Folkbiology in endangered languages: Cognitive universals and lexical relativity

Predominant theories of folkbiology emphasize universal aspects of human perception and cognition but have often been contested by research emphasizing cultural relativity. Drawing on languages that encode knowledge of endangered ecosystems, this paper argues that the contrast between universalist and relativist approaches to the folk classification of living kinds is a false dichotomy: despite the existence of cognitive universals based mostly on visual perception, there is abundant evidence that the lexical semantics of words and phrases denoting particular taxa and their relation to overt cultural expression vary cross-linguistically. Recent calls for the indigenization of knowledge highlight the need to illuminate parallel and complementary knowledge systems in line with efforts to decolonize academic research. I present a range of examples from Indigenous taxonomies that provide lexical windows into local ecology and belief systems and propose an analysis by which (i) universalist and relativist perspectives are not in conflict and (ii) Indigenous naming systems are of comparable social and scientific value to Western taxonomies. More generally, I suggest that a more comprehensive understanding of the linguistics of folkbiology is possible by moving beyond binary thinking in this domain.