• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Baglafecht Weaver (1 Viewer)

M

mike davidson

Well-known member
We in Kenya have a weaver called Baglafect Weaver , which from time past was called Emin's Weaver after Emin Pasha , Reichenow's Weaver after Dr Anton Reichenow and finally Stuhlmann's Weaver after Dr Franz Stuhlmann.

Part of the scientific name for all three includes Baglfecht .

Who was Baglafect ?

Mike D in nairobi
 
It appears to be a mystery.
This weaver was called "le Baglafecht" (in French) by Buffon – as it is a most curious word someone must have changed a local name into something incomprehensible.
He notes that it looks similar to the touenam-courvi (another odd word), which apparently is the Baya Weaver. The related "nelicourvi" is of course still in use for yet another weaver. I had always thought that "nelicourvi" was a Malagasy word, but I am not so sure now!
 
Thanks guys .

from further info from Kenyan experts , it is thought that Buffon visited Abyssinia and got the name from there , so a tribe or even an area it may be . It is also thought it might be in amharic , so will pursue this in Ethiopia

thanks

Mike



Xenospiza said:
It appears to be a mystery.
This weaver was called "le Baglafecht" (in French) by Buffon – as it is a most curious word someone must have changed a local name into something incomprehensible.
He notes that it looks similar to the touenam-courvi (another odd word), which apparently is the Baya Weaver. The related "nelicourvi" is of course still in use for yet another weaver. I had always thought that "nelicourvi" was a Malagasy word, but I am not so sure now!
Click to expand...
 
mike davidson said:
Thanks guys .

from further info from Kenyan experts , it is thought that Buffon visited Abyssinia and got the name from there , so a tribe or even an area it may be . It is also thought it might be in amharic , so will pursue this in Ethiopia

thanks

Mike
Click to expand...

There's a place in Sierra Leone called Bagla Hills, fecht means fighter in Scottish (Celtic?) so perhaps this was a combination. Are they particularly aggressive towards other birds? If so they may have been named as such with Weaver added later.
 
That looks very much like folk etymology to me (especially since it was first used by a Frenchman!)
I could see Baglafecht being of Semitic (so possibly indeed Amharic) origins (two × three consonant sounds could be pointing that way).
 
I just couldn´t believe this name was simply made up and this kept me busy for quite some time. I found this on the internet.

`Etymology: baglafecht by name, baglafecht by nature. Nothing here is in the least bit obscure. For some reason Jerry thinks the word is obsolete French when it clearly comes from the well-known Arabic phrase "bakk al fuqwa't", meaning "humiliate the costive camel".* This reflects the bird's preference for hanging its nest from camels' tails.

There might also be Turkish influences. Intertrans says that "bagla pec" (with a dish on top of the G) means "coupling become firm", and what could be more firm than the couplings of a weaver's nest, or indeed of a weaver?

Then there's Basaa, a Central African language in which "bagla" means something like "highly organised (and perhaps quarrelsome)". Does "fecht" mean bird in Basaa? (Unlikely. Basaa seems to be bereft of Fs. And Vs.)

But slightly to the west, in central and eastern varieties of Fulani, a baggel is "a young man whose pigtails are about the be cut off". Weaver nests can look somewhat pigtailish, especially after they've been empty for a few months.

"Bagla" also means something in Tagalog - I think "baglafecht" was first applied to a Filipino bird.

Back to Arabic: "baqla" means "vegetable" (except in Algeria, where it means "female mule") and "fiqh" means "knowledge".

Turkish: "bagh" means "tie" and "fikh" means "knowledge".

Sanskrit: a bagla is some kind of wader.`

Theo
 
I also found this little ad:

ugg sales ugg boots outlet classic tall uggs cheap ugg boots , <a href=http://www.haveneconomic.org/>uggs bailey button</a> , ugg womens boots cheap uggs buy uggs , baglafecht plentifull trickling netterville

on this site: http://www.azpenalreform.az/en/library/prisons/91-ancient-prisons-penitentiary-history-of.html.

