Birds of The World: Recommended English Names - Background

Background

Since the pioneering work of Linnaeus, species of organisms have had recognized scientific names in Latin, Greek, or a modernized derivative of one or both of those languages. In most groups of organisms, the scientific names are sufficient, enjoying widespread use among academics and amateurs alike. By contrast, non-scientific (vernacular) names for birds are extensively used in scientific communication as well as in the large community of amateur enthusiasts. However, vernacular names change frequently and often vary from place to place. Consequently, there is a need to have a degree of consistency in the vernacular names used around the world.

In the late 19th century, the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) made an attempt to standardize the English names of birds; its effort covered the United States and Canada. This work's most recent edition, the seventh, covers North America as far south as Panama, but this omits some 80% of the world's species and is still sometimes controversial. A number of authors have come up with lists of birds of the world, but none had as its primary goal the standardization of names. As a result, the field of English names of birds was left "a swirling sea of polylexy and polysemy, where one bird may have many names and one name may apply to many birds."

In the late 1980's, the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) sought to reach consensus in standardized vernacular names for commonly used languages. Standardized names were published for French in 1993 and Spanish in 1995. English names proved particularly challenging: the task took more than fifteen years. Even so, the authors acknowledged that reaching complete global consensus on names and spelling is unlikely, and they presented this work as a first phase of an ongoing process.

The English names project began in 1990, when the IOC appointed a committee of prominent ornithologists, chaired by Burt L. Monroe, Jr., to consider the issue. The work "proved to be more difficult and time-consuming" than expected. Monroe's death brought the project to a halt. Not until 1994 was the project revived, by Gill and Walter Bock. Gill invited Wright to become recording secretary and organizer of the process; the two were named co-chairs of the revitalized committee.