Which is proper French. Common names for birds in French are only capitalised
on the first word e.g. Barnacle Goose = Bernache nonnette & Eider Duck = Eider
a duvet (sorry about the lack of diacritics, but the don't appear on an iPad
keyboard).
Carl Clifford
On 14/04/2013, at 12:25, Dave Torr <> wrote:
> I think most languages have their own names for at least the local birds -
> so English name is perfectly accurate in Aus (and UK, USA etc) whereas the
> common name for House Sparrow in French is "Moineau domestique" (see
> http://ibc.lynxeds.com/species/house-sparrow-passer-domesticus).
> Interesting that the "domestique" (=House) is not capitalised....
>
> On 14 April 2013 11:57, Robert Inglis <> wrote:
>
>> In the name of pedanticism............
>>
>> There must be a better label than “English names”. Personally, I prefer
>> “common names”.
>>
>> Or should we only capitalise/capitalize the English versions of bird
>> common names
>>
>> It would seem that some non-English speaking (as a ‘first’ language)
>> birdwatchers also capitalise bird common names. For example my copy of
>> “Robert’s Birds of Southern Africa” lists common names in a number of
>> languages and they all capitalise the names. That is, to maintain the
>> pedantic theme, except for the Zulu names which all start with one, two or
>> three lowercase letters immediately followed by what looks like the actual
>> name ,headed by an uppercase letter. I don’t speak or understand “Zulu” (I
>> barely understand English these days and that is certainly often the case
>> when it is written) so I can’t comment on that form of spelling and format.
>> Of course, that version of that field guide was published in 1984, before
>> “texting” and “SMS” so it also has punctuation and the text uses complete
>> words.
>>
>> Do, for example, German, Japanese, Spanish (but to name a few)
>> birdwatchers refer to “English names in their everyday birding
>> conversations?
>>
>> Just to make it clear, I always capitalise (but rarely capitalize) bird
>> Common Names.
>>
>> Bob Inglis
>> Sandstone Point
>> Qld
>> Australia
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