THE UNMISTAKABLE SCREECH of a parrot splits the silence. A silhouette appears, beckoning me closer. Is that the arc of a wing - or simply the breeze playing with a leaf? I listen and watch intently, eyeing a dark shape that might be a bird perched close by.

The foliage trembles, the shadow explodes in a flutter, and I am rewarded. "EEEEEEeeeeee! Maaaaapaaaaaaa!! Vasuriiiiii!" a bird screams lustily. But what am I hearing? Are these the words of some rainforest dialect, or merely parrot-ese, made up in the moment?

Apekiva, an orange-wing Amazon, and Papetta, a blue-front Amazon, make themselves at home in the Yale art studio of Rachel Berwick.

"Sue, do you believe it's feasible to teach a parrot to speak an extinct language?" the woman across the table from me is asking. I rouse myself from my reverie. "And if so, do you think it's possible to include this bird in an art exhibition in a gallery setting?"

It's June 1996 and I'm in the Newton, Mass., public library meeting with Rachel Berwick, a conceptual artist and faculty member of the Yale School of Art. Rachel wants to create a living work of art - using a parrot - and she's come to me for advice.

The proposed exhibit is a 10-foot-wide-by-10-foot-tall cylindrical aviary with translucent polypropylene walls and a central column of light illuminating it from within. Inside the aviary, Rachel wants to place a parrot that has been taught to speak Maypure, a South American language last uttered hundreds of years ago. Visitors to the exhibit will hear the parrot's disembodied voice and glimpse its shadow, but won't be able to actually see it. The idea is to focus visitors' attention on the language being spoken.

The end effect, Rachel hopes, will be not only a haunting live reproduction of words long gone, but the resurrection of a fantastic historical tale, too. According to legend, famed 18th-century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt was traveling along the Orinoco River in what is now Venezuela when he happened upon a Carib Indian tribe. When he asked his hosts why their pet parrots were speaking a dialect different from their own language, the Indians told von Humboldt the birds had belonged to the Maypure tribe, whom they had recently exterminated during tribal warfare. The birds were spoils of war. To von Humboldt's amazement, the parrots were the last remaining speakers of the Maypure language.

The language and the legend
von Humboldt's meticulously detailed journals don't corroborate the legend of the parrots, unfortunately. However, they do contain the Maypure words he heard on his travels, transcribed phonetically since Maypure existed only in spoken form. Rachel wants to recreate both the language and the legend, with the help of a living bird. Can it be done?

I pause for a long moment, trying again to visualize Rachel's concept. I have worked with parrots and people for many years but this is a novel challenge for me - and for Rachel, who knows almost nothing about birds. Rachel already has walked a long road to find me. She has spoken with veterinarians, bird breeders and exhibitors, most of whom have told her it can't be done. When Rachel calls Featherlust Farm Bird Store, a parrot specialty store in Old Saybrook, Conn., not far from Yale, owner Timothee Graze, an accomplished artist as well as parrot breeder and owner, tells Rachel I might be interested.

And I am. The project is chockfull of ethical and logistical challenges, yet I cannot dismiss the idea that it just might work. I give Rachel a rundown of my concerns about exhibiting a live bird and my requirements for meeting its needs. I am encouraged by her enthusiasm - she appears genuinely willing to commit to whatever it takes to build into the sculpture only the best of conditions for a parrot.

That day in the library we agree to meet again to iron out the details. I encourage Rachel to work with two birds rather than one for companionship. I recommend Amazons, preferably blue-front or yellow-nape species, due to their reliable interest in vocalization. Amazons also happen to be indigenous to the region where the Maypure legend is said to have taken place.

I will train Rachel and her helpers to care for the parrots and help them design an aviary interior that's safe for the birds. Although it will be a long time until a permanent adoptive home is needed, another goal is to introduce a new owner into the birds' lives as soon as possible. I have a feeling that person will be Rachel, but until that becomes a reality the search is on.

Last but by no means least is the challenge of developing and implementing a language training program for the birds. We have 13 months in which to teach the parrots to speak Maypure while the aviary is being built.

Rachel gives the exhibit the working title of "von Humboldt’s Parrots."

Looking for von Humboldt's parrots
To recreate the von Humboldt legend, I've recommended that we use two young, hand-reared birds unencumbered by an English vocabulary. They will be difficult to find for the amount in our budget, about $1,000, but I possess the optimism of someone freshly involved with a project and full of idealism.

