You can now choose up to three common name lexicons to view at once

[tiwane]

OK. I suspect that they just haven’t been added. If you go to the taxon’s page (eg https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47850-Quercus-agrifolia), click on Taxonomy, and scroll down, you can see all the names linked to that taxon. And you can add a name if you like.

[amr_mn]

That’s it! Thank you. I just didn’t notice that was even an option until this topic came up.

[annkatrinrose]

@tiwane

That’s definitely an older page (one of the oldest on iNat) so it might need some updating.

It appears to be limited to older computers so just another hint that maybe I really need to replace my ancient desktop. I checked the page on my laptop and at work and it all looked fine with newer operating systems. I’m only seeing the placeholder symbols with Windows 7.

[dugald]

Amazing! thank you!

[botswanabugs]

Thank you for doing all this @Tiwane, It is so useful.
I am a student and recorder of local plant names in Botswana. Ive set my preferences to English (1st), Setswana (2nd) and Kalanga (3rd). There are many names in Setswana ( in American Englsh, Tswana) and less in Kalanga. I often get only two names. Englsih and one African language, but I dont know if the African name is Setswana or Kalanga. Whatever it is it comes second. It may help if there is a letter (T) or (K) after the name, to show which language it is.
Is there any hope or possibility of sometime in the future, as processing power increases that we could select 4 or 5 languages or even more for a name. It appears to me that youth in my corner of the world, having become urbanised have very little knowledge of plant names. The knowledge is dying as the elderly pass on. Inat is a wonderful tool for preserving and passing on this knowledge, together with great pictures, It would be wonderful if more names were available at the top of a page rather than buried within the taxonomy page,

Thanks so much again and again,

[tiwane]

@botswanabugs

Whatever it is it comes second. It may help if there is a letter (T) or (K) after the name, to show which language it is.

Probably not, but I think we should show the name’s lexicon (and place) on mouseover. Something we’ve discussed as a next step.

@botswanabugs

Is there any hope or possibility of sometime in the future, as processing power increases that we could select 4 or 5 languages or even more for a name.

I guess it’s possible, but it would also just make the interface so much more cluttered and difficult to deal with. You can always look at the taxon page or change your preferences to see different names.

[zygy]

@annkatrinrose

On a related note, when I look at my observations on my Edit Observations list, these non-standard letters do not display correctly. It appears only the first one in each word does and the rest is just showing a placeholder symbol. Here’s an examples of what I’m seeing (it seems to work fine in other places):

It works for me. You just need to have a font installed on your system that includes those characters. In this case the characters that aren’t displaying are the lowercase Cherokee characters. There are very few fonts that currently include the lowercase Cherokee characters, but some that do are Everson Mono and Galvji (which comes preinstalled on MacOS Catalina and later).

[jasonhernandez74]

I thought of a use case for this beyond learning local names. If you already know a local name, it is also a shortcut to seeing whether that name has been added (the 6-letter flora codes already discussed are a good example); this way, you can add names as needed without having to check every taxon page.

[tiwane]

I’m reopening the thread to see if anyone’s using this functionality about 6 months later and, if so, what they’re using it for. I unfortunately don’t use it as I have to take a lot of screenshots for help docs and support emails and I don’t want to confuse people with. I should just use a second account for those screenshots.

[schoenitz]

I’m using this. English, my native language, and a language I’m trying to learn. Works great.

[whaichi]

I’m using English (my native language) and Korean (the language for my location).

[redpandacat]

@tiwane

ne’s using this functionality about 6 months later and, if so, what they’re using it for. I unfortunately don’t use it as I have to take a lot of screenshots for help docs and support emails and I don’t want to confuse people with. I should just use a second account for those screenshots.

I really love this feature.

I am using it - English UK/Chinese (simplified)/English.
#1 is my first language/locale
#2 is for the area where I live
#3 is useful for highlighting when there may be another non-UK dominant common name in English - this can be the English that name that locals in China learn for speaking English or that is used by some non-Chinese speaking visitors to China. Can be good for communication on iNat or eBird. e.g. Grey Plover vs Black-bellied Plover.

I could live without #3 but it is a nice to have. #2 is fantastic to have.

[dianastuder]

Yes - extremely useful!

Have it set to English and Afrikaans so I can retrieve the binomial from the common name placeholder. Some of the Afrikaans ones are top of the mind for me anyway. Most observed sp for CNC CPT is bietou with 381 - when in doubt, bietou! Is - how to add YOUR common name - on your new Help ?

The Afrikaans vernacular name bietou is derived from the original Khoisan name.

One of the good improvements on iNat in my years here.
Along with

1. Default satellite view on maps (that one was an overnight change)
2. DQA to casual for multi-species
3. Multilingual common names embracing iNat’s global diversity!
4. that placeholder battle ahead ?

I should have kept a formal list for myself.

[tisli]

I use English, Dutch and Indonesian to learn the names in these languages. And the scientific name too, of course.

With English being so widespread I have heard many names of animals and plants before, but don’t exactly know what they are. Now, I know many because they just show up when I am using iNaturalist. A similar thing happens with Dutch and Indonesian. It helps to learn new words and retain old ones, too.

[annkatrinrose]

I still use it and love it. I find it interesting to see which taxa have common names in German but not English and vice versa. It seems particularly mosses and liverworts often have a German name but no English equivalent, while some of our Southern Appalachian endemics don’t exist in the German language.

[upupa-epops]

I have it showing English, Spanish, and Dutch since I’m interested in those languages.

It’s made me question some common name choices in the other languages but I’m not sure what to do about it since I’m not fluent in either language to argue with native speakers. E.g. generic names like “hover fly” or “flower fly” are applied to multiple levels of taxa from families down to species in Spanish which doesn’t seem right.

It’s also kind of annoying when a common introduced European species has a Dutch common name and no English common name, very tempting to want to create one.

[thomaseverest]

@upupa-epops

E.g. generic names like “hover fly” or “flower fly” are applied to multiple levels of taxa from families down to species in Spanish which doesn’t seem right.

I have noticed similar problems after adding Spanish, such as the same generic name being added to 20 species. I’m not sure if this is because of a few slightly misdirected users, or if there hasn’t been as much name curation as in English. I delete them when I feel comfortable doing so.

So I guess this feature also lets me identify inaccurate common names in multiple languages, which I wasn’t initially expecting.