Tauraco (1 Viewer)

[l_raty]

James' Key says, as of today:

TAURACO
(Musophagidae; Ϯ Guinea Turaco T. persa) Original diagnosis not seen (Kluk, 1799, Historyi Naturalney, II, 25). English name Touraco coined by Edwards 1743, based on a supposed West African native name. Ray 1713, used “Tooracca” and “Tooraca” (e.g. “Tooracca Pigaly. Red Tooracca with a black head”), but these were for various Indian bulbuls, based on Telugu name Turaka-pigli-pitta for the Red-whiskered Bulbul. De Buffon 1783, coined “Tourocco”, combining French Tourterelle turtle dove, and Hocco curassow. Var. Turacus, Touraco, Turaco.

I know of two versions of Kluk's work on the web: [one in Google Books], and [one on the online site of the Rolnicza Biblioteka Cyfrowa]. Both bear the same publication date on the title page, but their texts, although quite similar, do differ (many words are spelled differently in Polish; the typesetting is also different -- most strikingly, the Google scan has only short s, while in the other one long s are used inside the words). I suspect the Google version is actually a later reprint, where the original date was retained.

Anyway, I wanted to correct the date in question, which is 1779, not 1799.


For the rest, the text itself doesn't really help in terms of etymology, I fear. It is quite short, reading (Rolnicza Biblioteka Cyfrowa version):

Rodzaiu V. Korończyk, ( Tauraco,) szczegulnie tylko ten ieden iest gatunek. Ptak tu nalezący nad pospolicie pięknie się wydaje: Ma dziob krotki, i nosi na swey głowie takowe piora, iakie Afrykańscy Krolikowie zażywają. Ojczyzną iego iest Gwinea, połnocna Afryka, i Krolestwo Kongo.

...which, assuming I am understanding correctly, means that the genus V, named Korończyk in Polish and Tauraco in Latin, includes only one species; that it looks beautiful, has a short beak and feathers on the head that African kinglets enjoy; and that its homeland is Guinea, northern Africa, and the Kingdom of Congo.
No nominal species are cited. The type was fixed as Cuculus persa Linnaeus 1758 by subsequent designation on p. 8/26 of:
Domaniewski J. 1933. Synonimika nazw ptaków w "Historji Naturalnej" X. Krzysztofa Kluka. Acta. Ornithol. Mus. Zool. Polonici 1(2):19-78. [here]

Kluk's source for the name 'Tauraco' (and lots of other things, actually) is, I think, Klein's 1750 Historiae avium prodromus [here]. The source of Klein's name, in turn, appears to be the 'Touraco' of Edwards 1743 [here], which is cited in the Key. Edwards did not explain, so far as I can see.

 

[Taphrospilus]

Think the google version we can find in BSB too.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Today's HBW Alive Key's List of References tells us:

Kluk, K. 1779. Zwierzat domowych i dzikich, osobliwie kraiowych. Historyi naturalney poczatki i gospodarstwo. Potrzebnych I pozytecznych domowych chowanie, rozmnozenie, chorab leczenie, dzikich lowienie, oswoienie, zazycie. Szkodliwych zas wygubiene.

Apparently no longer "not seen" ...

Kluk, K. (Krzysztof) . 1779. Zwierząt domowych i dzikich osobliwie kraiowych, historyi naturalney początki i gospodarstwo. Potrzebnych i pozytecznych domowych, chowanie, rozmnozenie, chorob leczenie, dzikich łowienie, oswoienie, zażycie; szkodliwych zas wygubienie. Tom II. z figurami, O ptastwie. Warszaw.

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[janvanderbrugge]

"Double Dutch" puzzling name
In relation to the name Tauraco/Tourako etc. I got the idea of presenting here an obscure name which I have known for many years and am not able to link to any linguistic source. One of the old bird books which I acquired long ago, is "Vogels der wereld" (1963), a Dutch translation of "Alverdens Fugle" by Hans Hvass, Copenhague, 1961. The book gives a selection of species from all the bird families, in coloured drawings and a very short species description. The family Bananeneters (banana eaters) is represented by 5 species: Corythaeola cristata, Tauraco persa, Tauraco hartlaubi, Crinifer zonurus, Musophaga rossae. The Dutch names are given as -toerako for the first three and Gekuifde bananeneter (Crested b) for M.rossae. The fourth one is puzzling, not in identity, but in the published name: Goegoeko. The text says: Goegoeka [sic], 50 cm, hoort tot de schettervogels van Afrika's savannen; leeft van vruchten, zaden en bloemen. Zij zijn actieve lawaaimakers, die zelfs apen overstemmen, translated: belongs to the "blaring/braying birds" of Africa's savannes and lives on fruit, seed and flowers. They are active noisemakers, which even drown the noise of monkeys.
(Dutch: schetteren = to blare, e.g. of a trumpet or music band)

