Re: Request for information: Semantics of body parts

On Sat, 15 Jun 2002 17:39:14 +0100, Tim May <butsuri@...>
wrote:

>Similarly, the way in which these terms are applied to "equivalent"
>body parts on other animals may vary - English has seperate words for
>the nose of a human, the trunk of an elephant and the beak of a bird,
>but _hana_ in Japanese means both nose and trunk, while _nos_ in
>Russian and _burun_ in Turkish refer to both nose and beak.
Tirelat also has a single word for nose and trunk, {hriz} (I'll omit the
possessive t- prefix, since it's obligatory for all body parts.) "Beak" or
"bill", on the other hand, is the same word as "snout": {lhik}.

>I'd be interested in hearing about similar differences from English
>semantics in both conlangs and natlangs.
The usage of the Tirelat words {shim} "eye" and {zhilma} "iris" differs
slightly from English. {shim} is the usual word for "eye", but it actually
means "eyeball". When referring to the color of eyes, {zhilma} is used.
Otherwise, you'd be saying that someone has green eyeballs, which is
probably not what you meant unless they're a strange kind of alien being.

Tirelat only has a single word, {laris}, for both "elbow" and "knee". But
this word is consistently used for the corresponding joint in different
animals, unlike English where a horse can have both an "elbow" and a "knee"
(really a wrist) on the same leg, and the real knee is called a "stifle".
Tirelat {krhish} is similarly used for both "wrist" and "ankle".

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