Cynoglossidae

Grenand, Pierre, Chapuis, Jean, Cognat, André, Christinoi, Antonia, Davy, Damien, Grenand, Françoise, Jégu, Michel, Keith, Philippe, Martin, Emmanuel, Nemo, François, Pagezy, Hélène & Le Bail, Pierre-Yves, 2015, Revision of vernacular names for the freshwater fish of French Guiana, Cybium 39 (4), pp. 279-300 : 297-299

Cynoglossidae

Symphurus diomedeanus (Goode & Bean, 1885) : sol

(C); langue à fil noire (F); língua-de-mulata (Br); spottedfin tonguefish (E).

Symphurus plagusia (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) : sol (C);

im sol (P); langue à joue cendrée (F); língua-de-mulata (Br); duskycheek tonguefish (E).

ORDER TETRAODONTIFORMES

Tetraodontidae

Colomesus psittacus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) : grovant, gonflè (C); kaguvra paraukwene (P); compère à bandes (F); mamaiacu, baiacu (Br); banded puffer (E).

Sphoeroides testudineus (Linnaeus, 1758) : gro-vant (C);

compère corotuche (F); mamaiacu-mirim, baiacu-franguinho (Br); checkered puffer (E).

ORDER LEPIDOSIRENIFORMES

Lepidosirenidae

Lepidosiren paradoxa Fitzinger, 1837 : angui-tété (C);

maa (P); walamu (Wa); pilaɨ (Wi); dipneuste sud-américain, lépidosiren (F); pirambóia (Br); South American lungfish (E).

Note: The Wayãpi and Wayana are acquainted with this species through the Rio Jari (Pará, Brazil). The Wayana can mistake it for Symbranchus marmoratus .

can be found for Centropomus . The first term is borrowed from French through the Creole loubine, the second is the ancient indigenous term. Apistogramma gossei illustrates the second case scenario: Wayãpi consider that the words akala tuã and akala manõmanõ refer to two distinct “species”.

Which are the species with no known vernacular name? They mainly (10%) concern small species under 5 cm. It seems that their specific interest, whether dietary or symbolic, is limited for local populations, like for aquarium experts, unless they have an unusual colour, morphology or behaviour. This can also be due to their relative rarity (11%), even when the size remains consistent, as for Myleus knerii , Hypostomus nematopterus , Tetragonopterus rarus or Panaqolus koko . Nonetheless, a species relatively frequent and distinctive such as Roeboexodon guianensis , with its unique shape (shark-like head) and teeth on the muzzle, has no vernacular name.

The analysis of collected common names by linguistic category ( Fig. 2) shows, unsurprisingly, that groups covering the largest geographic areas (Brazilians, Creole, French and aquarium experts) are the ones with the largest number of vernacular names (between 270 and 296 fish have at least one name). Then come groups that are more restricted territorially, those in Kali’na, Palikur, Boni, Wayana (between 165 and 190 fish assigned a name) and, slightly behind, those speaking Wayãpi and Sranan-tongo (around 125 names assigned). The gap between some of these groups (as for example between the Wayana and Wayãpi) depends mainly on the diversity of species in the environments it frequents. For the two Teko and Ndjuka ethnic groups, the number of names collected remains very small (46 and 17, respectively). In both cases, more investigation is required. In parallel, linguistic groups that have the largest geographic spread tend to give several names to the same species (approximately 50% of species have at least two vernacular Creole or Brazilian names, compared with 25% in other languages). This high repetition can be explained partly by regionalism within a single linguistic group, which is the case, for example, for the Creole from East and West of French Guiana. This phenomenon is counterbalanced by the recurrent use of generic names. However, the relative small trend for the French language (approximately 18%) – especially aquarium-specific French – to name a same species differ- ently can be explained by an inclination to take over specific names that come mainly from Creole, by a more advanced knowledge of small decorative species, and above all by a tendency to translate scientific names – by definition univo- cal – into French.

Comparing the linguistic accuracy of human groups living in areas of different size on the French Guianese territory is not relevant as area affects the number of fish species present ( Le Bail et al., 2012). Therefore, we brought back the number of species named at least once to the number of species present in the geographic areas inhabited by each linguistic group ( Fig. 3 ). Following this standardization, it is apparent that the percentage of named fish fluctuates from 65 to 70% for Brazilian, French, Creole, Kali’na, Wayana and Wayãpi. This steady percentage suggests that, for these languages, the collection is nearly complete and that unnamed species are either rare or of little cultural interest, usually because of their small size. Given that this maximum of 65-70% of named species does not vary much from one linguistic community to another, it follows that the collection of vernacular names could probably be easily completed for the Boni, and the different speakers of Sranan-tongo and Palikur. The shortage with the Teko and Ndjuka would only be compensated by launching specifically-dedicated collection campaigns.

This revision and improvement work on vernacular names for these – mostly freshwater – fish in French Guiana remained focused on the ten main local populations living in the French Guianese territory. This work can be largely applied to the western border territory with Brazil, Amapá, which shares many fish species with French Guiana and where there are Wayãpi, Palikur and Brazilian Portuguese speakers. As for the Galibi de Uaçá and Karipuna , on the Eastern border still, these peoples speak patuá (patois): a language that shows similarities with Saint-Georges’ Creole and borrows words from Palikur and local Portuguese. A specifically dedicated investigation could confirm this. The same reasoning could apply to the area stretching from the border with Suriname up to the Surinam River, where similar freshwater fish populations live. In this area, there are people speaking Wayana, Kali’na, Arawak-lokono and Sranan-tongo. An extension of our nomenclature to Dutch, Hindustani and Javanese will, therefore, be essential to include the people living in this region.

Acknowledgements. – We would like to thank all the members of the French Guianese linguistic community who, in the course of numerous interviews, shared knowledge that has been absolutely vital to this work. We would also especially like to thanks Richard Commergnat and Guillaume Longin who checked the quality of our nomenclature with the Maroni fishermen. We also thank the referees of this paper for their relevant and constructive suggestions. This manuscript was translated from French to English by the Translation Bureau (BTU) of the Université de Bretagne Occidentale.

Figures

Figure 3. - Percentage of freshwater species with at least one vernacular name on the number of freshwater species in the area occupied by the language group.