My first call is to Martha Phippen, owner of The Bird and Reptile Connection in Walpole, Mass. Martha says she has two beautiful young Amazons, a blue-front and an orange-wing, who have been caged together since arriving nearly a year ago. She wants to place them together and is willing to sell them for the exact amount I had been going to offer. I am beginning to believe that this project is really meant to be.

Artist Rachel Berwick shows Amazon parrots Papetta and Apekiva a "mapa," the Maypure word for honey used to designate a treat.

On July 1 we collect the birds and take them for a checkup at Windhover Veterinary Center in Walpole. Given a clean bill of health, they then go to Rachel's studio at Yale, which has been outfitted with a roomy cage, toys and food.

Basic logistical details set in place and birds ensconced in the studio, Rachel dubs her new collaborators Papetta and Apekiva, two Maypure words she likes. The birds make a seamless transition into their new life at Yale and the training sessions begin.

Rachel posts a large sign outside her studio that warns, "Only Maypure spoken beyond this point"; any conversations in English must be conducted in her adjacent office. She hangs Maypure crib sheets around the studio and hands them out to arriving volunteer students Iris Binor and Anne Gardiner. Over the next year, trainers will come to include friends and colleagues of Rachel's, too.

Maypure spoken here
While we have no way of knowing exactly how the original Maypure language sounded, Rachel and I want to create the closest approximation possible. Rachel asks a Yale linguist who specializes in extinct South American languages about the likeliest meaning and pronunciation of the words von Humboldt recorded, about 40 in all.

I decide that the first words we will teach the parrots will be ones that birds find the easiest to master - one- and two-syllable words with "ah" sounds. We assign the word "mapa", meaning honey, to Lafeber Nutriberries, a special treat. For bananas, we use the Maypure word for banana, "arata."

We decide to give all wooden toys the generic name of “yapa,” the Maypure word for wood. We will use the word "maypure" as a greeting and "nukapi", which means "my hand," when we want a bird to step onto an outstretched hand.

Model and rival
My lesson plans for the birds include a couple of different teaching methods. To teach the names of objects, I decide we will conduct formal training sessions based on the model/rival technique that MIT professor Dr. Irene Pepperberg has used for the last 25 years with African grey parrots.

While the bird watches, one human "trains" the second human by presenting an object. If the human student names the object correctly, she is praised and given the object. If the student incorrectly names the object, she is scolded and the object is hidden from sight. The idea is to not only get the bird to learn by observing the interaction, but to want to participate, too.

The May-por-e' sculpture reenacts the legend of the Maypure language using two Amazon parrots behind translucent walls.

Because we need to avoid using English, I decide we will signal approval for a correct pronunciation by enthusiastically saying the word, "urupu!" which roughly means "star" or "actress" in Maypure. When a bird responds incorrectly, we dejectedly say "cueiti" - stupid - and turn away. Performing the same actions along with the words each time we say them sets in place a predictable pattern of behavior and outcome that will help the birds learn.

A breakthrough
Weeks of daily training sessions, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, pass in Rachel's studio. I visit once or twice a week to observe or participate and refine aspects of the program, and we discuss how the aviary is coming.

Rachel and her students are disappointed in the birds' slow progress - neither has spoken a Maypure word yet. The moment we've been waiting for occurs when Rachel returns after a few days away from the studio. When she walks through the door Papetta calls, "maypure!" to her. Papetta not only says the word correctly, he seems to be using it in context, as a greeting. Before long, Papetta is saying "mapa" for NutriBerries, his favorite treat, and interspersing other reasonably clear words, including "urupu," "arata" and "cueiti," among chirps and warbles throughout the day.

Apekiva, on the other hand, is learning more slowly; he is uttering human phoneme-like sounds that resemble the words in cadence and length, accurately breaking the word-sound into syllables. But his pronunciation is unintelligible. We work diligently with Apekiva, enthusiastically rewarding each studied attempt at marginally clearer pronunciation.

We are designing the interior of the aviary to encourage the birds to chatter, but we have no guarantee they will include Maypure words. This poses a unique challenge for me. Unlike other trainers, who can interact continuously with their birds to produce a particular behavior for which the bird is immediately given a reward, all I can do is hope that the words we've taught Apekiva and Papetta to associate with objects will spill over into the exhibit. Once on exhibit, inside the translucent walls, they will only see potted plants, perches, a fountain, lighting and food and water stations. It will be entirely up to Papetta and Apekiva whether Maypure is heard by a single person during the course of the exhibition.

