From an excellent exhibition at the Musée des Arts et Métiers about the scientific expedition to South America made by Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland at the turn of the 19th century comes this striking observation by von Humboldt:
It is to be supposed that the last family of Atures did not die out until a long time afterwards: since at Maypures - bizarrely - there still survives an old parrot that nobody, say the natives, can understand, because it speaks only the language of the Atures.
UPDATE: this article, from the first issue (Spring and Summer 2002) of the excellent-looking Canadian magazine maisonneuve, refers to this parrot in the course of a discussion of endangered species and endangered languages:
Almost in desperation, linguists have begun to adopt the vocabulary and metaphors of biologists. They too are speaking about the resilience that comes with diversity. They too are asking for niches of equilibrium to remain undisturbed. They too are warning of the dangers inherent in ... an "impoverished and homogenized world," one in which a few dominant lifeforms have overrun and erased the diversity that used to sustain us. (Mark Abley)
Abley's book, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, is going on my to-read list.
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