Nkulengu Rail (1 Viewer)

[Gonçalo Elias]

This rail species is native to the Afrotropics.

Any idea what Nkulengu means or refers to? I was unable to find any definition.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Gonçalo, in my MS I have it (Himantornis haematopus) as nkulengurall, (in Swedish, earlier a k a nkulengarall), in line with is English name Nkulengu Rail (ditto earlier a k a Nkulenga Rail), originating in its local, West African (Bulu) name. Supposedly onomatopoetic (!?!) from its grunting sound/noice, all according to Arthur Smith's (internet-based) Dictionary of Bird Names (2009*). but the original source of this claim wasn't mentioned. The OD doesn't say/help in any way, regarding this Common/Vernacular name.

Also compare with, for example; its Dutch or Danish name; Nkulengu-ral resp. Nkulengurikse.

That's all I've got. Hopefully of some help?

Björn

PS. It might be worth to check the ODs of its (somewhat debated) ssp.; H. h. petiti OUSTALET 1884 and H. h. whitesidei SHARPE 1909. Maybe they mentioned something, somewhat enlightening, who knows?

_______________________________________
*Smith's Dictionary doesn't seem to be "out there" any longer,
maybe its been closed down, or moved, as the old link I've got
doesn't work any longer. Sorry.
--

 

[Gonçalo Elias]

Thanks Björn

 

[Taphrospilus]

Doubt that any of this descriptions help.

• Himantornis haematopus Hartlaub, 1855 here
• Psammocrex petiti Oustalet, 1884 (Himantornis haematopus petiti) here
• Himantornis whitesidei Sharpe, 1909 (Himantornis haematopus whitesidei) here

Anyway full name of Louis Petit (as in the key) is Louis Victor Joseph Petit here p. 95 of 126.

that it is him I got from Hommes et destins: dictionnaire biographique d'Outre-mer p 436 where it is written:

Louis. PETIT. (1856-1943). Louis Petit naquit à Montrouge le 4 octobre 1856, L'aîné d'une famille de treize enfants, ce pourquoi il avait coutume de signer Louis Petit Aîné. Son père, Pierre-Toussaint Petit était taxidermiste à Paris.

 

[James Jobling]

Sclater 1924, Systema Avium Ethiopicarum, Part 1, p. 100, gives the name of this bird as Nkulengu Rail. George Bates 1930, Handbook Bds. West Africa, pp. 65-66, has; "Himantornis haematopus. Bulu Nkúlengú, or Nkuyek. ... A familiar bird-sound of the forest, heard most of the night and early morning ... This sound is kept up for a time with mechanical regularity, and reminded me of the sound of a pump going in the distance."

 

[Taphrospilus]

And one more above not fully in name in the key.

Margaret met the man who was to become her husband “on the mission field”. Henry MacReady Whiteside (1872 – 1924) was working in the building trade in Belfast, Northern Ireland when he felt called to evangelical work in the then Congo Free State, in 1897. He served with the Congo Balolo section of the Regions Beyond Mission, and played a role in making the atrocities associated with the rubber trade known to the wider world. A letter he wrote was quoted in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Crime of the Congo, and some of his photographs appeared in Mark Twain’s 1905 satirical pamphlet, King Leopold’s Soliloquy.

 

[Gonçalo Elias]

Sclater 1924, Systema Avium Ethiopicarum, Part 1, p. 100, gives the name of this bird as Nkulengu Rail. George Bates 1930, Handbook Bds. West Africa, pp. 65-66, has; "Himantornis haematopus. Bulu Nkúlengú, or Nkuyek. ... A familiar bird-sound of the forest, heard most of the night and early morning ... This sound is kept up for a time with mechanical regularity, and reminded me of the sound of a pump going in the distance."

So is it onomatopeic like Björn suggested?

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Wow, this new thread truly twists and turns! And deliver!

Gonçalo, if truly onomatopoetic? I simply don't know, listen for yourself, and judge; a Nkulengu Rail Himantornis haematopus; here, or/alt. here.



/B

 

[l_raty]

GL Bates in: Sharpe RB. 1907. On further collections of birds from the Efulen district of Camaroon, West Africa. With notes by the collector, G. L. Bates. — Part IV. Ibis, ser. 9, 1: 416-464.
p. 421 - https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/27009453

A very characteristic sound of the forest at night and early morning, coming always from the direction of a stream of water, is universally attributed by the natives to the "Nkulengu," the name of this bird in Fang and Bulu. The native name is in imitation of this sound, the accent being placed on the last syllable. This call, which is loud and repeated with mechanical regularity, suggests the noise of an old pump worked by a windmill.

