South African bird names (1 Viewer)

[Andy Adcock]

So your final form was the result of external pressure rather than becoming cool? 3

John

I prefer to say that I was sculpted by select, outside influences.

The only external force acting on me now is gravity, evidenced by the fact that my ***s, now hit the bathwater ten minutes before my ass does.

 

[Andy Adcock]

He presumably meant 'mine strewn' . . . did it blow up in his face? 3

He meant minestrone in case that was over your head Nutty

 

[MJB]

I like to think of myself as more of a metamorphic than igneous.........

A bit like that wonderful Terry Pratchett Discworld character, Detritus, who joined the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch, then...?:eek!:
MJB

 

[l_raty]

Could be English, but it could also be scholarly Latin, which also doesn't use cedillas - the scientific name was coined by Linnaeus (here) wrongly as 'jacana' (and thus inevitably a "k" sound as 'c' always is in Latin); he probably should have transliterated Portuguese 'jaçana' into Latin as 'jassana'; if he had done, then likely that spelling, rather than 'jacana', would be the standard today.

Linnaeus took this name from Marcgrave, Edwards and Brisson.

Marcgrave (1648 https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/43153490 ) spelled it Iacana in a text that was indeed Latin, without cedillas -- so this is probably where the cedilla got lost. He attributed the word to the Brazilians ('Brasiliensibus'), and used it as an apparent generic name for 'water hens' ('gallina aquatica, Waterhun', with the last word printed in Gothic and presumably intended to be German or Dutch). He described four 'species' of this group : the first one was quite clearly the American Purple Gallinule (i.a.: white undertail, a rotund area of turquoise-coloured naked skin on the head, the neck and breast of the colour of the neck of peafowl, yellow legs, no wing spurs [the presence of spurs is listed under the next species as a difference between this and the first species]); the other three all had spurs on the wings, thus (in Brazil and assuming none was a lapwing) were presumably all Wattled Jacanas of different ages/plumages.

Brisson (1760 https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/36294403 ) presumably adopted the term from Marcgrave, merely turning the initial I into a J. Brisson is deemed to have introduced Jacana as a generic name, before Linnaeus used it as a species-group name. In this genus, he listed what were basically Marcgrave's four species, naming them (French / Latin):
- Le Jacana / Jacana (= Marcgrave's first species, now Porphyrio martinicus (Linnaeus 1766) -- so much for this being the type-species of Brisson's genus "by tautonymy" -- e.g. https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14483041 )
- Le Jacana armé ou le Chiriugien / Jacana armata
- Le Chirurgien noir / Jacana armata nigra
- Le Chirurgien brun / Jacana armata fusca
...to which he added a fifth species:
- Le Chirurgien varié / Jacana armata varia
...which was based on a plate by Edwards (1743, #58, "The Spur-winged Water Hen" https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50240691 ), named by Linnaeus Fulica spinosa in 1758 (https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727059 ).

Edwards (1764 https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50176674 ) published texts that were bilingual English and French, but he did not use Jacana as an English or French word. He used it only once, in a table at the end of the last part of his work where he added (non-binominal) Latin names to the species he had described in the main text. Jacana armata nigra et rubra was the Latin name given to his plate #357 (https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50176647 ), in English "The spur-winged Water-hen of Brasil", in French "Le Chirurgien du Bresil".

Then came Linnaeus 1766, who used jacana as a species-group name (for, i.a., Marcgrave's / Brisson's fourth species and Edward's plate #357).

Ii have not seen Jacana used as an English word before that point.

 

[Andy Adcock]

A bit like that wonderful Terry Pratchett Discworld character, Detritus, who joined the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch, then...?:eek!:
MJB

The resemblance is remarkable......:t:

 

[RafaelMatias]

Linnaeus took this name from Marcgrave, Edwards and Brisson.

Marcgrave (1648 https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/43153490 ) spelled it Iacana in a text that was indeed Latin, without cedillas -- so this is probably where the cedilla got lost. He attributed the word to the Brazilians ('Brasiliensibus'), and used it as an apparent generic name for 'water hens' ('gallina aquatica, Waterhun', with the last word printed in Gothic and presumably intended to be German or Dutch). He described four 'species' of this group : the first one was quite clearly the American Purple Gallinule (i.a.: white undertail, a rotund area of turquoise-coloured naked skin on the head, the neck and breast of the colour of the neck of peafowl, yellow legs, no wing spurs [the presence of spurs is listed under the next species as a difference between this and the first species]); the other three all had spurs on the wings, thus (in Brazil and assuming none was a lapwing) were presumably all Wattled Jacanas of different ages/plumages.

Brisson (1760 https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/36294403 ) presumably adopted the term from Marcgrave, merely turning the initial I into a J. Brisson is deemed to have introduced Jacana as a generic name, before Linnaeus used it as a species-group name. In this genus, he listed what were basically Marcgrave's four species, naming them (French / Latin):
- Le Jacana / Jacana (= Marcgrave's first species, now Porphyrio martinicus (Linnaeus 1766) -- so much for this being the type-species of Brisson's genus "by tautonymy" -- e.g. https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14483041 )
- Le Jacana armé ou le Chiriugien / Jacana armata
- Le Chirurgien noir / Jacana armata nigra
- Le Chirurgien brun / Jacana armata fusca
...to which he added a fifth species:
- Le Chirurgien varié / Jacana armata varia
...which was based on a plate by Edwards (1743, #58, "The Spur-winged Water Hen" https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50240691 ), named by Linnaeus Fulica spinosa in 1758 (https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727059 ).

Edwards (1764 https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50176674 ) published texts that were bilingual English and French, but he did not use Jacana as an English or French word. He used it only once, in a table at the end of the last part of his work where he added (non-binominal) Latin names to the species he had described in the main text. Jacana armata nigra et rubra was the Latin name given to his plate #357 (https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50176647 ), in English "The spur-winged Water-hen of Brasil", in French "Le Chirurgien du Bresil".

Then came Linnaeus 1766, who used jacana as a species-group name (for, i.a., Marcgrave's / Brisson's fourth species and Edward's plate #357).

Ii have not seen Jacana used as an English word before that point.

All very interesting, many thanks Laurent.
Just for completeness sake, and I hope I'm not beating a dead horse, it wasn't only the cedilla that was lost, but also the til on the last syllable, where the word is stressed (as in ja-ça-NÃ). The "ã" is pronounced like the "ean" of the French word "Jean", and not as in an English word like say "Tarzan", if this makes sense. All special characters were sent to space