BirdingNZ.net

Maybe there never was one Jan - or if there was it's been lost - the issue with an oral language.
Maybe it's just appropriate to say Black Billed Tarapunga?
I must admit, like Peter, I use names I've grown up with - Tui, Kokako etc - although I quite like Mohua over Yellowhead and I tend to now say kakariki rather than parakeet and Whio over blue duck - so something must be catching on!!

cheers
jim

Out of boredom I put together this document - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qC1 ... tiu24K8tQA - showing all the Maori names I found on http://maoridictionary.co.nz. Personally, I think that the use of Maori names should be encouraged for endemic species. I disagree with it's use elsewhere as it may lead to confusion with people thinking birds like silvereye are found only here, and I already have to explain the difference between just 'native' and 'endemic' quite enough. Whilst I understand the dialect problems, I think that the most common names are familiar to the non-birdies and the true birders - it is only when speaking in a full Maori environment when it is crucial to be correct. I'd say most Northlanders know what Kereru is!

If you find anything missing on that document, I have set it up so you can comment without signing in and I'll add it later

Some things I found amazing was how some birds received much attention (Rifleman has 19 different names) while other widespread birds seemed to be rather scares in Maori names (Blue Penguin has just one).

Michael

Tui has something like 32... yet we only ever hear Tui. Crazy!

Davidthomas wrote:Tui has something like 32... yet we only ever hear Tui. Crazy!

I was shocked to only find one! Perhaps the others have just been completely phased out? You'd think a site with seven names for Light-Mantled Sooty Albatross would have some more for tui!

Seems like adding another whole layer of difficulty to the subject in my opinion.

Birds range all over the World, and trying to define them entirely in a local language is likely to result in the invention of words to satisfy a narrow interest.

Like it or not, [and many people don't] English is the language of science.

It may not be fair, but that's just the way it is

Thanks for that list, Michael. A great piece of work.

Hey Zarkov - isn't Latin the language of science...?
English is to confuse everyone else!!

cheers
jim

Latin was a mandatory subject when my father was studying medicine, but that was a 80 years ago.

He said it wasn't needed even then.

Michael wrote:

Davidthomas wrote:Tui has something like 32... yet we only ever hear Tui. Crazy!

"I was shocked to only find one! Perhaps the others have just been completely phased out? "

I guess the quote above highlights one of my points. There was/is a rich and meaningful heritage of Maori names for birds yet lots of people are happy to assume that they've all been "phased out " and just use the one they grew up with. But I ask you - who phased them out? Maori iwi or some pakeha academic writing a dictionary or a bird book? If people think that language evolves and iwi are happy to move on with it then why are the people of Wanganui so adamant that they want their home pronounced according to their dialect and not according to some sort of generic pronunciation?
And what is the reason folks think that many Maori these days use the generic Maori bird names instead of the local ones? Could it be that someone else got hold of that aspect of their language (ie the education system of the 1930s to1980s) and forced the last few generations to conform to a national norm for bird names?

When people genuinely use Maori bird names in a local NZ context then yep I can see they are trying to be respectful, trying to connect, trying to appreciate things. It's great.

But what about this scenario? Sometimes I've brought people from overseas to look at birds and the pakeha DoC worker or reserve guide we've met will only converse in the Maori names and doesn't seem to even know half the English names. Is that really necessary? In most countries it would be considered rude. Aren't we supposed to.be accommodating to guests? The overseas visitors feel a little stupid because they don't recognise the word and are also often stumped by the kiwi accent. Usually they dont dare to.complain but remain mostly politely confused. However as a NZer I'm subtly aware of something else: I feel embarrassed because once again one of my pakeha countrymen or women has acted just a little bit elitist, a little bit antagonistic, and seems to have coveted those Maori bird names not so much to engage with the unique NZ environment, but more as a way to subliminally assert that they are super cool and foreigners are super square. So i just wondet out loud - aren't some people guilty of mis-using Maori bird names as a weapon to bash foreigners? Or have I just misread it?

Scientific names are wonderfully pedantic and if you like arguing which name is correct it is exactly the right field for you to get into. There are rules and everything.

Apart from that I think any name that someone else can understand is OK. I'd love to hear more Maori names in use and in particular local variants when possible. It is using them that makes them work because then other people get to find out what they mean and we'll probably get better at it as we do. Maybe we'll even be able say the ones that are more than two or three syllables long. I also like the old "colonial" names and if you talk to bushmen that have learned their birds from each other you still hear them. I remember talking to an old guy in the pub at Tuatapere who claimed not to know what a Yellowhead or Mohua was but gave me a detailed run down on where the Bush Canaries were and was pretty well correct because I'd just spent two summers surveying them.

Re-purposing names is really common and to object to using "crow" for Kokako (which I sometimes actually do) means having to rename robins, tomtits, wrens etc because they are also totally different to the English versions of the same. Maori also re-used old names. Some names have stories and one particular love of mine is Cape Pigeon which must go back to a time when sailing was scary and navigation dodgy so the birds were one of the important things that told them when to turn left to find the Cape of Good Hope. I am also fond of Tokoeka which I understand means something like "Weka with a walking stick" which speaks to me of people who know the bird and have a sense of humour. On Tui, Hemi Whaanga who gave a talk at the Napier AGM, suggests that it was not the normal name for the bird we know, amongst the many he says that he, and the people he talked to, would most often refer to it as "Koko". If that perpetuates an early contact error that's a pretty cool piece of history too. Maybe we still have more to learn about Maori names and maybe there isn't one name for every bird but were they really twitchers anyway? Just take what you're happy with and use it even if you do stumble over some of the syllables.

Although I actually tend to use the ones I grew up with most I think names are great - the more the merrier. If they spent more time looking at their field guides than their tick lists they wouldn't have a problem.

Ian