Don't know what this means, but its certainly not about birds. This strengthens me in my believe baglafecht has a meaning, although I don't know which one.

Theo
 
8669 said:
`Etymology: baglafecht by name, baglafecht by nature. Nothing here is in the least bit obscure. For some reason Jerry thinks the word is obsolete French when it clearly comes from the well-known Arabic phrase "bakk al fuqwa't", meaning "humiliate the costive camel".* This reflects the bird's preference for hanging its nest from camels' tails.

There might also be Turkish influences. Intertrans says that "bagla pec" (with a dish on top of the G) means "coupling become firm", and what could be more firm than the couplings of a weaver's nest, or indeed of a weaver?

Then there's Basaa, a Central African language in which "bagla" means something like "highly organised (and perhaps quarrelsome)". Does "fecht" mean bird in Basaa? (Unlikely. Basaa seems to be bereft of Fs. And Vs.)

But slightly to the west, in central and eastern varieties of Fulani, a baggel is "a young man whose pigtails are about the be cut off". Weaver nests can look somewhat pigtailish, especially after they've been empty for a few months.

"Bagla" also means something in Tagalog - I think "baglafecht" was first applied to a Filipino bird.

Back to Arabic: "baqla" means "vegetable" (except in Algeria, where it means "female mule") and "fiqh" means "knowledge".

Turkish: "bagh" means "tie" and "fikh" means "knowledge".

Sanskrit: a bagla is some kind of wader.`
Click to expand...
The quote above is from: http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.usage.english/2007-09/msg05294.html

And ... you might be right Theo,
But I think its hard to figure out if there is any substance in it. Internet is a tricky place to search for information.

The footnote by the same author is also worth considering: "**Stray footnote: I went a bit mad looking into this, so I can't guarantee the accuracy of any of the above. Is there yet a word (in any language at all) for "googling bogus etymologies while you should be digging a pond"?

Keep on searching! I really hope you´ll crack this one.
 
Last edited:
I went looking for the "toucnam-courvi"; found a French encyclopedia [Bomare 1791] that identified it as belonging to the same species as the Baglafecht weaver (a mere "variety"; whereas Buffon cautiously said they strongly resemble each other).

Buffon cites Brisson as saying the toucnam-courvi is native to the Phillipines. Coleridge's 1845 encyclopedia mentions "P. phillipinus , Cuvier; Loxia Phillip., Lin.; le toucnam courvi des phillipines, Buff; Phillipine Grosbeak, Lath.; Phillipine Weaver Bird. ... This species is found in Abyssinia and in the Phillipines; it is also very common in India, where it is known as the Baya, and is a great favorite among the Hindus for its docility and sagacity."

I thought "Baya" was interesting, as "Bagla" might be pronounced similarly. Also the idea of a range all the way to Abyssinia makes me wonder whether Coleridge considered Baglafecht to be part of this species... but I haven't tried to check the descriptions.

PS "Bakla" does mean something in Tagalog, but it has nothing to do with birds! I only know a few words of Tagalog, I'll have to ask some friends whether they get any meaning from "tuknam - curvi". Buffon says the name "toucnam-courvi" is from "its native climate", i.e. the Phillipines.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Natreb,

"Baya" also crossed my mind and "fecht" could have something to do with "weaver", but this is based on nothing else then intuition. Vlechten (Dutch) is a form of weaving.

I hope this mystery can be solved.

Theo
 
mike davidson said:
from further info from Kenyan experts , it is thought that Buffon visited Abyssinia and got the name from there
Click to expand...

It wouldn't have been Buffon who visited Abyssinia. The author of the species is either (Daudin, 1802) or (Daudin, 1799) depending on where you look. In either case the publication in question appears to be one of Buffon's multi-volume "Histoire Naturelle" works, and presumably for Daudin to come into the picture, Buffon must have credited him for the discovery of the species.

