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Hi Michael and Tweets<br>
<br>
"<span
style="color: rgb(49, 49, 50); font-family: "BC Sans", "Noto Sans", Arial, "sans serif"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">There
are more 34 First Nation languages in British Columbia,
representing more than half of all First Nation languages in
Canada" Then, there's the US and Mexico.<br>
<br>
Not quite sure how you would rationalize incorporating of all this
prior knowledge into a compendium of bird names familiar across
North America or the rest of the world, for that matter.<br>
<br>
Just for starters whose name would be picked for what bird? Lots
of potential for offending different groups there. Do we identify
birds by habitat, geography or human cultural areas?<br>
<br>
This whole discussion looks more like trying to take the fun out
of birding as opposed to doing anything productive.<br>
<br>
Roger Craik<br>
Maple Ridge BC<br>
</span><br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2023-11-26 2:33 p.m., Michael Price
wrote:<br>
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<div dir="auto">Hi Tweets
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">It's said that history is written by the
victors. Which, after the 19th century US government
(military/bureaucratic) and British/Canadian (bureaucratic)
genocides of the indigenous inhabitants, might explain the
absence of much prior nomenclature and classification from the
people who had lived here for thousands of years and had,
therefore, thousands of years-worth of intimate empirical
knowledge and their own nomenclature and life histories of
North American bird species prior to the advent of European
science. Granted, European science may have been more
formalised and perhaps more systematic, but to assume a
European precedence which has ignored and/or denigrated such a
knowledge base is, frankly, to me, an enormous waste of a
wealth of knowledge.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
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<div dir="auto">Incidentally, I have a book of 'original' (i.e.,
hunters') bird names of North American birds. Many are
outright racist/misogynist names to which no nomenclatural
committee would *dare* to return today (pop quiz: which sea
duck was commonly called 'n-word-head?), yet changing them at
the time engendered debates as heated as those now occurring
concerning possibly dodgy honorifics. I love to watch this
same process happening in real time. But then I have always
felt that setting cats among pigeons should be an Olympic
sport.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">But it's worth remembering this controversy is
part of a larger struggle: to find and achieve justice. Always
simple to say, always difficult to do. But we have to keep at
it. As Paul McCartney sang, "With every mistake/We must surely
be learning..."</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">best, m</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
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</pre>
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