[Lingtyp] 'Cold' as 'peace, harmony', especially in greetings and wishes

[Edoardo Nardi]

Dear Maria,

The first thing that comes to my mind is an expression like ‘cool down’ in English, with the meaning of ‘relax’; or similarly, ‘I am cool’ meaning ‘I am relaxed’ or ‘I am tranquil’, or stuff like that. But I guess these expressions must have had a different diachronic development from the African ones you showed, as well as different socio-cultural reasons motivating their usage and formation.

I think my observations are a bit trivial, but I hope I was useful!

All the best,

Edoardo Nardi, Ph.D.
Professor of Ancient Greek Language
Università degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi (Rome)
e.nardi at unimarconi.it

> Il giorno 27 lug 2023, alle ore 13:33, Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm <tamm at ling.su.se> ha scritto:
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> In a number of sub-Saharan African languages ‘cold’ (or ‘cool’) can be used in reference to peace and harmony in various contexts, including human propensities (‘X is gentle, kind, generous’) and (emotional) states (‘X is pleased, content, etc’). This use is also sometimes present in wishes/blessings and in greetings, e.g., the Ewe translation of '‘Grant us peace (Dona nobis pacem)' literally means ‘Let our skin become cold’, or the Ga greetings exchange A: ‘Here all?’ – B: ‘Here cold/cool’.
> 
> I would be very grateful for more examples of such (or similar uses) – both from African and non-African languages.
> 
> Many thanks and all the best,
> 
> Maria / Masha
> 
> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
> tel.: +46-8-16 26 20 (office)
> www.ling.su.se/tamm
> tamm at ling.su.se
> 
> 
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