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Information about Language Of The Birds

This article is about the mystical or mythical language. For communication systems of actual birds, see Bird song.
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Huginn and Muninn sit on Odin's shoulders in this illustration from an 18th century Icelandic manuscript.
A language of the birds, a mystical, perfect or divine language, or a mythical or magical language used by birds to communicate with the initiated, is postulated in mythology, medieval literature and occultism.

History

Birds played an important role in Indo-European religion, used for divination by augurs, and according to a suggestion by Walter Burkert, these customs may have their roots in the Paleolithic when during the Ice Age, early humans used to look for carrion by observing birds. In North America, ravens have been known to lead wolves (and native hunters) to prey in the hope of being rewarded with the gut pile of the kill.

From the Renaissance, it was the inspiration for some magical a priori languages, in particular musical languages. Whistled languages based or constructed on or articulated natural languages used in some cultures are sometimes also referred to, and compared with, the language of the birds.

Mythology

Greek mythology

According to Apollonius Rhodius, the figurehead of Jason's ship, the Argo, was built of oak from the sacred grove at Dodona and could speak the language of birds. The language of birds in Greek mythology may be attained by magical means. Democritus, Anaximander, Apollonius of Tyana, Tiresias, Melampus and Aesopus were all said to have understood the birds.

Norse mythology

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The 11th century Ramsund carving in Sweden depicts how Sigurd learnt the language of birds, in the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga saga. 1) Sigurd is sitting naked in front of the fire preparing the dragon heart, from Fafnir, for his foster-father Regin, who is Fafnir's brother. The heart is not finished yet, and when Sigurd touches it, he burns himself and sticks his finger into his mouth. As he has tasted dragon blood, he starts to understand the birds' song. 2) The birds say that Regin will not keep his promise of reconciliation and will try to kill Sigurd, which causes Sigurd to cut off Regin's head. 3) Regin is dead beside his own head, his smithing tools with which he reforged Sigurd's sword Gram are scattered around him, and 4) Regin's horse is laden will the dragon's treasure. 5) is the previous event when Sigurd killed Fafnir, and 6) shows Ótr from the saga's beginning
In Norse mythology, the power to understand the language of the birds was a sign of great wisdom. The god Odin had two ravens, called Hugin and Munin, who flew around the world and told Odin what happened among mortal men.

The legendary king of Sweden Dag the Wise was so wise that he could understand what birds said. He had a tame house sparrow which flew around and brought back news to him. Once, a farmer in Reidgotaland killed Dag's sparrow, which brought on a terrible retribution from the Swedes.

The ability could also be acquired by tasting dragon blood. According to the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga saga, Sigurd accidentally tasted dragon blood while roasting the heart of Fafnir. This gave him the ability to understand the language of birds, and his life was saved as the birds were discussing Regin's plans to kill Sigurd.

In an eddic poem loosely connected with the Sigurd tradition which is named Helgakviğa Hjörvarğssonar, the reason why a man named Atli once had the ability is not explained. Atli's lord's son Helgi would marry what was presumably Sigurd's aunt, the Valkyrie Sváfa.

Celtic mythology

In Celtic mythology, birds usually represent prophetic knowledge or bloodshed (especially crows). Morrigan adopted the shape of a bird to warn the Brown Bull.

Folklore

The concept is also known from many folk tales (including Welsh, Russian, German, Estonian, Greek), where usually the protagonist is granted the gift of understanding the language of the birds either by some magical transformation, or as a boon by the king of birds. The birds then inform or warn the hero about some danger or hidden treasure.

Religion

In Sufism, the language of birds is a mystical language of angels. The Conference of the Birds (mantiq at-tair) is a mystical poem of 4647 verses by the 12th century Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar [1].

Francis of Assisi is said to have preached to the birds.

In the Talmud (Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Bible, 1909), Solomon's proverbial wisdom was due to his being granted understanding of the language of birds by God.

Alchemy

In Kabbalah, Renaissance magic, and alchemy, the language of the birds was considered a secret and perfect language and the key to perfect knowledge, sometimes also called the langue verte, or green language (Jean Julien Fulcanelli, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa de occulta philosophia).

Literature and culture

Compare also the rather comical and satirical Birds of Aristophanes and Parliament of Fowls by Chaucer.

In medieval France, the language of the birds (la langue des oiseaux) was a secret language of the Troubadours, connected with the Tarot, allegedly based on puns and symbolism drawn from homophony, e. g. an inn called au lion d'or "the Golden Lion" is allegedly "code" for au lit on dort "in the bed one sleeps" [2] (note that this particular pun cannot be medieval, since final t was pronounced until Middle French, c.f. e.g. the 14th century loanword bonnet).

