[Lingtyp] Body and soul / body and mind

Mon Mar 4 22:08:49 UTC 2024

Dear Masha,

Many thanks for your question.
Oceanic languages have at least one etymon for “soul”, Proto-Oceanic **qata*(r)
“image, reflection, shadow;  soul, spirit”.

The etymon is reflected directly in North Vanuatu languages, as an
inalienable (obligatorily possessed) noun **ʔata* “soul, spirit”:

Proto-North Vanuatu **ʔata* (‑ña) ‘(his/her) soul, spirit’
→ Hiw *ata‑nə*; Lo-Toga *te‑nə*; Lehali *n‑eta‑n*; Vurës *ata‑n*; Mota
*ata‑na*.

(In Proto-N Vanuatu, that root happens to be homophonous with *ʔata
“person, human being”, but this is probably an unrelated homophone — see
discussion in publication mentioned below.)

That etymon *ʔata “soul, spirit” contrasts with *taRabe “body”.

*ʔata refers to the invisible part of a person that can be detached from
the body, e.g. when dreaming. It is the part that survives death, and
travels to the Underworld.
The same word “soul, spirit” will also be used when describing the powers
of a shaman: that is, special individuals who have the power to send their
soul to remote places (to the Underworld, to Europe...) in order to achieve
some magic, e.g. to resurrect someone who recently died.

During my fieldwork, I collected numerous stories of soul-wandering,
resurrection, shamanism, which are culturally important in this part of
Melanesia.  For example, you can read the beautiful [and real] story “The
mat from the Other world
<https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/show?corpus=Hiw&lang=en&mode=pro&oai_primary=cocoon-c4a4432a-9fc2-3d91-b38a-4cbc6d85dd47&oai_secondary=cocoon-8a038bca-74d2-3c99-8e74-dbf07eaa1a4d&optionTextTranscriptions=&optionTextTranslations=en&optionSentenceTranscriptions=other&optionSentenceTranslations=en&optionWordTranscriptions=&optionWordTranslations=&optionMorphemeTranscriptions=&optionMorphemeTranslations=&optionNotes=&continuousPlay=false>”,
recorded in the Hiw language.  (It features many instances of the Hiw noun
*ata *mentioned above.)

I've also interviewed today's shamans and healers on their practices
of soul-wandering.
_________

The “mind” would be lexified using etyma different from “soul”:

   - e.g. *lolo “[s.o.'s] inside, inner self → mind, memory, emotions”
   (<POc *ralom <https://acd.clld.org/cognatesets/30230#s-7089>);
   - *bʷatu “head, intelligence”,
   - *[do]domi “think → thought → mind, intelligence; ideas”

The “seat of emotions” would involve phrases with reflexes of *βara
“liver”; *tobʷa “belly”...  (In neighbouring languages it would involve
the neck.)

In Vanuatu, I have never seen “mind” colexified with “soul”:  these are
unrelated notions.  The *soul* is about being alive;  the mind is about
experiencing feelings, or being smart.
________
I published an article on the lexical domain of "soul", "spirit", "mind" in
North Vanuatu, discussing their etymologies and patterns of semantic change:

   - François, Alexandre. 2013. Shadows of bygone lives: The histories of
   spiritual words in northern Vanuatu
   <http://alex.francois.online.fr/AFpub_articles_e.htm#29>.
   In Robert Mailhammer (ed.). *Lexical and structural etymology: Beyond
   word histories*. Studies in Language Change, 11. Berlin: DeGruyter
   Mouton. 185-244.

The paper includes a discussion of an important etymon in Vanuatu:  namely,
**ʔata-mate*, liter. “dead person” (if derived from *ʔata 'person') or
“dead soul” (if derived from *ʔata- 'soul').  That word is used in Oceanic
mythologies to refer to the soul once it's detached from the body, after
death → hence such meanings as “ghost”, “spirits of ancestors”, “deity”,
“demon”, “ogre”…  Hence the semantic map
<https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2013_Shadows-of-bygone-lives-The-histories-of-spiritual-words-in-northern-Vanuatu.pdf#page=32>
:
[image: image.png]
________

Finally, in another context, the concept of “soul” was quite prominent in
the paper where I proposed the concept of colexification:

   - François, Alexandre. 2008. Semantic maps and the typology of
   colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks across languages
   <http://alex.francois.online.fr/AFpub_articles_e.htm#18>. In Martine
   Vanhove (ed.). *From Polysemy to Semantic change: Towards a Typology of
   Lexical Semantic Associations*. Studies in Language Companion Series,
   106. Amsterdam, New York: Benjamins. 163-215.

Indeed, I chose to illustrate my method of creating semantic maps by
observing the polysemies around BREATHE.  The semantic link I had in mind
was the typologically recurrent link I had noticed between BREATH(E) and
SOUL.

For example, Hebrew רוּחַ [ruax] means “wind, air; spirit, soul; mind;
ghost”;
and I drew this map for its Arabic cognate *rūh̻* (رُوح⁩):

[image: image.png]
I have observed the semantic connection between Breath(ing) and Soul in at
least 12 language families around the world;  though not in the Oceanic
family.

best
Alex
------------------------------

Alex François
LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS–
<http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–PSL <https://www.psl.eu/en>–Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alex-francois>
Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
_________________________________________

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Guillaume Jacques via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 at 18:36
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Body and soul / body and mind
To: Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm <tamm at ling.su.se>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>

Dear Masha,

In Sino-Tibetan languages, there is surprisingly a cognate set for "soul",
exemplified by Japhug *tɯ-rla*, Tibetan *bla*, Jinghpo *nùmlā* etc  (see
other cognates in STEDT Etymon #2264 (berkeley.edu)
<https://stedt.berkeley.edu/~stedt-cgi/rootcanal.pl/etymon/2264>). Words
translatable by "mind" or "body" vary a lot, but in Tibetan cultural areas
they tend to be borrowed from Tibetan (Japhug *tɯ-sɯm* "mind", *tɯ-phoŋbu *from
Tibetan *sems* "mind", *phuŋ.po* "heap, body"), and in Tibetan they have
acquired meanings calqued from Sanskrit *manas*- and *skandha*-,
respectively.

Guillaume

Le lun. 4 mars 2024 à 16:27, Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> a écrit :

> Dear colleagues,
>
> I’ve got a question from a colleague working in health psychology about
> the dichotomies such as “body vs. soul”, “body vs. mind” etc, as opposed to
> “person”, “human being etc.: how spread are these across the cultures and
> languages of the world? I know that a number of languages lack a dedicated
> word for ‘body’, but not so much about the distinction between the physical
> and non-physical aspects of human beings.
>
> I would be grateful for any information / references / pointers.
>
> All the best,
> Maria / Masha
>
> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm University
> 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
> tel.: +46-8-16 26 20
> tamm at ling.su.se
> http://www.ling.su.se/tamm
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20240304/c36fbed5/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 140049 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20240304/c36fbed5/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 172777 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20240304/c36fbed5/attachment-0003.png>