53Fig. 2.5 Four species of honeybee are named in Solega. ( a ) hejje:nu , ( b ) thuḍuve je: nu , ( c ) kaḍḍi
je:nu , ( d ) nesari je:nu ( white arrowheads indicate the heads of two individuals). Photos by the
author. Previously published in [ 148 ]
Table 2.1 indicates that plants—including trees, vines, herbaceous plants and
grasses—mostly have two-part (and sometimes three-part) names, with the fi nal slot
of the compound being occupied by the superordinate label meaning ‘tree’, ‘vine’,
‘plant’ or ‘grass’. This mirrors the San Juan Gbëë Zapotec naming system described
by Hunn [ 147 ]. As discussed further in Chap. 4 , the same tendency exists, but to a
weaker extent, in the case of bird name s , and is altogether absent in the names of
mammals. However, the named plants in the Solega lexicon far outnumber the
named mammals and birds combined, and it can be safely concluded that the folk
generics in this language are mostly not mononomials. Moreover, different nomen-
clatural strategies exist in Solega for referring to different types of organisms.
2.6 Folk Genera, Rank and Nomenclature