origin of the word "timneh"

[LindaMary]

Who can tell me the origin of the word "Timneh", and why it is used to describe some of our parrots?

[Kaedyn]

I don't know the origin of the word, but to the best of my understanding, it describes an area in Western Africa around Sierra Leone, called the "Timneh Country". This area is very central to where both our CAGs and TAGs live. Hence, one could assume that the birds were named for where they were first discovered or believed to have first originated.

 

The full name for a Timneh Grey is Psittacus Erithacus Timneh. Psitticus is derived from the ancient greek word Psittakos, which means Parrot.

[judygram]

I didn't have the answer but glad to hear you do Jim, thanks for sharing it with us, I figured it had to do with a region of Africa but you narrowed it down for us.

[LindaMary]

Hey, thanks and karma to you, Jim! I followed your phrasing thru the web to where some publications of Presbyterian missionary societies in the late 1800's refer to "the Timneh country" and "the Timneh people" in Sierra Leone. It looks like the reference actually be to one of the major ethnic groups in what is now Sierra Leone: the Temne.

 

Thanks for helping me find an answer to a question that's been bugging me for months. The only other non-parrot "timnehs" I could ever find defined were (1) the city where (biblical) Joshua is buried, and (2) a Palestinian grain measure. This one obviously makes a heckuva lot more sense!