 

[Gonçalo Elias]

Wow, this new thread truly twists and turns! And deliver!

Gonçalo, if truly onomatopoetic? I simply don't know, listen for yourself, and judge; a Nkulengu Rail Himantornis haematopus; here, or/alt. here.



/B

I must say I can't recognize the "word" Nkulengu in these sound files...

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

I must say I can't recognize the "word" Nkulengu in these sound files...

With a little imagination I can easily make it (the first link) into an ever-repeated, pumping: ng-ku-le-ng-ku-U´ ng-ku-le-ng-ku-U´ ng-ku-le-ng-ku-U´... and onwards (or similar, however one prefer to transcibe/interpret it, like: ka-ka-ka-ta-ka-tO ka-ka-ka-ta-ka-tO and so on)

I'm inclined to believe the words by George Latimer Bates.

Gonçalo, try again.

/B

 

[janvanderbrugge]

Just to reward myself for the trouble of lifting such a voluminous standard work from the bookshelf in order to check the description of Himantornis haematopus in it, called there Nkulenga Rail, I share my findings.
From: Rails of the World, S.Dillon Ripley. This heavy-weight (comparable to a HBW volume) was published in 1977.
Other names:
Nkulengu (Bulu); Nkungaa (Basa); Nekudzakula (Medje); Kodo-kodo (Wabali); Bwagido (Azande);
Unsasi (Mpama); Monsasi (Mobangi); Bunsansu (Basengere); Motombo (Yasa); Mfuminiya (Mabea).

"It has been discovered recently (Chappuis, 1975) that the Nkulenga Rail also sings in duet. The song is composed of three to five notes and is repeated over and over again for several minutes. It is usually heard just before dawn every day at approximately the same time. This powerful, raucous, and rhythmic call is said to be one of the sounds that contribute most to the earliest pre-dawn chorus of the rain forest."

The second name from Bates' work ("Himantornis haematopus. Bulu Nkúlengú, or Nkuyek.") is not listed in Rails of the World.
Looking at those names in languages the most of which I had never heard of, there is of course a feeling of onomatopoeia. However, I cannot really imagine that someone would interpret the bird's call as Nkulengu (like Gonzalo remarked), unless such a word would have another meaning and thus produced the bird's name. The spelling just seems too intricate for an onomatopoeic name; this could well be the case in e.g. Kodo-kodo or Motombo, but even there is the possibility of transferring the sound of a household word to a bird's name.
An investigation in African languages would possibly be helpful, but then outside the ornithology literature.
Anyway, always nice to see that someone is curious after the source and meaning of vernacular names, it is really fascinating as a study parallelous to that of the eponymica, and of course there are all kinds of links,
for example also with botanic names. If I ever find a link for nkulengu or another regional/tribal name, this BirdForum subforum will be the right place for publication.
Cheers, boa sorte e saúde, stay well.
Jan van der Brugge

 

[Hillevandam]

Jan,
I fully agree with you. I am in the possession of a Vernacular list of plants in Sierra Leone. There is not a singular tree named after the sound they make (like ratelpopulier in Dutch) yet most are named after properties like 'spoon wood' (different Apocaniceae that have soft wood that is used for carving spoons) or 'keeps snakes away' (eg. Datura)or so. Ngulengu may be something like 'wake up call' or 'coming from the river side'.
The Narina Trogon in Kono(people group I work with) has a name that means bird of the hour as it seems to be calling at intervals of one hour starting at sunrise. All birds invading the rice fields are called Rice Bird. And if you wonder where the name Whydah comes from? It is Krio for widdow. Yes the whydahs behave like widdowbirds.

 

[Hillevandam]

Jan,
I fully agree with you. I am in the possession of a Vernacular list of plants in Sierra Leone. There is not a singular tree named after the sound they make (like ratelpopulier in Dutch) yet most are named after properties like 'spoon wood' (different Apocaniceae that have soft wood that is used for carving spoons) or 'keeps snakes away' (eg. Datura)or so. Ngulengu may be something like 'wake up call' or 'coming from the river side'.
The Narina Trogon in Kono(people group I work with) has a name that means bird of the hour as it seems to be calling at intervals of one hour starting at sunrise. All birds invading the rice fields are called Rice Bird. And if you wonder where the name Whydah comes from? It is Krio for widdow. Yes the whydahs behave like widdowbirds.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

"The native name is in imitation of this sound, the accent being placed on the last syllable."

Why (on Earth) would Bates have written the above, if such wasn't the case?