A peek inside the exhibit reveals two ordinary-looking Amazon parrots hanging out on perches.

Eliminating the bugs
There are production delays and problems with the material being used for the aviary walls, but Tony Massini and David Johnson in the instrumentation lab at Yale are determined to help Rachel work through the technical issues.

Rachel has to design the aviary not only for stability and bird safety, but also for easy assembly and dismantling. Hinges can't be visible, and the baffling used to protect the birds from the light column cannot prevent light from successfully casting shadows onto the aviary walls. Every conceivable seam or surface where the birds could catch a toe or otherwise hurt themselves must be eliminated without affecting the overall look.

Well before the first exhibition at RealArtWays, the Hartford, Conn., gallery that commissioned the project, we will erect the aviary in Rachel's studio at Yale so the birds can become familiar with it. The birds will continue to sleep in their regular cage at night, but spend most of their days inside the aviary. We are eager to get to this stage, the proving ground for the exhibit's success.

Viewed from outside the exhibit's translucent walls, the birds' ghostly shadows transform them into phantoms speaking from another century.

Both birds are now speaking several Maypure words clearly enough for Rob Gorton, a sound design consultant and sound engineer at the Yale School of Drama, to record professional quality tapes and CDs in Rachel's studio to be used as reinforcement training. When we play these tapes in the studio, the birds join in, just as we had hoped.

Papetta's mastery of Maypure words is impressive and Apekiva's pronunciation is improving. He is the gentler, quieter of the two birds and responds to Papetta's Maypure calls more often than he initiates them. The two Amazons have a very agreeable relationship, playing easily together, mutually preening, and stealing "yapa" toys from one another in a tolerant display of bonding and competition.

Putting it together
By January 1997, the metal skeleton of the aviary is in place in the studio. The rest is being machined at Yale and soon the polypropylene wall panels will be ready to add.

In the spring, Rachel puts the aviary walls up and installs natural branches along the interior walls to serve as perches. Both birds watch the construction of their new home with curiosity.

Once the aviary is assembled, we place Papetta and Apekiva's familiar perchstands inside the aviary along with food, water, and several "mapas". A parrot on each hand, Rachel walks slowly, talking softly and reassuringly, as she introduces them to the aviary. After placing them on their perches inside and handing each of them a "mapa", she withdraws to the doorway. Though quiet, the birds appear relaxed.

Soon, Apekiva and Papetta are more boisterous inside the aviary than anywhere else, and are steadily incorporating more Maypure words into their repertoire. Their high Amazon pitches paired with the aviary's acoustics beautifully accentuate the words' poetic cadence. We are amazed to hear Papetta giving training cues to Apekiva, who responds in turn. Papetta even grades Apekiva's efforts with "urupu" when he pronounces a word well and "cueiti" when he doesn't.

As the opening of the exhibition draws near, I turn my attention to creating a parrot care manual for the RealArtWays staff members who will be feeding the birds and transferring them between cage and aviary every day. Apekiva and Papetta fascinate the gallery staff, serving as ambassadors not only of an exotic project but of the complex intelligence of parrots. After much deliberation, Rachel decides to rename the exhibit May-por-e', to emphasize the correct pronunciation of Maypure.

The exhibit is scheduled to last four weeks, but Rachel has negotiated conditional terms depending on the birds' response. At the first sign of distress, we will remove them and use the taped vocalizations instead.

Shortly before the date of the opening reception, Rachel breaks down the aviary and reassembles it in the large RealArtWays gallery. The birds also go to West Hartford, where I review care and handling one more time with the staff. Rachel has become so attached to the birds that she has difficulty leaving them.

Showtime!
The July 18, 1997, opening reception of the RealArtWays exhibit arrives. When the doors open at 6, I am more anxious about fielding questions from the press than about the birds' behavior during the next two hours. Rachel and I remain calmly convinced that they will reward us with Maypure as the evening unfolds. How much and when, we don't know.

