cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

["Alfred W. Tüting"]

In principle I share Rory's view.

As for the German language, I only come up with expressions like "er  
ist ein heller Kopf/helles Köpfchen", about: he's a light (i.e.  
bright) head/little head = canny) or still more coll. "er ist hell auf  
der Platte" (panel/plate etc. maybe also ref. to head). Whereas re.  
"dim-witted" there seems to be just the negation of it: "er ist kein  
großes (Kirchen-)Licht" (not a big church-light).

Alfred


Am 24.02.2011 um 06:05 schrieb Rory M Larson:

> Bob wrote:
> > What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries
> > of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism,
> > this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected
> > it to be more or less pan-European.
>
> Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm looking in an  
> unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in there to  
> support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend, which  
> means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.   
> But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"),  
> gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates  
> luminousity.  'Stupid', 'fool(ish)' or 'dimwit' gets dumm, bloed,  
> Narr, Tor, Schwachkopf ("weak-head") and daemlich.  Daemlich looks  
> like it might possibly be related to a set of "daemmer" words that  
> float around the meaning of 'dusk' or 'twilight'.  If so, it's the  
> only German usage I see that really works for this metaphor.
>
> In a (much smaller) French dictionary, I find even less support for  
> it.  'Intelligent', 'smart' and 'clever' get intelligent, vif  
> ("lively"), eveille ("wide-awake"), habile ("able") and adroit  
> ("right-handed"?).  'Stupid', 'dumb' and 'fool(ish)' get stupide,  
> sot, imbecile, fou, bouffon and bete ("beast").  'Dim' merely gets  
> us sombre, indistinct and terne, which seem to have no reference to  
> intelligence.  Both dictionaries recognize the metaphorical English  
> use of "bright" and offer "intelligent" as a translation, but no  
> native luminousity metaphor for the same idea.
>
> I took a quick look at some Oxford English Dictionary entries for  
> "bright", "brilliant", "dim" and "dim-wit".  It looks to me like the  
> metaphor developed in two stages in English.  In the early 18th  
> century, philosophers were using such luminousity terms as metaphors  
> for "enlightenment" and understanding.  "Dim" as a metaphor for poor  
> vision goes back to the 16th century and probably played a  
> supporting role in the inability-to-see/understand metaphor.   
> "Bright" and "dim" as terms for native intelligence seem to have  
> developed in the 19th century as a humorous colloquialization of the  
> enlightenment metaphor.  The term "dim-wit" seems to have appeared  
> first in the 1920s.  Prior to the 18th century, "bright" was used  
> metaphorically on people to say that they were beautiful, fair and  
> comely; "brilliant" meant that they were distinguished, elegant and  
> high-class.
>
> Equation of intelligence to luminousity does not seem to be a  
> universal metaphor at all, or even pan-European.  As far as I can  
> tell, it is a peculiar development in English that took place in the  
> last three hundred years.
>
> Rory

_______________

Alfred W. Tüting
ti at fa-kuan.muc.de



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