BioLists.com




LANGUAGE LIST  for COMMON NAMES

In addition to informal Vernacular Names (intended to be in the Languages listed below), BioLists is trialling two novel, contrived series of "formal" species-level Common Names: for all species, each and every name is unique.

See if one or other of these new series will cut corners for you!

    - UTILITY Names - Every species named in the database gets one unique name in the Latin script.
These consist of the species' Genus Name, an underscore, and one or more leading characters of the species' "trivial" name.
    - TAG Names - Each named species adopts one Tag name from among its Vernacular names: otherwise, use its Utility Name.
Each name is selected from the best known Vernacular Names for the species. It is in Latin script, and one or more other scripts, yet to be decided. Choices will favour widely-used indigenous names from the species' home territory. As Tag names, these may be of most use outside the home range of their species.

All species names in Year-versions 2000 and 2010 have their Utility and Tag Names added to the database ready to go directly into your BioLists.
The program does not search for these formal names - they will be found as Genus and Vernacular Names respectively.
Utility and Tag Names cannot be keyed-in within BioLists.  As with the informal Common Names, should never be italicised.

 

VERNACULAR (language-based) NAMES

When creating a new BioList, you can elect to search on Common Names in one or two of the following languages. Your selected Common Names are searchable and available for adding to your BioLists where they can be edited.

Languages for which BioLists is currently holding most Common Names (Plants and Birds, etc) are:

L.45 - - Esperanto (New Zealand Birds)
L.51 - - British Isles English (includes freshwater species)
L.58 - - New Zealand English (many well known New Zealand and European species)
L.95 - - Maori (Polynesian)  (NZ species)  This may be seen as a model for applying Common Names in other languages.
L.98 & 99 - Canadian and European French (Whales & Dolphins)
L.104 - Italian (Whales & Dolphins)
L.105 - Species Name [the Genus+species binomen in Latin].
            ALSO, all species-level names have their Species Name (binomen) as a "Common Name", as  in the "Ecologic Format" option.

Species-level Scientific and their Common Names are present in the following Taxonomic Groups for the Year-version 2000 Classification.
Sundry temperate Flowering Plants - some aquatic and garden plants; Elm Trees.
Birds - most marine and water-related species; Pigeons.
Whales, Dolphins, Otters, Elephants, Dogs, Cats, Bears, Primates,...

Genus-level Names: As above, and:
All Flowering Plants
All Frogs; (almost) all Birds; some Mammal ORDERS

Higher levels:
All Family-level and ORDER-level Names:

NB:  All Genus (and therefore species) names can be captured in BioLists by using their Family, (or ORDER).

 

Languages available for Vernacular Names:
                      Complete List,  at May, 2013                                                                      Summaries        

 

