|
 |
Same words for ’soul’ and ’breath’ | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 24 17 July 2005 at 11:00am | IP Logged | ||
|
In which languages is the word for 'soul' the same as the word for 'breath' or for 'life'?
Latin has the same with anima, meaning both 'breath' or 'breath of life' and 'soul'. Russian and Serbo-Croatian, and I assume other slavic languages, have dusha for both 'soul' and 'breath'. Edited by administrator on 17 July 2005 at 3:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7134 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian | Message 2 of 24 17 July 2005 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||
|
In Arabic "nafs" is the closest to "soul" and "nafas" means "breath". Since they share the same root (nun fa sin) I think they might have the same etymological origin too, but I am by no means sure.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Qbe Tetraglot Senior Member United States joewright.org/var Joined 7135 days ago 289 posts - 335 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Japanese, German, Mandarin, Aramaic | Message 3 of 24 17 July 2005 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||
|
In ancient Greek (Koine; I don't have my Liddell & Scott handy to check classical Greek) the word pneuma has a wide range of meaning, including both "breath" and "spirit" (as opposed to sarx, "body, flesh"). However, the word usually translated "soul" is different: psyche.
In Biblical Hebrew the word npsh also covered a wide range of territory, including "breath", "life" and "soul". I'll probably be in for some correction because I'm not researching these but am taking them from memory. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7152 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 4 of 24 18 July 2005 at 4:50am | IP Logged | ||
|
This happens not only with words in the same language, but also with different languages which belong to the same language group.
Atnas is the word for "soul" in Sanskrit and some other Indian languages; this can be compared with German atmen, Dutch ademen, or Swedish andas (1), all meaning "to breathe". This Indoeuropean stem is the base for Latin anima, and hence all the romance languages' Spanish alma, French âme, Italian anima... All meaning "soul, spirit". This is a good example of one base stem evolving into two different words which, even if different, have a similar ideological meaning; as in this case, "soul" and "breath". 1: One Swedish word for "soul" is ande, also very similar to its counterpart andas. The words for "breath" in these languages are Atem (German), Adem (Dutch) and Anda (Swedish), all very similar to the same root as well. Edited by Raistlin Majere on 18 July 2005 at 9:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7183 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 24 18 July 2005 at 6:18am | IP Logged | ||
I'm sorry to be nitpicking, but the Swedish word for soul is actually "själ". I suppose "ande" can mean the same thing as well but the usual translation of "soul" is "själ". The Swedish word for "breath" is "andetag". Eventhough "anda" can mean "breath" as well according to an online dictionary I checked. However the most common meaning of "Anda" is "spirit" like in "laganda"="team spirit". Edited by maxb on 18 July 2005 at 6:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7152 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 6 of 24 18 July 2005 at 6:46am | IP Logged | ||
I know, maxb, that the usual word in Swedish is "själ" but the question was to prove that there are words in Swedish that come from the same stem, even if they are not the commonest of words. There would have been no point in comparing "själ" and "atnas", but there is a point in comparing "ande" and "atnas". I have another example of this. At first sight, "tancar" (Catalan verb for "to close") comes from a different stem than "to close" (English). That would mean that Catalan and English have a different stem for this verb. But there is another verb in Catalan, very rare nowadays; it is the verb "cloure". Now the similarity with "to close" is much more visible, isn't it? Even if "cloure" is very rarely used nowadays. I hope I haven't driven off topic, but my point was to say that, when analising lexical similarities between two languages, it is not enough to look at just the commonest words, but that it is necessary to delve into the unusual words and "archaisms" as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7183 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 24 18 July 2005 at 9:32am | IP Logged | ||
Ok. I just reacted to the fact that you wrote "The swedish word for soul is "ande". Because it usually isn't :-). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7152 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 8 of 24 18 July 2005 at 9:46am | IP Logged | ||
|
OK, I'll change a word in my previous post to render it less strange for Swedish readers :). Edited by Raistlin Majere on 18 July 2005 at 9:48am 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