Laughter and excitement flow into the darkened gallery as the first guests arrive. Ooohs and ahhhs of delight erupt when they glimpse the glowing aviary in the middle of the room. Before long, the room is full of excited noise and activity. Rachel disappears into the center of the crowd and various guests press toward me with questions about the parrots' ability to understand the words they are saying.

Suddenly, I realize the birds are saying words. Maypure words! "Mapa" and "cueti"! The larger and noisier the crowd grows, circling the aviary in rapt search for parrot shadows, the more lustily the birds vocalize. They speak Maypure with Amazon vigor for the duration of the reception. It is a delightful shared moment for Rachel and me.

Engaged and protected by the aviary's full-spectrum light, water noises, plants to chew and perches to climb, the birds adjust well to being on exhibit. In fact, they do so well, we extend the show to five weeks, an extra week than originally planned.

Start spreading the news
Several months later, we hit the big time - New York - when the exhibit goes to a commercial gallery in SoHo called Wooster Gardens. In a bit of serendipity, Yale graduate Anne Gardiner, one of the original student trainers in Rachel's studio, lives close by, so we hire her to take care of the birds.

Having a familiar caretaker helps Papetta and Apekiva adjust even more quickly and makes Rachel feel better, knowing they are getting quality care in yet another distant setting. Papetta and Apekiva successfully and vociferously treat New Yorkers to a dose of the Maypure language from Dec. 3, 1997 through Jan. 17, 1998.

Rachel adds two elements to the Wooster Gardens exhibit. She has created three unique computer-generated prints on vellum paper. Each print superimposes a photograph of a parrot shadow from the exhibit over a scanned version of one of the exquisitely detailed original maps of the Orinoco region from von Humboldt's journals.

To complement the prints, Rachel, the birds and I visit the recording studio at the Yale School of Drama to record a limited-edition compact disc. Extemporaneous Maypure chatter from the aviary is dubbed in as subtext to the studio recording of our voices. Much to my delight, it includes one of Papetta's informal training sessions with Apekiva.

The CD puts to rest any doubts about the parrots' mastery of Maypure. It is a visually and auditorily exquisite expression of the project. Maypure has now been documented in living, recorded, and graphic representations hundreds of years after the language ceased to exist on the planet.

Across the pond
In April 2000, the aviary and birds travel to London to participate in a six-week run of the Serpentine Gallery's "The Greenhouse Effect", an international group exhibition featuring 16 artists who use living materials or recreate natural phenomena. Both England and the United States require a daunting bureaucratic process and voluminous paperwork when live birds enter or depart.

We make the decision to take the parrots to London with difficulty. Care, housing and security has to be on our terms. As part of the quarantine agreement, a private car ferries the birds and Rachel from the airport directly to the Serpentine Gallery and an awaiting aviary. But Papetta and Apekiva weather their first international adventure with the same unflappable acceptance and curiousity which has characterized their behavior from day one.

In spring 2001 the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Art approaches Rachel to request the May-por-e' installation for their 7th International Istanbul Biennial exhibition to be held from Sept. 22 to Oct. 31. Considering the logistics of taking live birds for overseas exhibition and the post-Sept. 11 travel climate, Rachel decides the exhibit will go to Turkey but Papetta and Apekiva will remain in Connecticut.

Two birds in Instanbul will be trained for the Turkey exhibition using tapes of Papetta and Apekiva speaking Maypure. Beginning in July, Rachel and I work closely by phone and email with Nermin Saatciouglu, the caregiver of two young Amazons purchased in Istanbul and also named Papetta and Apekiva. The exhibition is a success, although it relies mainly on the tape because the new birds are still learning Maypure.

Home in Connecticut
We could not have hoped for a better outcome for the May-por-e' project. Rachel had a vision of what the exhibit should look like, with its translucent walls, but was willing to modify it for the birds' sake. Fortunately, she didn't have to; the design worked for everyone and through hard work and planning, Rachel, I and a cast of many others who lent their skills successfully recreated the experience of hearing an extinct language being spoken by a living bird.

Apekiva and Papetta are now eight years old. Their world is far removed from Rachel's studio at Yale, which she left for a faculty position at Rhode Island School of Design three years ago. When not on exhibition, the birds spend their time at Rachel's home in Connecticut enjoying a room of their own and perch stands throughout the house. They still speak Maypure - and Papetta continues to test Apekiva's mastery of the long-lost language by conducting informal training sessions of his own whenever he thinks necessary.