Now, birders across Kerala and Maharashtra can read the description of 300 bird species found in the respective states in their local languages - Malayalam and Marathi.
While Cornell University in the US develops the Merlin App, they enable regional partners like Bird Count India to translate the bird identification material into any language of their choice.
“Marathi and Malayalam are just the beginning of our translation project. We plan to partner with more NGOs in all states to launch bird identification descriptions in every regional language” says Praveen J, Bird Count India.
Merlin app already supports the regional language names of birds in six other South Asian languages - Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Odia, and Telugu. However, the names themselves are not sufficient as the description of each bird is still in English.
The larger vision is to make the best material for bird-watchers in every Indian language - freely accessible at the fingertips of every user through their smartphones. The same descriptions are also available on the website of eBird and displayed based on the language preference of the user.
“Language should never become a barrier for our people to gain knowledge. With greater knowledge comes greater responsibility for conservation. I look forward to the launch of the Hindi text of Merlin bird identification”, says Hakimuddin Saify who co-maintains Hindi names of birds in Merlin.