Abstract
Much has been written, in recent decades, on the biological classificatory systems of non-industrial language communities. The communities studied to date are quite varied in their mode of subsistence, and include purely hunter-gatherer and purely agrarian societies, as well as those that practice both to some extent. While detailed cross-linguistic comparisons of folk taxonomies are rare, the few that have been carried out suggest some regular trends for a few variables. In his pioneering study, Brown [113] compared close to 40 languages for which ‘reasonable data’ were available, and found that languages that have over 330 plant and/or 420 labeled animal taxa tended to be spoken by small-scale agrarian societies. In contrast, the languages of hunter-gatherer societies showed a strong tendency to possess a far smaller number of plant and animal names. Brown attributes this difference to a variety of causes, including a newly-developed interest in domesticated organisms and an increased reliance on ‘famine foods’ by agriculturalists. Brown also suggests that the actions of agriculturalists might lead to an increase in habitat types, and hence local biodiversity.
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- 1.
A measure of length, taken to be the distance between the elbow and the middle fingertip.
- 2.
A torch used for making smoke.
- 3.
An implement for cutting out honeycomb (K: pacce).
- 4.
Another kind of rope.
- 5.
A folded cloth purse for carrying honey .
- 6.
Species such as the blue-banded bee are definitely called ‘bees’ in non-technical English—photographs from the websites of amateur photographers often label Amegilla sp. simply as “blue bee”. Several wasps are also frequently labeled as “bee” on these websites, showing that (a) the photographers are usually not trained biologists, and (b) the semantic ranges of the English and scientific ‘bee’ are quite different.
- 7.
Following similar reports of honeybee migration from local communities in many parts of tropical Asia, scientists have confirmed that colonies of Apis dorsata do embark on annual migrations of up to 200 km, and faithfully return to the same tree the following season.
- 8.
In the European honeybee Apis mellifera at least, this occurs once in a queen’s lifetime, when she leaves the hive for a ‘nuptial flight’. During this time, she is eagerly sought out by drones that detect her pheromones, chase her, and mate with her while in flight; the queen may mate with several drones, and stores their sperm within her body for life.
- 9.
A hive with a clear glass (or recently, Perspex) wall that allows observation of the interior of the colony.
- 10.
Some translators have made liberal use of the word ‘swarm’, but the contexts clearly indicate that Aristotle meant ‘hive ’ in most cases, e.g. “The bee will live for six years, some have lived for seven, and if a swarm lasts nine to ten years, it is considered to have done well.” ([222], VII:9)
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Si, A. (2016). Honeybee Lore. In: The Traditional Ecological Knowledge of the Solega. Ethnobiology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24681-9_7
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