The artificial language zaum of Russian Futurism was described as "language of the birds" by Velimir Khlebnikov.

"The language of the birds" (Die Sprache der Vögel) is a 1991 German movie. Jean Sibelius composed a wedding march titled "The language of the birds" in 1911. The children's book author Rafe Martin has written "The Language of Birds" as an adaptation of a Russian folk tale; it was made into a children's opera by composer John Kennedy.

In Egyptian Arabic, hieroglyphic writing is called "the alphabet of the birds". In Ancient Egyptian itself, the hieroglyphic form of writing was given the name medu-netjer ("words of the gods" or "divine language").

See also

References

External links

Bird songs are certain vocal sounds that birds make. In non-technical use, these are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology, bird 'songs' are often distinguished from shorter sounds, which may be termed 'calls'.
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For the fictional language used in the 1997 film The Fifth Element, see The Divine Language.

Divine language, the language of the gods, or, in monotheism, the language of God
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There have been many explanations of the origin of language prior to any scientific theories. Still today there exist in many cultures, etiological myths and other stories pertaining to the origin of language, the development of language and the reasons behind the diversity in
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The word mythology (from the Greek μύθολογία mythología, from μυθολογείν mythologein
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Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (encompassing the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca.
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The word occult comes from the Latin occultus (clandestine, hidden, secret), referring to "knowledge of the hidden".[1] In the medical sense it is used commonly to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g. an "occult bleed.
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    God of the Sky
  1. God of Thunder
  2. God of the Earth/Underworld
  3. Cultural hero
  4. Great goddess


The sky and thunder gods were heavenly deities, representing the ruling class of society, and in subsequent cultures they were often merged
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Divination (Greek μαντεια, from μαντις "seer", anglicized in the suffix -mancy, see also mania
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The Augur (pl: augures) was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of the birds (flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and
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Walter Burkert (born Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, February 2, 1931), a scholar of Greek mythology and cult, is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States.
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Paleolithic is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools. It covers virtually all of humanity's time on Earth, extending from 2.5 million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis
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ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an expansion of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers.
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Carrion refers to the carcass of a dead animal. Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion eaters, or scavengers, include hyenas, vultures, Tasmanian Devils, Bald Eagles, and Blue-tongued lizards.
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Renaissance (French for "rebirth"; Italian: Rinascimento; Spanish: Renacimiento), was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe.
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Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a complete conceptual system of thought, belief, and knowledge that asserts human ability to control the natural world (events, objects, people, and physical phenomena ) through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means.
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Engineered languages (sometimes abbreviated to engelangs), are constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypothesis about how languages work or might work.
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Musical languages are languages based on musical sounds, either instead of or in addition to articulation. They can be categorized as constructed languages, and as whistled languages.
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A whistled language is the use of whistling to emulate speech and facilitate communication. Generally whistled languages emulate the intonation, tones or vowel formants, and prosody of a natural language so that speakers of that language can recognize the speech melody of what is
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Apollonius of Rhodes, also known as Apollonius Rhodius (Latin; Greek Ἀπολλώνιος Ῥόδιος Apollōnios Rhodios
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figurehead is a carved wooden decoration, often female or bestial, found at the prow of ships of the 16th to the 19th century. The practice was introduced with the galleons of the 16th century, as although earlier ships had often had some form of bow ornamentation, the figurehead
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Jason (Greek: Ιάσων, Etruscan: Easun) was a Greek mythological figure. His father was Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus, and his mother was Amphinome.
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Argo was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece. The Argo was built by the shipwright Argos, and its crew were specially protected by the goddess Hera.
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Quercus
L.

Species

See List of Quercus species

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of several hundred species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus
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Dodona (Greek: Δωδώνη Dodoni) in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was a prehistoric oracle devoted to the Greek god Zeus and to the Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia, but here called Dione.
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Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
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Democritus (Greek: Δημόκριτος) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace ca. 460 BC - died ca 370 BC).
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Anaximander (Ancient Greek: Ἀναξίμανδρος) (c. 610 BC–c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia.
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Apollonius of Tyana (Greek: Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ Τυανεύς; 16—ca. 97 AD[1]) was a Greek Pythagorean philosopher and teacher.
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Everes redirects here. For the butterfly genus, see Everes (genus).


In Greek mythology, Tiresias (also transliterated as Teiresias) was a blind prophet of Thebes, famous for being transformed into a woman for seven years.
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In Greek Mythology, Melampus, or Melampous (Greek: Μέλαμπος),[1] was a legendary soothsayer and healer originally of Pylos, who ruled at Argos; he was the introducer of the worship of Dionysus, according to Herodotus, who
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