  Class CLASS Languages Languge                         Class CLASS Language
  No.          & SubClasses      Seq. No.           No.       Seq. No.          
    UTILITY & TAG   1   |       UTILITY & TAG 1
  1 AFRICAN Amharic 2   |     1 AFRICAN 2~9
  1   Berber 3   |     2 ARABIC 10~14
  1   Hausa 4   |     2 HEBREW 15
  1   Igbo 5   |     3 AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 16~28
  1         |     3 Austro.-INDONESIAN 16~20
  1   Ndebele 6   |     3 Austro.-JAVANESE 21~22
  1   Shona 7   |     3 Other AUSTRONESIANS 23~28
  1   Swahili 8   |     4 CHINESE 29~44
  1   Yoruba 9   |     4 Other CHINESE 37~44
            |     5 ESPERANTO 45
  2 ARABIC Arabian Pen. Arabic 10   |     6 GERMANIC LANGUAGES 46~67
  2   Filipino Arabic 11   |     6 ARMENIAN 46
  2   Middle-Eastern Arabic 12   |     6 DUTCH 48~47
  2   North-African Arabic 13   |     6 ENGLISH 49~60
  2   Standard Arabic 14   |     6 GERMAN  61~64
  2 HEBREW Hebrew 15   |     6 NORSE 65~67
            |     7 INDIC LANGUAGES 68~83
  3 AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES     |     7 DRAVIDIAN 68~71
  3      Austro.-INDONESIAN Bacasan A.-Indonesian 16   |     7 INDO-ARYAN 72~83
  3   Batak Karo A.-Indonesian 17   |     8 IRANIAN LANGUAGES 84~87
  3   Javanese A.-Indonesian 18   |     9 JAPANESE 88
  3   Kakartan A.-Indonesian 19   |     10 KARTVELIAN 89
  3   Malayan A.-Indonesian 20   |     11 KOREAN 90
  3      Austro.-JAVANESE Bamyumas A.-Javanese 21   |     12 MALAGASY 91
  3   A.-Javanese (Standard) 22   |     13 NAHUATL 92
  3      Other AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES     |     14 POLYNESIAN 93~97
  3   Betawi Austronesian 23   |     15 ROMAN / ITALIC LANGUAGES 98~114
  3   Cebuano Austronesian 24   |     15 FRENCH 98
  3   Filipino/Tagalog Austron. 25   |     15 ITALIAN 104
  3   Malagasy Austronesian 26   |     15 LATIN 105
  3   Sundanese Austronesian 27   |     15 PORTUGUESE 106
  3   Tetum Austronesian 28   |     15 ROMANIAN 110
            |     15 SPANISH 111
  4 CHINESE Mandarin (Standard) 29   |     16 SLAVIC LANGUAGES 115~123
  4   Nothwestern Mandarin 30   |     17 THAI 124
  4   Northern Mandarin 31   |     18 HELLENIC 125
  4   Southwestern Mandarin 32   |     19 URALIAN 129
  4   Southern Mandarin 33   |     20 VIETNAMESE 131
  4   Southeastern Mandarin 34   |   ======== ====== ========================= ===============
  4   Singaporean Mandarin 35   |          
  4   Taiwanese Mandarin 36   |                     Class-# CLASSES Sub-Class Refn. No.
  4      Other CHINESE Cantonese/Pinghua 37   |     2 HEBREW 15
  4   Hakka Chinese 38   |     3 AUSTRONESIAN-INDONESIAN 16
  4   Jin (North-central) Chinese 39   |     3 AUSTRONESIAN-JAVANESE 21
  4   Min Chinese 40   |     3 AUSTRONESIAN - OTHER 23
  4   Putongua/Guoyo Chinese 41   |     4 CHINESE - CHINESE 37
  4   Taiwanese-Hokkien 42   |     6 ARMENIAN 46
  4   Wu (Shanghai) Chinese 43   |     6 DUTCH 47
  4   Yue Chinese 44   |     6 ENGLISH 49
            |     6 GERMAN 61
  5 ESPERANTO Esperanto 45   |     6 NORSE 65
            |     7 DRAVIDIAN 68
  6 GERMANIC LANGUAGES     |     7 INDO-ARYAN 72
  6      ARMENIAN Armenian 46   |     8 IRANIAN 85
  6      DUTCH Afrikaans 47   |     15 FRENCH 98
  6   Dutch 48   |     15 ITALIAN 104
  6      ENGLISH Australian English 49   |     15 LATIN 105
  6   Brazilian English 50   |     15 PORTUGUESE 106
  6   British Isles English 51   |     15 ROMANIAN 110
  6   Canadian English 52   |     15 SPANISH 111
  6   Caribbean English 53   |   ======== ====== ========================= ===========
  6   Indian English 54   |     Class  Sub-Classes in Alpha-Seq. Sequence No.
  6   Malagasy English 55   |     6 ARMENIAN 46
  6   Malaysian English 56   |     3 AUSTRONESIAN-INDONESIAN 16
  6   New Guinean English 57   |     3 AUSTRONESIAN-JAVANESE 21
  6   New Zealand English 58   |     3 AUSTRONESIAN - OTHER 23
  6   South African English 59   |     4 CHINESE - OTHER 37
  6   United States English 60   |     7 DRAVIDIAN 68
  6      GERMAN Austro-Bavarian German 61   |     6 DUTCH 47
  6   German (Standard) 62   |     6 ENGLISH 49
  6   Pennsylvanian German 63   |     15 FRENCH 98
  6   Swiss German 64   |     6 GERMAN 61
  6      NORSE Danish 65   |     2 HEBREW 15
  6   Norwegian 66   |     7 INDO-ARYAN 72
  6   Swedish 67   |     8 IRANIAN 85
            |     15 ITALIAN 104
  7 INDIC LANGUAGES       |     15 LATIN 105
  7      DRAVIDIAN Kannada 68   |     6 NORSE 65
  7   Malayalam 69   |     15 PORTUGUESE 106
  7   Tamil 70   |     15 ROMANIAN 110
  7   Telugu 71   |     15 SPANISH 111
  7      INDO-ARYAN Assamese 72              
  7   Bengali 73      
  7   Gujarati 74              
  7   Hindustani 75              
  7   Kashmiri 76              
  7   Maldivian 77              
  7   Marathi 78              
  7   Nepali 79              
  7   Oriya 80              
  7   Punjabi 81              
  7   Sindhi 82              
  7   Sinhala 83              
                       
