van Andel Tinde R, van 't Klooster Charlotte I E A, Quiroz Diana, Towns Alexandra M, Ruysschaert Sofie, van den Berg Margot
Naturalis Biodiversity Center, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands; Leiden University, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands;
Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, 1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands;
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Dec 16;111(50):E5346-53. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1418836111. Epub 2014 Dec 1.
How did the forced migration of nearly 11 million enslaved Africans to the Americas influence their knowledge of plants? Vernacular plant names give insight into the process of species recognition, acquisition of new knowledge, and replacement of African species with American ones. This study traces the origin of 2,350 Afro-Surinamese (Sranantongo and Maroon) plant names to those plant names used by local Amerindians, Europeans, and related groups in West and Central Africa. We compared vernacular names from herbarium collections, literature, and recent ethnobotanical fieldwork in Suriname, Ghana, Benin, and Gabon. A strong correspondence in sound, structure, and meaning among Afro-Surinamese vernaculars and their equivalents in other languages for botanically related taxa was considered as evidence for a shared origin. Although 65% of the Afro-Surinamese plant names contained European lexical items, enslaved Africans have recognized a substantial part of the neotropical flora. Twenty percent of the Sranantongo and 43% of the Maroon plant names strongly resemble names currently used in diverse African languages for related taxa, represent translations of African ones, or directly refer to an Old World origin. The acquisition of new ethnobotanical knowledge is captured in vernaculars derived from Amerindian languages and the invention of new names for neotropical plants from African lexical terms. Plant names that combine African, Amerindian, and European words reflect a creolization process that merged ethnobotanical skills from diverse geographical and cultural sources into new Afro-American knowledge systems. Our study confirms the role of Africans as significant agents of environmental knowledge in the New World.
近1100万被奴役的非洲人被迫移民到美洲，这对他们的植物知识有何影响？植物的通俗名称有助于深入了解物种识别过程、新知识的获取以及非洲物种被美洲物种取代的情况。本研究追溯了2350个非洲裔苏里南人（斯拉南汤加语和马龙语）植物名称的起源，这些名称源自当地美洲印第安人、欧洲人以及西非和中非相关群体所使用的植物名称。我们比较了来自苏里南、加纳、贝宁和加蓬的植物标本馆收藏、文献以及近期民族植物学田野调查中的通俗名称。对于植物学相关分类群，非洲裔苏里南人的通俗名称与其在其他语言中的对应名称在发音、结构和意义上的强烈对应被视为共享起源的证据。尽管65%的非洲裔苏里南人植物名称包含欧洲词汇，但被奴役的非洲人已经识别出了新热带植物区系的很大一部分。20%的斯拉南汤加语植物名称和43%的马龙语植物名称与目前在各种非洲语言中用于相关分类群的名称极为相似，是非洲名称的翻译，或者直接指代旧世界的起源。从美洲印第安语言衍生而来的通俗名称以及用非洲词汇为新热带植物创造的新名称，体现了新民族植物学知识的获取。将非洲、美洲印第安和欧洲词汇结合在一起的植物名称反映了一个克里奥尔化过程，即将来自不同地理和文化来源的民族植物学技能融合到新的非裔美国人知识体系中。我们的研究证实了非洲人在新世界作为环境知识重要传播者的作用。