 

[janvanderbrugge]

Not exactly the right song for Easter, but here is Silent Night in Bulu (Cameroon), before the Rail starts its disturbing "nkulengú, nkulengú" screaming . . . ^)

Mba-mba a-lu, si ne mienn! (BULU)

Mba-mba a-lu, si ne mienn!
Mam me-se me nto mvo'e
Mfa'a ya mi-nga ba mon-e we',
Mba-mba nken-e-le', Mfe-fe' Mon,
A nga to-be o-yo
A nga to-be o-yo

Sing along, cheers, Jan van der Brugge

 

[jurek]

Note that any onomatopeic sound will be transcribed into the sounds of native language. That is why a dog in England goes 'bark, bark' and in Poland 'hau, hau'.

Nkulengu Rail is one of my favorite bird names, because it sounds so exotic. And the bird is difficult to see, too.

 

[janvanderbrugge]

. . . onomatopeic sound will be transcribed into the sounds of native language . . .
Hello jurek, of course I am aware of that phenomenon and George Bates obviously made his notes carefully enough, even with the instruction where the stress in the name is placed. Yet it seems rather doubtful that the endemic Bulu name is just an interpretation of the bird's call, if you listen to the recordings. There is nothing of a sound like nk(u) or ng(u) in it, which I can discern, nor in the noise of a water-driven pump. I still got the idea that the sound (originally) was compared to the name of a household object, an expression or something familiar in the Bulu community, and transferred to the bird as its name.
You posted a funny example of animal sound, and I got one (in two versions) to add to your collection: in Holland barking dogs call "woef, woef" (sounds like English hoof) or, when they are of more moderate size, "waf, waf". For little children the word "hond"(dog) has no meaning, so a mother will tell her little child that a dear "waf-waf" is coming up on the sidewalk, even if the animal does not make a sound.
Well, enjoy, the waf-wafs are one of the few reasons to take a walk outside these days. I once possessed a Beo (Myna-bird) which gave an excellent imitation of barking, but barking in the distance, of course, just like he heard the far-away sound. In Indonesia this bird is called "tiong", which surely has an onomatopoeic aspect; the name Beo was only used by European inhabitants of the region of Batavia Jakarta).
I'd better stop here, but perhaps some subforum readers are happy with a little half off-topic lecture.
Jan van der Brugge

 

[dantheman]

Note that any onomatopeic sound will be transcribed into the sounds of native language. That is why a dog in England goes 'bark, bark' and in Poland 'hau, hau'.

Nkulengu Rail is one of my favorite bird names, because it sounds so exotic. And the bird is difficult to see, too.

Point stands but actually in English dogs go 'woof woof' , similarly to in Holland, although the sound is much more commonly described as a 'bark' (I heard a dog barking). (Cats, go 'miaow miaow', and the sound is described as miaow, commonly).

Barking up the wrong tree is a completely unrelated phrase that can come in handy sometimes.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Trees have sounds, dogs are barking 'woof woof' (or 'waf, waf'), cats goes 'miaow', and Jan is singing an Easter Christmas carol, in Bulu ... what on Earth have you all been smoking!?

Joking apart ... back to Topic, in line with what Jurek wrote (in #17): "Note that any onomatopeic sound will be transcribed into the sounds of native language. ..."

Gonçalo, Jan, and "Hillevandam", even if it (apparently) can be hard to 'recognize the "word" Nkulengu' in the sound of this Rail, in Portuguese and Dutch alt. Sierra Leonean ears, it appear to be evident (and even more so, after having read the text below) that the People of Cameroon and Congo can interpret it, and read syllables into it, far easier and far more nuanced ...

David Fisher & Ron Demey (2012) Bulletin of the African Bird Club 19 (1): pp.81-82:

... Although Nkulengu Rail is frequent to locally common in its favoured habitat, it is a very skulking and notoriously hard-to-observe species. It would therefore mostly remain unnoticed, were it not for its far-carrying, sonorous and rhytmic antiphonal duet, which is uttered mainly at dusk and during the Night. ‘Nkulengu’ is the name given by the Bulu people from southern Cameroon and is derived from these characteristic vocalisations (Bannerman 1931). The sound reminded Bates (1930) of that of a distant pump. According to the Medje people, in what is now Congo-Kinshasa, the bird is saying ‘jú-urúkwandra, jú-urúkwandra ... ’, meaning literally ‘go away from my place’ (Chapin 1939). This advice is reportedly addressed to the Leopard Panthera pardus, or to other birds, such as guineafowl (Numididae ssp.). At Lukolela, on the Congo River, local villagers told Chapin that the bird laments ‘nakatele akulu, nakakwela na nsusu’, which means ‘my feet became red, I married a chicken’. The story runs ...

[here]​

Enjoy!

/Björn
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