[etni] Melds in Chinese, Hebrew and English
- From: Israel Cohen <cohen.izzy@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, naomi epstein <naomi.shema@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:07:16 +0200
Sometimes you can get some insight into the semantics of a word by taking
its Chinese equivalent and separately examining the meaning of each
ideogram in that equivalent. You can use Google translate to find
Chinese equivalents
and then use Google translate again to back-translate each individual
ideogram of the equivalent you found.
I tried this with the English word "owl". It produces 3 Chinese ideograms.
Their separate meanings are:
cats + head + eagle.
Ergo, the Chinese think the owl is a bird (raptor) whose head looks like
that of a cat.
A similar thought occurs in English "polecat" for skunk. "Polecat" = head +
cat. It is a weasel that has a cat-like head.
BTW, giving the Hebrew het its ancient W-sound makes het-sof-vav(oo)-lamed
(cat) cognate with WeaSeL.
The Hebrew equivalent for "owl" is similar to English "hootowl". The Hebrew
term is YaNSHooF from YoNah = bird + SHoFar = horn/trumpet.
Ciao, Izzy
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