Northern Jacana - Arizona

A cooperative Northern Jacana (Jacana spinosa) has been seen by birders since 1 November '07 at Dave White Golf Course in Casa Grande, Arizona.  This bird has reportedly been observed by golf course personnel for as many as the past three years.  There is precedence for this species to remain north of its usual range for long periods of time.  Northern Jacana became established in Brazoria County, Texas in 1967–1978.  That population, although no longer present, had as many as 40 individuals.  There are three previously accepted Arizona records of Northern Jacana, ABA Code 4.

There are eight jacana species recognized worldwide, two in the New World, and with fossil evidence of an extinct jacana from Florida.  One remarkable feature of all jacanas is their extraordinarily long toes and toenails, allowing them to evenly distribute their weight as they seem to magically walk on floating aquatic vegetation.  They also have a sharp metacarpal spur on their wings that is used in confrontations with other jacanas.  What is not universally recognized is the correct pronunciation of jacana.  In India, the bird is pronounced "jakana".  However, the first jacana species to be described to science, Wattled Jacana, was probably named from Portuguese as Jaçanã, an interpretation from Portuguese of a Tupi-Guarani word for the bird.  Tupi and Guarani are the two official languages of Paraguay’s Guarana region where the first specimen of a jacana, Jacana jacana was collected.  In that South American region, it is locally called JAH-sah-NAH where the "j" is pronounced "Zh" and the "c" is soft.  However, the family name Jacanidae, is pronounced ja-CAN-i-dae.

Another thought on the origin of the word jacana follows. Two Jesuit priests founded the city of São Paulo, Brazil and in 1554 transcribed Tupi words into the Portuguese alphabet (which includes ç) and wrote a dictionary and a grammar.  These formed the basis for proper names of Tupi origin in Portuguese. Jaçanã most likely is a word used by the Tupi groups that lived along the Southeast Brazilian coast, although the word would probably be recognized by many of the Amazonian indigenous groups.  In fact, in the 19th century, a simplified form of Tupi was used as lingua geral (a language of general use) in most of the Brazilian hinterland. (Wikipedia)

In current Brazilian Portuguese, Jaçanã is pronounced ja-sa-nan with "ja" as "sa" and "nan" as most would pronounce it in English.

Most recently, a body of the America Ornithological Union, the South American Checklist Committee (SACC), posted on their website "We do not use a cedilla in "jacana" (or "aracari") because the Oxford English Dictionary treats these as English words without a cedilla."  While this doesn't entirely answer the question, how to pronounce jacana, it hopefully shows why there are so many interpretations.

Bill Maynard
Editor – Winging It

Comments

[Rick]

Ah, pronunciation!
The presumption is that originally 'foreign' words have been transliterated into English, not simply lifted wholesale with the expectation that they be pronounced as in the source language.
Because English doesn't use the cedilla, "aracari" should be spelled in English arasari. If "jacana" is truly to be pronounced [zha sa NA], then it should be spelled jasana--but note that there are no English words that begin with a [zh] sound (pace Mme Gabor] and very, very few English words with stress on the ultimate syllable, and so the word has quite logically and quite properly been anglicized to [ja SA na] or, following the presumption of transliteration, [ja KA na]. I use the latter, but then I also say [KWET s'l].
English words should be pronounced as English. I think it was Jacques Barzun who pointed out that the name "Flaubert" pronounced as if French in the middle of an English sentence would sound like a whisper, "Tetrazzini" like an explosion.
rick