Bird names as critical communication infrastructure in the contexts of history, language, and culture.

Abstract

Standardized taxonomies and lists of birds were created to improve communication. They are linguistic infrastructure―biodiversity indices and dictionaries―that have been painstakingly built and maintained and that have enhanced regional and global participation in the study and enjoyment of birds. Inclusion of people has been a core objective in creating and maintaining these standardized lists, and dissatisfaction and desires to overwrite objectionable names have been associated with them for nearly two centuries. Suggestions that bird names should be changed are continuous. Today, these suggestions include the view that some bird names must be changed to make them more accurate, inoffensive, and culturally appropriate to further increase diversity and inclusion among ornithologists and bird watchers. The latter, meritorious goal has been largely successful thus far despite many ongoing objections. Historic examples indicate that large-scale name changes, however, are not needed to accomplish major societal goals of inclusion. Some barriers to inclusion likely remain, and some changes are likely needed for English names. Often overlooked or underappreciated in name change discussions are that: 1) standardized names lists have had staggering success in fostering inclusion of diverse participants globally; 2) stability is vital in such systems, and destabilization is exclusionary; 3) dissatisfaction with such lists and the names they include has been ongoing since these naming systems began; 4) important flexibilities exist in conjunction with these communication systems that enhance local and regional communication (e.g., alternative names in English and other languages); and 5) cultural values, important as they are, are neither universally shared nor constant, and thus bring inherent divisiveness and instability when used as a central reason for change. Consideration of standardized lists of bird names as communication systems in the fuller context of history, language, and culture will improve our management of these systems and their continued utility in fostering inclusion. With standardized, stable, naming systems acting as a skeleton, proactively building outwards, both within and among languages and cultures, offers a positive and productive way to increase inclusion and to improve cultural and biodiversity conservation.

The inordinate unpopularity of changing all eponymous bird and other organismal names

“…After all, such elimination runs directly counter to popular usage in organismal names for over two centuries and in society for many other purposes today. Debates like these over eponymous names are common throughout the history of our organismal naming systems (Winker 2023), but only now with the presence of social media do we have a means of quantifying broader reactions. In this respect, the data considered here are an important new development (Table 1, Supplementary Material).…”

“…There are now numerous ways in which the idea of large-scale eponym canceling is being cast as morally and ethically questionable: from discriminating against individuals because of the groups they belong to (Goska 2020, Winker 2023; to being a new form of colonialism (Pethiyagoda 2023); enhancing international disparities (Orr et al 2023); being discriminatory and harmful to biologists in the global south (Jost et al 2023, Orr et al 2023; diverting scarce resources from making direct progress on more important challenges (Supplementary Materials, Antonelli et al 2023); being moral imperialism (Winker 2023); and virtue signaling (Goska 2021, Pethiyagoda 2023, Thiele 2023.…”

“…Alternative proposals that are far less divisive exist to enhance inclusion through organismal nomenclature (e.g., Palma & Heath 2021, Jost et al 2023, Winker 2023.…”

“…In ornithology in English, we use a tightly coupled nomenclature, in which vernacular names are capitalized proper names (like cities, rivers, etc.) and are used more commonly than their latinized scientific names (Winker 2023). This raises the importance of vernacular names in ornithology above that which occurs in many other biological disciplines, in which scientific names are standardized and more heavily used.…”