psittacus Latin · revision 34628

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=borrowing|attested=116–27 BC, Varro|origins=grc ψιττακός}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * Classical: [ˈpsɪt.ta.kʊs]^(Wiktionary)

+ * Ecclesiastical: [ˈpsit.ta.kus]^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''psittacus''' ''m'' (genitive psittacī); second declension^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[bor|grc|ψιττακός|tr=psittakós|t=parrot]].^(OLD 2012)^(Saalfeld 1874)^(Wiktionary) Köbler takes the Greek word itself to be a loanword from the East.^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==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 [[m|en|parrot|alt=parrots]] and white blackbirds.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ Ovid wrote an elegy on a dead parrot, calling it the bird from India that imitates speech,^(TLL)^(Conte 2010) 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.^(TLL) Statius calls it the leader of the birds, and Apuleius and Solinus describe its green colour.^(TLL) Pliny reports that the bird was first seen by explorers on an island of the Nile in Ethiopia, and that India sends it.^(TLL)

+

+ Apuleius and, later, Augustine and Cassiodorus use it to illustrate mere repetition of what has been learnt, like the raven's.^(TLL) 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.^(DMLBS)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 116–27 BC – Varro mentions parrots shown at public displays.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid writes on a parrot that imitates human speech.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 34–62 AD – Persius mocks the parrot that says ''chaere''.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the bird and says some parrots converse.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius compares the parrot with the raven, both repeating only what they have learnt.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A [[m|en|parrot]].^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+ # ''(Medieval Latin)'' A parrot as an image of mindless [[m|en|imitation]] of speech.^(DMLBS)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[psittacīnus]]

+

+ ==Usage notes==

+ Pliny the Elder says that the Indians call the bird ''siptace'', though the manuscripts vary.^(TLL)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}