Allow users to enter singular and plural names into iNat

[tiwane]

@botswanabugs

I also think there should be a method of entering the name of a fruit or part of a plant.
Can the fruit names also be searchable and lists of fruit and other plant part names be maintained and kept distinct from species/genera names ?
In some African languages the fruit, root or tuber has a different name from the parent plant.
The fruit name may be added mistakenly to iNat as the plant name.

I hope that one day after a vast number of African names have been entered into iNat, then iNaturalists shall be able to generate illustrated name lists in any language the user chooses and that list could include names for plurals and singulars, male and female, young and old animals, fruits, roots and tubers etc. Currently Botswana has quite comprehensive dictionaries for Setswana (Tswana on iNat) but the other 20 or 30 languages really have nothing ! The Setswana dictionaries are riddled with biology mistakes though. Having good and accurate name lists on iNat may assist lexicographers (who may lack biological knowledge) to create dictionaries for the more neglected languages of southern Africa.

I’m concerned that this would turn iNaturalist into something it’s not meant to be: a database of and guide for any common name or biological term. I think that would be a great and important thing, but it should be its own separate resource, and functionality can be built specifically for those data. iNat could maybe pull in data from it like it does with Wikipedia or link to it like it does with Macrostrat. I would honestly work on entering all that information on a different site, or a Google Sheet, or something similar, because we can’t promise iNaturalist will support the name-focused functionality you’re envisioning. It’s outside the scope of iNaturalist. iNaturalist records observations and its functionality should be geared toward observations.

@botswanabugs

For southern African languages it is a harder, I think, because the plural is made by changing the prefix rather than the end of the word, so an African plural looks very different from its singular.

That’s super interesting, and I can see how it would be helpful in search to have both forms of the name entered. I’m less convinced there needs to be new functionality that labels the name singular or plural, but I can see some utility for it to help reduce confusion.