It makes the taxon page hard to see by others, I’d feel bad for anyone who would need to scroll past 20 names of one language to see the name they look for, it’s more of a design problem.
I don’t really like using indigenous names as the English common name most of the time because they often aren’t accessible to English speakers - and the point of common names is to be more accessible to the average person.
No. The names should be in common usage wherever. So when I ID African Unknowns and there’s a note on an obs - local name Whatever. That observer should be able to search for and find the name they use.
The average person doesn’t exist on iNat. We use English, because most of us can, and the rest must. But it doesn’t make English the average language, simply a practical compromise.
There is an open feature request to chose which language we want to see our common names in. (Not which country, which language)
yeah this is a good point, and it would be an amazing project to catalog all those names but probably well beyond iNat’s ability
no, they should be added within said indigenous language, but if there’s an indigenous name and no english name that should display.
I want to be clear I am not against indigenous names, just that they should not be applied over any English common name (unless they are legitimately used in English more often than said name, though I imagine those situations are very rare).
Wapiti has become the “official” name for Cervus canadensis but good luck finding an American who calls it anything but Elk.
Added: personally I prefer Nene to Hawaiian Goose but the latter seems to have been the standard for many years. I see iNat now uses Nene.
You may not be aware of how many indigenous names you may already be accessing.
The common name for what you likely call Solanum lycopersicum and other varieties of the same fruit comes from Nahuatl: tomatl.
Nobody should be pushing those names over existing English names, there’s a difference in using pomidor derived from Italian and arguing that all Hawaiian bird names should be added as common English names when they already are available as names in that language.
I admit I am lost; I am not sure who is pushing here?
The English word I was referencing is not “pomidor”, with which I am wholly unfamiliar, but the extremely common word tomato derived from tomatl, which is the indigenous name for that plant and its fruits.
What I was pointing out is that there may already be many indigenous terms already being accessed of which he (and I! And all of us!) may be unaware because English is such a borrower language.
If I am not mistaken squash is derived from an indigenous term as well. There are a slew, as I recall.
I’m talking about the same thing @raymie did, not about people here, but about situations happened before.
And of course I got what name you referred to, and I mentioned a name that we use for the same plant, “tomat” is an official name nobody really uses, it’s mainly “pomidor”.
Yes, there are, but that doesn’t mean existing English names should be thrown away because there’re names in other languages, as it was discussed on this forum just last year and probably before.
I am so sorry. I am still confused.
- When you say “we”, to whom are you referring? To be clear, do you mean people in your country, English speakers in your part of the world, English speakers in general, Americans and Canadians, iNat users…?
- Followup question: where is it mainly pomidor?
What I am saying is that I think a lot of those “existing English names” may actually be indigenous or indigenous-derived names. So of course it would be silly to throw those away.
Yes, but even when they’re not, they’re still valid if they’re in use.
This. It’s just an example of a name from different language. You grow помидоры, they’re called томаты mostly on market labels.
So my greater point is that if we accept that there are indigenous common names already being successfully accessed, known and unknown, because English is such a borrower language, it is perhaps a bit reactive to dismiss indigenous names out of hand or label them as difficult.
The indigenous terms may end up undergoing adjustment (see: squash, tomato) but so too all the French, German, Greek (et al) phrases and words that have been utilized throughout English.
(Pomodoro is a type of tomato to me, so all pomodoros are tomatoes but not all tomatoes are pomodoros. They are luxurious and incredible for sauces.)
100% agree, because the point of common names is how something is commonly known. If someone is looking to find a plant by the name by which it is called within that community, that person should be able to find it.
Bear in mind that language is alive and common names change with time, especially (thankfully) those that are offensive.
Your point is correct, we just talked about a little bit different thing, some users add indigenous names as main common English names even when that name is not the most used one. If name grows into language it’s one thing, but it shouldn’t be forced. Plus all names are searchable no matter which language you use, so it’s redundant to add a name to many languages when it’s only a name in one.
So for people within cross-cultural communities, they may call the bird by the Hawaiian name and only know it by that name even if they are English speakers, in the same way we only know native species of fruits by Maya names here. So I think the Hawaiaan name needs to be available to English speakers (and everyone!) plus any other common names used in that community, so all people who want to add an observation and know fully well what they have seen can find the right scientific name.
An example of the importance of common names: I have a little tree in my side passageway. It was one of my very first observations and I felt certain it would be identified because the blooms were so striking. I was wrong. It languished.
One day a friend came over with whom I had visited an extremely old church garden (several hundred years), and I had the idea to ask her. She was thunderstruck when she saw it, remembering this same type of tree from her childhood. She asked me to smell the blooms the next time it rained, which I did. They were extremely aromatic. Then she apologetically told me as best she recalled it was called a “Cuban Lady of the Night”, which is AWFUL.
But that terrible name gave me enough information to identify it as Brunfelsia Nitida, a Cuban raintree, which we did not plant but somehow came to grow and flourish and now sits waiting, its blooms never being attended because whatever bird or insect it needs is not here.
If there is room for more than one common name they all need to be there.
Not as main name though.
And names are available, you can type in any existing name and it will show up, no matter of language.
Help me understand. I do not know how to add anything, only search, but if I understand you correctly, the changing of the primary common name in no way affects the searchability of common names, correct?
What then would be the importance of the “main name” staying the same if all common names are searchable?