Hello! I am a mammal curator on site and I recently completed adding the common French names for mammal species found in French-speaking countries. I myself do not speak French, but I would like to share my work with those who would be most interested (French-speaking iNat users). Is there anything willing to help translate the following post for me?
All mammal species occurring in French-speaking countries now have their common names available in French. The places affected are: Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, France, French Polynesia, Gabon, Haiti, Côte d’Ivoire, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo, United States (Maine, Louisiana), and Vanuatu.
At the time of this post, French is one of 31 languages officially supported by iNaturalist, meaning the rest of the site is available in French. But this does not carry over to the common names, which are manually added by users. Additionally, most Observations come from the United States and other English-speaking places despite the support. I suspect this may (at least in part) be a consequence of having so few common names available in other languages.
In carrying out this project, iNaturalist will hopefully be a little more accessible within French-speaking countries, at least among those looking for mammals.
Most mammals in Canada and France already had their French names available. The majority of the project applied to mammals in African countries. Unfortunately, I could not find names for many mammals from Dominica or Madagascar. If any French guides or checklists exist for these two countries, I would appreciate a link.