Talk:Erythrina afra

Latest comment: 4 months ago by Ethmostigmus in topic Name Change

Name Change

edit

"Caffra" has been deemed to be an offensive term. It supposedly is an Arabic word meaning, "infidel." Members of the International Botanical Congress recently have voted to replace the word, "caffra" with "affra," which is supposed to suggest an organism's African origin, in the names all plants, fungi, and algae in which it occurs.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/20/botanists-remove-racist-references-plants-scientific-names

151.201.129.79 (talk) 23:50, 20 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

This isn't particularly relevant to the need for a change on the page, but it's worth noting that saying it means "infidel" potentially understates the charged nature of this word and its derivatives (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kaffir). 2600:8802:1802:BC00:0:0:0:8B2E (talk) 02:53, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
This change has gone through on IPNI[1] (as Erythrina afra, not affra, fyi) but POWO[2] and WFO[3] haven't yet updated to reflect this. I'm not opposed to moving this page to Erythrina afra now, but I'm also happy to wait until POWO/WFO follow suit. Feel free to join the discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants#Upcoming International Botanical Congress vote on "offensive" binomial names and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Upcoming International Botanical Congress vote on "offensive" binomial names regarding these changes/relevant page moves. Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:07, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply