Book explaining meaning of the Zulu names of 550 bird species

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THE Northglen News is giving away a copy of, The Birds of KwaZulu-Natal and their Zulu Names, a fully illustrated bird field guide. The book explains the derivation and meaning of the individual Zulu names of 550 bird species. Through sound linguistic principles, the book adds new names for the 67 per cent of birds that had no names in Zulu. 

The Birds of KwaZulu-Natal and their Zulu Names comes from the Zulu Bird Name project, which spanned over six years, led by authors, Professor Noleen Turner, Professor Adrian Koopman and Roger Porter. Together with 18 Zulu-speaking bird experts from various regions of KwaZulu-Natal, the authors have created the first field guide of this nature.  

Koopman who is a professor of Zulu at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is the author of Zulu Names (2002), Zulu Plant Names (2015) and Zulu Bird names and Bird Lore (2019). Porter is a retired wildlife ecologist and conservation planner at the Natal Parks Board and KZN Wildlife. A bird enthusiast, Porter has also travelled extensively to view birds in Africa, Madagascar and India. Turner is an honorary research professor in the African Languages Department at UKZN whose research areas include Zulu Oral Studies and Onomastics.

“In this book we go through KwaZulu-Natal to record the existing names of birds and for those that were absent, we have held workshops to create names for the birds,” said Turner. 

The book was launched at the Flanders Mall in Mount Edgecombe on Tuesday, 27 October.

“We can’t thank the guides enough who were involved in the workshops who gave so freely of their knowledge to help us write these books. The guides said ‘take it and write it down in a book as we want that knowledge for our children as well. We won’t have it unless it is written down somewhere’,” said Turner at the launch.

The Birds of KwaZulu-Natal and their Zulu names, which boasts a collection of photographs aims to inspire greater interest and awareness.