A Basic Course in Anthropological Linguistics (Studies in Linguistic ...

LANGUAGE AND REALITY 149
In Modern Hebrew litpos “to grasp” means “to understand.”
In Maori kura “seeing” refers to “knowledge in general,” and kia
marama te titiro “to see clearly” refers to “understanding.”
In Japanese yoin “reverberating sound” designates “human feelings.”
In Chinese takuan “to have seen through life” is used to refer to the
ability “to understand that some thngs cannot be understood.”
In Sanskrit muya “to measure with the eye” refers to the danger
inherent in relying upon one’s mind to think about the world.
Not all words for the mind are, of course, root metaphors. The word
contemplate, for instance, derives from Latin templurn “temple”-the temple
being the place where one “contemplates” (Wescott 1978: 27). But by and
large, our concepts for the mind are root metaphors. They are no longer
recognized as such because they have become conventionalized through
protracted usage. Edie (1976: 165) offers the following relevant observation:
A word which primarily designates a perceptual phenomenon-
for example the perception of light-nce constituted is available
for a new purpose and can be used with a new intention-for
example to denote the process of intellectual understanding, and
we speak of (mental) illumination. Once established, the
metaphorical use of the original word is no longer noticed; its
essential ambiguity tends to fall below the level of awareness
from the moment that it is taken as designating another, now
distinguishable, experience.
In languages across the world, the human body is also a productive source
domain for naming all kinds of things that are perceived to be like the body.
Ths is why we refer to the bowels of the earth, to its heart, and so on. Here
are some other examples in English of body metaphors:
a body of people
a body of water
the body of a work
the eye of a storm
the eye of the needle
theface of a clock
thefoot of a mountain