  8      IRANIAN Balochi 84              
  8   Kurdish 85              
  8   Pashto 86              
  8   Persian 87              
                       
  9 JAPANESE Japanese 88              
                       
  10 KARTVELIAN Georgian 89              
                       
  11 KOREAN Korean 90              
                       
  12 MALAGASY Malagaso 91              
                       
  13 NAHUATL Mexican 92              
                       
  14 POLYNESIAN Fijian 93              
  14   Hawaiian 94              
  14   Maori 95              
  14   Samoan 96              
  14   Tongan 97              
                       
  15 ROMANCE LANGUAGES                
  15      FRENCH Canadian French 98              
  15   French (European) 99              
  15   Haitian Creole 100              
  15   Malagasy French 101              
  15   North African French 102              
  15   Sub-Saharan French 103              
  15      ITALIAN Italian 104              
  15      LATIN Scientific 105              
  15      PORTUGUESE Angolan Portuguese 106              
  15   Brazilian Portuguese 107              
  15   Mosambique Portuguese 108              
  15   Portuguese (European) 109              
  15      ROMANIAN Romanian 110              
  15      SPANISH Andalusian Spanish 111              
  15   Castilian (Standard) 112              
  15   Catalonian Spanish 113              
  15   Mexican Spanish 114              
                       
  16 SLAVIC LANGUAGES                  
  16   Belarusian 115              
  16   Bulgarian 116              
  16   Czech 117              
  16   Latvian 118              
  16   Polish 119              
  16   Russian (Standard) 120              
  16   Serbo-Croatian 121              
  16   Slavak 122              
  16   Ukrainian 123              
                       
  17 THAI Lao and Thai 124              
                       
  18 HELLENIC Anatolian/Turkish 125              
  18   Azerbaijani 126              
  18   Greek 127              
  18   Kazakh 128              
                       
  19 URALIAN Finnish 129              
  19   Hungarian 130              
                       
  20 VIETNAMESE Vietnamese 131              
                             END                  

 

Comments:

Each of the (Vernacular) languages listed above has been selected for scoring on three broad points:
- 1) it is spoken by a large number of people,
- 2) the Biodiversity Names are from an ecologically discrete region, and
- 3) the area is expected to contain endemic species.
In this way, use of a particular language will assemble regional Biodiversity lists relevant to localities even where actual spoken languages do not differ over a wider area. Our aim is to enable users to create one-stop, scientifically sound Biodiversity listings with local coherence. On the other hand, the unchanging Utility Names are able to relate names and lists from diverse regions.

Note that with three sets of Common Names being searchable, the system offers an effective translation service between users' choices of Language-2 and Language-3. Common names are always linked to their Scientific Names within a BioList Year-version classification which is a middle-of-the-road taxonomic Classification. Each species has a single, unique Utility and a single, unique Tag (Common) Names that can assist conservation by contributing to taxonomic stability.

In BioLists, Common Names stay back from the cutting-edge of the science where newly published taxonomies are hypotheses in need of testing and general acceptance by way of scientific publication  This can easily take a year. Peer-review follows first publication of "new species" or of a new combination (of Genus + trivial name), or of a new (evolutionary) sequence within a Classification. Follow-up publications (which may require new research to be conducted) then either validate the new names or the new understanding that prompted the change of sequence; otherwise they reject or modify the proposal - or a debate ensues. Once agreement is apparent, new names are then, and only then, suitable for general use. At BioLists, we wait for such acceptance hoping not to add to any confusion.

Contributions of Common Names are welcomed here at BioLists. We especially need well-researched lists of from hard-copy publications or top-class websites with dated references. Please send long lists of common names in various Languages. Ideally, such lists should comprise all species in a Genus or small Family. But the other top priority right now is for strings of Genera within Families that are presently vacant. The lists should be created as a BioList; then forward the full BioList as a CSV file. To avoid overlap with other contributors, please register your interest with us at the start of your project.
 

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