Language preservation via parrot
In 1804 Alexander von Humboldt brought back a parrot from his five-year expedition to Central and South America. Apparently the parrot was the only remaining speaker of the Atures language Humboldt subsequently recorded 40 words from the parrot that belonged to the dead language. More from SFGate here
Nice story, but my urban legend detector is going off.
Posted on 
November 28th, 2006 by 
Simon Greenhill
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