FROM THE DICTIONARY OF MEDIEVAL LATIN IN THE CZECH LANDS: EGIP(P) IA

The article analyses the Latin term egippia (egipia). The original Greek term found in Aristotle's zoological treatise Historia animalium with the meaning of "vulture", reached the Middle Ages in two ways. In the Latin translation by Michael Scotus, there are the transcriptions agotiloz and agofiez. The Latin translation by William of Moerbeke, in contrast, uses the transcriptions egypius and egipius; these were used by the author of the manuscript, sign. II F 2, housed in the National Museum in Prague, in the form egippia and egipia and equated with the Latin name olor and the Czech droptwa. The analysis presented here concludes that the names olor and droptwa did not denote vulture or swan, but another sizable bird, the great bustard, and that the author of the manuscript in question also attached the same meaning to the Latin egip(p)ia, in all probability taken over either from William of Moerbeke's translation or from the Latin-German vocabulary Avis, where the word egippia is equated with the Middle High German term trappe, "bustard".