Or alternatively, the publication was Daudin's Traité élémentaire et complet d'ornithologie from 1799.

I've been searching the BHL for the volume in question and so far I've only found a Buffon volume with an index entry referencing it in some other volume which I can't track down:

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/109022#page/328/mode/1up

Also since Daudin and Buffon were both francophones, the name would probably be pronounced "bagla-fesht". If that helps anybody scanning word lists from other languages...
 
Last edited:
Paul Clapham said:
It wouldn't have been Buffon who visited Abyssinia. The author of the species is either (Daudin, 1802) or (Daudin, 1799) depending on where you look. In either case the publication in question appears to be one of Buffon's multi-volume "Histoire Naturelle" works, and presumably for Daudin to come into the picture, Buffon must have credited him for the discovery of the species.
Click to expand...
I don't think Buffon ever visited Abyssinia, but a scenario involving Daudin is just not possible, I'm afraid... Buffon died in 1788, when Daudin (born 1776) was still a kid.

One problem with Buffon's works is that they have been printed again and again, so it can be hard to find the original version. The oldest version of the description of the baglafecht I can find (1775) is this one.

He did not credit anybody for this particular bird. However, if you scan Buffon's works for descriptions of Abyssinian birds, you'll see that for most of them the information is credited to "M. le chevalier Bruce". The baglafecht appears somewhat as an exception for this, but the directly subsequent species, "le gros-bec d'Abyssinie" (the Abyssinian grosbeak; this is the village weaver), shows the usual credit: "Cette eſpèce eſt nouvelle, & nous devons tout ce que nous en avons dit à" (This species in new, and we owe all we said about it to) "M. le chevalier Bruce." This refers to James Bruce, a Scottish traveller whom Buffon met in France in 1773.

(This, I think, makes James Jobling's earlier suggestion that "baglafecht" might have something to do with the "(yellow) Bagla finch", a bird that Bruce had seen and drawn during his travels (see eg. here), far from unlikely...)


Edit: No, OK, I understand: what Daudin did, is to make the name available nomenclaturally (as Loxia baglafecht Daudin, 1802). Buffon was not binominal and used only French names, which are unavailable, thus a scientific name will never be credited to him. Daudin did this apparently in an index that was added to one of the re-editions of Buffon's complete work. I've been trying to locate the correct volume of the correct re-edition, but so far I've failed too.
 
Last edited:
mb1848 said:
Buffon, Histoire naturelle (Didot's ed.), Quadrupeds, vol. 14, p. 245, 1799 (actually 1802)
Click to expand...
Thanks Mark: so this is the piece that I was lacking. The volumes, in BHL, are numbered 1 to 73; there are 17 bird volumes, that are #39 to #55, but the index is actually in #38, which is the 14th and last quadruped volume.
So here it is: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/132091#page/297/mode/1up
...with a reference to Volume IV, p.191, where Buffon's description appears.
 
And since all of those original references call the species "Le Baglafecht (d'Abyssinie)", it really can't be named after a person or a place. It looks to me very much like a name used by the locals and told to whoever first collected the bird in Ethiopia. Of course the name could well have been corrupted in the telling.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 10 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

Taphrospilus
Minor on several preussi
Replies
2
Views
353
l_raty
l_raty
Taphrospilus
Caprimulgus donaldsoni Sharpe, 1895 and others
Replies
7
Views
554
Björn Bergenholtz
Björn Bergenholtz
Taphrospilus
Gallirallus australis hectori (Hutton, 1874) and others
Replies
0
Views
294
Taphrospilus
Taphrospilus
Melanie
Type specimens and type localities of birds (Aves) collected by Gustav Adolf Fischer (1848–1886) in East Africa
Replies
0
Views
394
Melanie
Melanie
Taphrospilus
Porphyrio alleni Thomson, 1842
Replies
5
Views
338
Taphrospilus
Taphrospilus

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top