and Vilakazi, glossed as ‘small bird which frequents maize fields’. As this bird does indeed frequent homesteads where it pecks up grain, and it has no recorded name, the match seemed inevitable.

Bronze-backed Mannekin – amadojeyana: (lit. ‘the very little men’): although unrecorded in  print, most of the group knew this name for this little bird. It is in the plural ama- form because this bird always appears in little flocks.

Purple Heron – unoxhongo: this name was in Doke and Vilakazi with the gloss ‘largish water bird’, and as the Purple Heron was one of the herons without a Zulu name, this existing name was assigned to it.

Thick-billed Weaver – unondwezane: this name was in Doke and Vilakazi, glossed as “Smith’s Weaver Bird”. As this reference is no longer known, it was decided to apply the Zulu name to the distinctive Thick-billed Weaver, currently with no recorded Zulu name. Further research in old ornithological data bases may of course identify “Smith’s Weaver Bird” and the assigning of the name unondwezane may have to be changed.

Pink-throated Longclaw – itoyiya; as the group remembered the name onotoyi as being generic for longclaws, and Themba Mthembu remembered especially as a youth the name itoyiya being used for the Pink-throated Longclaw, this name was accepted.

Quail Finch – inxenge: this name, glossed in Doke and Vilakazi as ‘small, finch-like bird’, was assigned to this hitherto un-named finch.

Osprey – inkwazana: there was no hesitation in suggesting this diminutive form of inkwazi (‘Fish Eagle’) for the Osprey.

Squacco Heron – umacutha: This was a new name coined for the Squacco Heron, and is based on the verb cutha ‘stand motionless’.