For the readers' information: goegoeko should sound like "goo-goo-ko", oe is pronounced oo in Dutch words (boek = book), the g in this case is supposed to sound like g in good or German gut (which is not the Dutch g). So this name cannot be connected to any Dutch word. Onomatopoeic then? Well, as far as I know, the noise of the Crinifer species can hardly be interpreted in such sounds/vowels. I tried to consult the original Danish edition, without result, but I suppose it would give no explanation; Danish would not write "goegoeko" anyway.
In other texts the Crinifer species are called: Westelijke Goegoeko and Oostelijke G. (western and eastern), also in a publication of the Rotterdam Zoo "Blijdorp".
Just a completely wild guess: could the source of this name possibly be the same as that of touraco, some indigenous name in West Africa? Of course I have tried another spelling: guguko, but the result is negative.
Any suggestion is appreciated! If no clue could be found, this strange name must be added to the enigmata of our hobby!
Cheers, Jan van der Brugge, Netherlands

 

[Paul Clapham]

According to the International Turaco Society here, the Spanish name for Crinifer zonurus is "Turaco goegoeko". This is just as mysterious, since you almost never see "oe" in Spanish words and I can't imagine how a Spanish-speaker would say that.

 

[Paul Clapham]

However this Dutch site uses "goegoeko" in the Dutch name for Corythaixoides concolor. This makes more sense to me because that species's call sounds like "Go-way" in English (hence its English name of "go-away-bird") and if you were a Spanish speaker you would write that as "goe". Maybe a Danish speaker would too?

Yes, I know this is just making things more mixed up. The word "goegoeko" is being attached to all kinds of species and then the Spanish have been dragged in... sorry about that.

 

[janvanderbrugge]

Thank you very much, Paul, for your reaction. Yesterday I added some extra English and Spanish names for Turaco species, which the International Turaco Society had on their site, to my own name files. I decided to skip the Spanish name you mention, because I considered it an unhappy mix-up in listing names of several languages. Goegoeko is certainly not Spanish, not even Spanish-like. I also have doubts about the Italian name Schizoro on the ITS site, which does not correspond with Schizorhis.
Yes, the connection of goe-goe(ko) with "go-away" crossed my mind, but I don't know how to link it well.
The Artis library (Artis = Amsterdam Zoo) published a monography with the title De Toerako's, written by H.Schlegel and G.F.Westerman, in 1995, as a renewed edition of their original work, which appeared as "elephant-folio" in 1860 (also published by Artis, Westerman was director then, Hermann Schlegel did most of the work; the book was dedicated to His Majesty the King, patron of the Royal Zoological Society Natura Artis Magistra). It contains only the species which were known by then, and the same can be said for the information: "Zij eten zeer gaarne Bananen, en rigten derhalve, waar Pisangboomen staan, groote verwoestingen in de plantsoenen aan." (translated: They (= the Turacos) are fond of bananas and thus cause serious devastation in the plantations of plantain-trees). Schlegel did not give Dutch names, just scientific names and synonyms. The new edition has the text in Dutch and English and also small black-and-white illustrations of the original hand-coloured plates (life size) which were issued on a separate Photo-CD. An appendix of modern names is added, which has Grijze Bananeneter/Western Grey Plantain-eater for Crinifer piscator and Bandstaartbananeneter (=Band-tailed)/Eastern Grey Plantain-eater for Crinifer zonurus. In Schlegel's text these species are called Musophaga (Schizorrhis) africana and Musophaga (Schizorrhis) zonura. Next to the CD there is also a diskette in the case, which contains the text, but this was 1995 . . .

It does not help for the mysterious Goegoeka, but it seems right to tell about this special edition on this group of African birds. I do not know if the Artis library still has anything to offer related to this.
Regards,
Jan van der Brugge, Netherlands

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

"goegoeko" as in ...

Jan, you wasn´t all that wrong when you searched for "guguko", but you should have went for Guguka instead – it´s an Abyssinian local name.

