Re: Biblical Hebrew

Many have written:


>>From: Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>
>>
>>On 15 August, Peter Clark wrote:
>> > of "to have compassion" or "cherishing." The specific word for "womb"
>>(as
>> > opposed to "belly") is rechem. It's not quite clear whether which word
>> > derives from which; scholars?
>>
>>I suppose that leaves me out (not being a scholar of Semitic langs),
>>but FWIW, my dictionary has the emotions and the bodily organ
>>as being related to different sets of cognates in ancient semitic langs.
>>But in each case, the cognate from one set is very similar to the one
>>from the other set across all the langs mentioned. Thus, it's quite
>>possible that the connection between the emotions and the organ
>>dates from proto-Semitic times. _Real_ scholars, please?  ;-)
>>
>It gets even better - there's good anthropological evidence for bodily
>correlates to particular emotional / mental states.  The chakra system from
>yoga is a good example, but there are other examples ranging from the Hopi,
>to the !Kung, to the Australians...  nothing that qualifies as "universal,"
>but there are some striking similarities across cultures.  There is
probably
>some real physiology here...
>
>Andy

My 2¢--
FWIW, in Malay/Indonesian, _hati_ is the word for heart in the figurative
sense, as seat of the emotions/soul or whatever, and there are many
compounds and idioms for states of mind/emotions.    But it actually means
'liver' (likewise in most related languages).  A quick search through
available dictionaries gives:

Western Bukidnon Manobo (Mindanao, PI) liver only
Pilipino/Tagalog liver only
Malegasy liver, with a few compds. meaning close family members and the
like.
Fiji liver, and 'viewed as the seat of cowardice and courage'

Kash uses _haniyu_ for the figurative meanings; there is no evidence yet
that it ever referred to a body part, but we'll work on that.......

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