Bird-names in the Indian dialects

Extract

The dictionaries of the modern Indian languages, whether scientific or otherwise, are alike in omitting certain material which would be of considerable value both to linguists and to those whose fortunes take them to reside in the Indian countryside. I refer to the names of birds. There is, of course, good reason for the deficiency; not merely is interest in ornithology not as widespread among the educated classes in India as it is in England, but only a few of the commonest birds have names recognized over large areas; while relatively few Englishmen resident in India are capable of recording the names with the accuracy required by scholarship. The suggestion I should like to put forward is that concerted steps should be taken by the learned societies in the different parts of India to catalogue the varying names of the different kinds of birds, the materials to be compiled perhaps on the admirable lines of Sir George Grierson's Bihar Peasant Life. Such a survey could not avoid meeting with serious difficulties; names vary from area to area, and in some cases the same name is applied to different birds in different districts.