Terminology development in Zulu avian nomenclature

Abstract

Two interlinking threads run through this article: one is a broader framework of terminology development in South African languages; the other a narrower, more focused description of a particular terminology development project, namely the deriving of isiZulu names for birds found in the KwaZulu-Natal region, where no names have previously been recorded. The broader thread contains a theoretical look at terminology development; the narrower thread documents the background and the execution of five isiZulu bird name workshops conducted between 2013 and 2017. At the beginning of the 21st century ornithological literature in South Africa had long contained species-specific names in English and Afrikaans for all species of southern African birds. The situation for isiZulu, as for the other Bantu languages in southern Africa, was that many birds shared the same name, many birds had several names, and many species had no name at all. The goal of the workshops, and the project as a whole, was to develop individual names for all species of birds in the KwaZulu-Natal region. The article looks in detail at the linguistic processes involved in developing these names, placing this within the broader thread of terminology development, and then concludes by evaluating the value of having isiZulu species-specific names for birds in the isiZulu-speaking region.