Aung Si pioneered the documentation and preservation of the Solega language and traditional ecological knowledge, and we continue to collaborate towards this goal. My collection of Solega bird names and stories became the starting point of a long and enriching collaboration between the linguist and the ecologist.

My initial lists were corroborated by a preliminary list of Solega bird names collected by Prashanth NS, a doctor who was based at the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK) hospital in the BR Hills, at that time.Īung Si, a linguist who wanted to study the Solega language for his PhD, arrived at the BR Hills soon after I started my own PhD fieldwork there. And I learnt that some of them feature in their songs and folklore as well. So I learnt Solega bird names to be able to talk to them about the birds that we saw every day. I was accompanied by Solega field assistants, who have never heard of Salim Ali or Grimmett, et al., and do not know any English common names for birds. My interest in documenting Solega bird names and folklore began in 2005, when I was studying birds for my M.Sc. Your Browser does not support the new HTML5 Audio-Tag, sorry! Here is a clip of a Solega elder stating this that will bring the point home. This is the correct transcription of the name chosen by the people themselves, and it refers to their creation myth about their origins from the sheath of bamboo, or bidiru sole. You might have noticed in this and previous articles written by me that I write “Solega”, and not “Soliga” or “Sholiga” as is commonly used. But before we start this journey, a small but important point. In this article, we take a look at their ornithological worldview. The Biligirirangan Hills (BR Hills) in south east Karnataka are home to the Solega people, and also to over 250 species of birds.

Kannada evergreen songs list