idioms, homonyms, body part maps, etc.

[cohen.izzy]

1 - Most standard idioms (not metaphors) of the "raining cats and dogs" or he has "an axe to grind" variety represent the target-languag-ification of a foreign word or phrase. In English, the majority of these are transliterated (not translated) directly from the foreign source. A minority are the translation of a foreign idiom where the transliteration occurred into the foreign language (for example, to escape "by the skin of my teeth", translated from Hebrew in Job 19:20).
Therefore, to computerize the translation of such idioms without resorting to table lookups involves determining the language of the foreign source and whether the idiom was transliterated into the target or the source language.
To see a more detailed explanation and additional examples, Google search for
< idioms Hebrew "izzy cohen" >.
2 - There is a pervasive tencency across languages for the *same* semantic concepts to occur as homonyms, even when there is no cross-language phonetic connection between such homonyms. For example, English sound (a tone, to dive or measure depth of water) and Hebrew tzadi-lamed-lamed (with the same meanings). The cello (with a deep tone) may be a coincidence. :-)
The extent to which this phenomenon occurs in a pair of languages may be an interesting measure of "relatedness". For more examples, Google search for
< homonyms "izzy cohen" >
3 - An interesting example of cognitive linguistics is the ancient method of making maps by configuring the body of a god or goddess over the area to be mapped. The name of each part of that body became the name of the feature or area under that part. This produces a scale 1:1 "map" on which such place names automatically indicate their approximate location with regard to all other places on the same map whose names were derived in that manner.
There are a pair of Blackfoot Indian maps of this type in Alberta, Canada (Napi, the "Old Man" and his wife, the "Old Woman"), and a pair of Phoenician maps in Asia minor (Hermes) and north Africa (Aphrodite). To see the body part - toponym equivalents on these maps, examine the databases at the BPMaps website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/
Also see Message #7: Attributes of body-part maps (longish)
4. Other musings (mostly etymological) can be seen by a Google search for
< ABOUT-WORDS "izzy cohen" > and then "repeat the search with the
omitted results included".
Best regards for the New Year,
Israel "izzy" Cohen
BPMaps moderator