I guess we´re here dealing with a (fairly free) Dutch translation (Het Leven der Dieren: Deel 2, Hoofdstuk 01: De Boomvogels, by S. P. Huizinga) , here or here, of Brehm´s "Tierleben" 1891 (here, on p.139):

De Goegoeka (Schizorhis zonura) bewoont de wouden van Abessinië. De geheele bovenzijde is tamelijk gelijkmatig donkerbruin, de onderzijde, bij de bovenborst beginnend, licht aschgrauw, langs de schaften bruinachtig gestreept; de wit gezoomde, verlengde, smalle en puntige veeren van de kruin vormen geen kuif, maar zijn toch een weinig opgeheven; …

Mein letzter Ausflug nach Abessinien hat mich mit dem Gürtellärmvogel, Guguka der Abessinier (Schizorhis zonura, Musophaga und Chizaerhis zonura), in seinen heimischen Waldungen zusammengeführt.

With reservations that I might have missed some letters trying to transcribe the German Old-school Fraktur typeface.

What bird that is today? I haven´t got a clue!

However; enjoy!
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[l_raty]

What bird that is today? I haven´t got a clue!

Crinifer zonurus, Eastern Grey Plantain-eater.
(With, as an aside, 'Plantain-eater' being the English equivalent of Dutch 'Bananeneter'. See also 'Musophaga'.)

The name (once known :t can be traced back farther than Brehm's Tierleben. Rüppell 1835:

Dieser Vogel heisst in der Provinz Amhara Guguka (ጉጉቃ), eine Benennung welche seiner gewöhnlichen Stimme entspricht.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Well found, Laurent!

... welche seiner gewöhnlichen Stimme entspricht.

Then probably from its bubbling call (here) that surely could be interpreted as gu-(gu-gu-...)-gu(k), most likely not by its more noisy song (here).

 

[janvanderbrugge]

Hallo all, it seems appropriate to finish this Touraco thread, or at least my bananivorous part of it, in an endemic style: Asdänaqi, amäsägnalähu! (W)underbar, Vielen Dank, Tack så mycket, merveilleux, grand merci! The little orientation in Amhari showed affinities with Hebrew (also a Semitic language), in the sense that speech is adapted to the gender of the words and also to the sex of the person. Not exactly like in French or any other Roman language, but more complicated: in the termination of verbs as well, you have to adapt the verb forms to your own sex and to the one to whom you are talking, and even numerals must be adapted to persons and nouns. I just finished a translation of a Hebrew description of Israel Aharoni's life (the first Hebrew zoologist, a subspecies of Eagle Owl is named after him, and he is the responsible one for the enormous distribution of Syrian hamsters, starting in laboratoria). Hebrew is really complicated, so I better leave Amhari aside, impressive as it is.
So we thank the name Goegoeka (Guguka) to Rüppell, but apparently it was never accepted in German or English; it must have landed in Dutch (for some time) via Huizinga (which Björn cited) or a translation of Brehm's Tierleben. I was curious whether the Amhari name would have been given for the noise of this
"Lärmvogel" (onomatopoeic) and I found that the word for noise = gwagwata, which seems to come near . . . Of course the "endemic names" mentioned by European authors are often an approach of foreign spoken words, so there is no reason to say: goegoeko is wrong, it should be goegoeka, but you can't use both and it makes searching less easy.

For the banana-eaters: in Dutch we use the word banáan, plural banánen. There is also the word pisang, which is Malay for banana, so it belongs to our colonial past. In Dutch it is only used in an expression "de pisang zijn"
= to be the pisang = the dupe, the victim (and probably younger people would not know it at all, because one can use "de dupe zijn" or other variants of the expression).

The illustrations of Schlegel's work De Toerakos can be viewed on "Exceptional Lithographs of African Birds"
http://www.philographikon.com/birdsafrica.htm and also on https//www.artnet.com/artists/pwm-trap/past-auction-results P.W.M.Trap was the one who made the lithographics for Schlegel's monography, but in the latter source mentioned something unusual has occurred: "indem ein Künstler mit Aquarellfarben das Habitat der Vögel ergänzt und erweitert hat". In other words: the original illustrations were thought to be too much focused on the bird, with only a few branches and leaves in the background. So the climbers and bushes were given "an extension of the season", as an ornament around the bird specimen in the centre. Well, they are attractive, but would not Westerman and Schlegel "turn around in their graves" (Dutch expression), if they were aware of such an adaptation?! The "17 Original-Lithographien" (could you still consider them as such?) are/were to be acquired at the expense of 19,500 Euro. Anyway, beautiful plates in the 19-century style.

I remember how James Jobling once expressed his satisfaction at meeting such a wealth of knowledge and linguistic inventiveness on the BirdForum. I fully agree, I'll keep silent for now in awe and admiration.
Regards, Jan van der Brugge, NL