Naming 136 frog species and 407 reptile species in nine South African cultures has been the focus of Fortunate Mafeta Phaka, senior postdoctoral researcher of herptile-human interactions at the North-West University (NWU). His project has produced the first comprehensive analysis of indigenous naming and classification of these species.
“There are multiple reasons for pursuing this project. When we were in the field and talking to people about frogs and reptiles, there was always a struggle with communication, as we mostly used English and scientific names. People were unfamiliar with these, so using local names made communication far easier,” said Fortunate.
He explained that indigenous names provide insights into how people perceive and think about animals. “There is generally a lack of research into how people perceive and think about animals in South Africa. The names are a good starting point for such projects, as names often represent the knowledge people have about a certain animal. My late grandfather taught me a lot about the close relationship that African cultures have with wildlife, and this fascinated me to a point where I wanted to know how our connection to wildlife can be incorporated into conservation approaches.”
According to Fortunate, the work brings indigenous perspectives into biodiversity conservation planning and provides practical tools for communication.
“Now we have a list of names to use, depending on the language spoken in a research area. From a linguistic perspective, this work contributes to demonstrating the possibilities of teaching and learning in indigenous languages and documenting aspects of our culture that were traditionally passed down between generations by word of mouth. This culture would get lost if the newer generation is not interested in learning from their elders.”
Fortunate described the process of collecting and classifying the names as challenging. “Our country is pretty big, so reaching holders of this knowledge is always a challenge. However, once the participants allowed me to document their knowledge, it was a matter of extending general names they used for multiple species into specific names for each known species by adding descriptive words. “The process is very slow, as you have to learn the language rules of each culture,
then compare them to the scientific name rules. The naming approach retains the main names that people use and only adds words to them, ensuring they remain familiar to speakers of the languages. My expertise is not languages, and I had to find suitable language experts to make sure those general names were extended in a linguistically accurate manner while I focused on making them biologically correct.”
Looking ahead, Fortunate hopes the names will be widely adopted. “I am hoping these names will make it into more of our wildlife guides, just like the Guide to Reptiles of Limpopo and Kruger National Park has already used the SePedi, XiTsonga and TshiVenda names from this project. For schools, I hope this will be a contribution to functional multilingualism, where learners can learn about wildlife in their mother tongue.
“Hopefully, future researchers will continue adding to this work, which combines methods from several research disciplines to understand how people interact with wildlife. For communities, this is a step towards improving linguistic accessibility to knowledge on wildlife so that sometime in the future people might be able to pick up a wildlife book in their mother tongue.”
Fortunate Phaka mapped 136 frog species and 407 reptile species across nine South African cultures.
