psittacus

Forms

psittacus m (genitive psittacī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ψιττακός (psittakós, “parrot”).^[2][3][1] Köbler takes the Greek word itself to be a loanword from the East.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest passage the TLL cites is in Varro's work on farming, where hens are said to be shown at public displays together with parrots and white blackbirds.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

Ovid wrote an elegy on a dead parrot, calling it the bird from India that imitates speech,^[5][6] and later writers dwell on its gift of copying the human voice: Persius asks who taught the parrot its Greek greeting chaere, Martial has one that has learnt to say Caesar, have, and Pliny the Elder notes that some parrots even hold conversations.^[5] Statius calls it the leader of the birds, and Apuleius and Solinus describe its green colour.^[5] Pliny reports that the bird was first seen by explorers on an island of the Nile in Ethiopia, and that India sends it.^[5]

Apuleius and, later, Augustine and Cassiodorus use it to illustrate mere repetition of what has been learnt, like the raven's.^[5] In medieval British sources it is still the parrot, glossed with the Anglo-Norman and Middle English words for the popinjay, and its imitation of the human voice is a figure for senseless repetition.^[7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro mentions parrots shown at public displays.^[5][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid writes on a parrot that imitates human speech.^[5][4]
• 34–62 AD – Persius mocks the parrot that says chaere.^[5][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the bird and says some parrots converse.^[5][4]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius compares the parrot with the raven, both repeating only what they have learnt.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A parrot.^[2][8]
2. (Medieval Latin) A parrot as an image of mindless imitation of speech.^[7]

Word family

• psittacīnus

Usage notes

Pliny the Elder says that the Indians call the bird siptace, though the manuscripts vary.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press