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

[Jess Tauber]

I would imagine that the notions of 'hot' versus 'cool' here relate to the
ones found in the various gas laws. It is well known to physicists that if
you compress a volume of gas, it will heat up, whereas releasing pressure
will cool it down (this is how refrigerators work). And pressure associates
with feelings of priorities in one's life. Heat in a gas also strongly
associates with the speed of the individual molecules or atoms within the
gas- the higher the temperature, the higher the speed. Indeed,
temperature itself turns out to be a measure of the average speed of the
molecules of the body being measured. And the more speed, the more
unsettled the condition of that collection of atoms or molecules, the more
'unsettled' they are, while they don't come to rest (settling down) unless
that temperature is cooled way down, even to the point of becoming a liquid
or solid.

It turns out such notions are also found in ideophonic phonosemantics
(often mistakenly called 'sound symbolism'). For example in many languages
that have large numbers of ideophones (say in the large hundreds to many
thousands), initial labial stops often make reference to the notion of
pressurized contents seeking or finding release into the larger environment
surrounding the container, which if successful will reduce the pressure
within, and let the container, if it has any animate qualities, 'relax'.
Thus in very many languages many of the ideophones dealing with release of
intestinal gases which bloat one's belly begin with a labial stop (or a
historical reflex). Santali (a Munda language spoken in India's northeast)
has dozens of such forms with initial /p/ or other labial stops initially.
While those here with initial labial stops deal with spontaneous release
(or efforts towards same, from the materials to be released themselves),
those with dental or alveolar stops instead deal with the notion of forced
escape (as when compressed from without- think of someone punching you in
the gut and the gas there is forced out unbidden). The velar and palatal
positions initially in such ideophones instead connote withdrawal or
retraction of materials INTO containment/confinement. All very
symmetrically disposed in terms of the use of the phonological system to
interpret the physics and mechanics of the real world, or of animates
social-physically. For example, if some entity wants to hide behind others
and not be forced to put themselves forward into potential danger in the
larger world, the ideophones will utilize a velar initial. Similarly,
palatal initials are used in gossip situations where one wants to make
oneself of value and thus gain entry into some elite clique by offering up
usable, juicy tidbits of gossip. Communications offered with ideophones
that have labial initials are considered to be suspect at best, and of no
value generally (boasting, bragging, blowing one's own horn, exaggerations,
etc.). All this relates also to the relative amounts of contained available
'energy' and entropy (disorder), so again, a physical basis for value
judgements.

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On Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 7:43 AM Edoardo Nardi <e.nardi at unimarconi.it> wrote:

> 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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