# heart



## robbie_SWE

Hi! 

I've been thinking of the word "heart" and what it actually means. The Latin languages have chosen a word that idicates that the heart is the centre: 

Ex: cuore (it.), coeur (fr.) corazón (sp.), coração, inima (ro.)

The Romanian word for heart is "inima", which means "soul" (or where the soul is). 

How is it in your language? Does the word "heart" have another, more "romantic" meaning?


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## Sina

Yürek = used when we are talking about being brave etc.
Kalp = Biological usage and romantic


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## ukuca

In Turkish, there are also
Can: which is more related to "soul"
Gönül: which is more romantic and poetic

Mostly, the word "Kalp" is used for centre of something


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## french4beth

Here's a list of numerous translations:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heart

"Heart" apparently comes from the Old English word '_heorte_': 


> From Germanic _*xirtan_, from Indo-European _*k̑erd-_. Cognate with Old Frisian herte, Ashkenazic herz, Old Saxon herta (Dutch hart), Old High German herza (German Herz), Old Norse hjarta (Swedish hjärta), Gothic removed. The IE root is also the source of Greek καρδία, Latin cor, Welsh craidd, Russian сердце, Lithuanian širdis.


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## cyanista

The Russian word сердце (serdtse) might be related to the word середина (seredina) which means "centre, middle".


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## Whodunit

There's a German expression that goes like "im *Herzen* der Stadt", which means "in the *centre* of the town".



			
				french4beth said:
			
		

> "Heart" apparently comes from the Old English word '_heorte_':


 
And what did "heorte" originally mean?


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## Becker

In Sinhalese it's _hada_ which is derived from the Sanskrit _hridaya_ but I'm not too sure what exactly the Sanskrit term means beside "heart"


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## Miguelillo 87

In sapnish you say Corazón if you want to refer to a feeling or to the biological part
Te amo con todo el corazón.- I love oyu with all my heart
Me falla el corazón.- My heart is not well

In Spanish centre is centro
Centro-corazón I don't know if there is a simility


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## se16teddy

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> I've been thinking of the word "heart" and what it actually means. The Latin languages have chosen a word that idicates that the heart is the centre


 
Surely it is the other way around: the heart is at the centre of the body, and therefore stands as a metaphor for the centre of other things.


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## se16teddy

As French4beth has said, the Romance, Germanic and Slavonic words for heart are all cognates; and I would hazard a guess that the Sanksrit hridaya is cognate too. 

The Germanic h = Latin k = Slavonic s is seen in many words

hundred - centum -sto
house - casa - 
head - caput - 
heart - cordis - serdtse
harm - carmen (a magic spell)
hemp - cannabis


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## panjabigator

Becker said:
			
		

> In Sinhalese it's _hada_ which is derived from the Sanskrit _hridaya_ but I'm not too sure what exactly the Sanskrit term means beside "heart"



The word hriday is still used...I have seen it in the some prayers in Panjabi (hirday) and it is still used in Hindi and Gujarati (according to one of my friends), but not often.  The more common word is of Persian origin, dil.


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## Maja

In Serbian heart is "srce" (Cyrillic: срце) medically and romantically!!!


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## linguist786

panjabigator said:
			
		

> and it is still used in Hindi and Gujarati dil.


hmm.. I've never heard that word before.
We always say "dil" too.. although I don't think it has some "deeper" meaning..


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## D0lph1n

hmm, indonesian translated heart as "hati" (in terms of feeling)

however, "hati" in an indonesian saying it in biological terms is actually goes for "liver", weird isn't it ??  

so for "heart" in biological term we use "jantung" or sometimes we adding it as "jantung hati"

expression that using "hati"
"makan hati" (literally means eat your own heart) if you are angry over something
"hati hati" means "be careful" or "watch out !" 

as for romantic meaning, well, we mostly use the translation from english, such as "broken heart" (patah hati), "key to my heart" (kunci untuk hatiku), etc etc


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## Honour

for its adjective usage, cardiac/cardiaque is also possible.


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## panjabigator

Well, Linguist, the girl who told me this was talking about folk music, so perhaps the persian influence is not as strong there.  There are a lot of words that sound so weird to me, living outside of India of course, and so I take them as being weird and unused.  But I ask my parents and it seems second nature...and I get a responce like "oh...yeah...that means 'such and such.'"

If you don't mind, ek kaam karna mere liye...ask your parents if that is a village term where they're from.  Im interested to know


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## linguist786

Interesting! I'll definitely ask them 
Will edit this later
Oh by the way - how do you pronounce it lol? (Is it like "*Hri*tik Roshan"?)


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## Pivra

Becker said:
			
		

> In Sinhalese it's _hada_ which is derived from the Sanskrit _hridaya_ but I'm not too sure what exactly the Sanskrit term means beside "heart"


 
Hridaya in Thai (pronounced Hreudai) means heart too. The best way to give an example of this is .... there is a convent church in Bangkok called the Sacret Heart or something but its Thai name is Phra Hridaya Convent
(Phra is an honorific article). 

 We also use the word Chitra (in Thai we pronounced it as Chit, the -ra is silent)  means heart but its closer to the word mano- in Sanskrit, as in mind. 

 The physical heart is called "huachai" in Thai.


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## panjabigator

Wow...in Panjabi, we have the word "chit" which is a hard word for me to define.  It is synonymous with the word "man" so I guess it would be "mind."


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## Pivra

In Thai mana- turns into mano- for sandhi combination

eg.

manobhab  มโนภาพ- mana มน + bhava ภาวะ= means something like ... you know lol... what bhava means in Sanskrit ... hard to explain for me. It's like what you imagine in your mind.

manodhamm  มโนธรรม - mana มน + dharma ธรรมะ = your inner dharma, I guess, hard to translate for me.


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## alby

Maja said:
			
		

> In Serbian heart is "srce" (Cyrillic: срце) medically and romantically!!!


 
Same in Croatia.

Nataša


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## Nineu

In basque we say "bihotz" medically and romantically aswell.


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## Lore bat

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> In sapnish you say Corazón if you want to refer to a feeling or to the biological part
> Te amo con todo el corazón.- I love oyu with all my heart
> Me falla el corazón.- My heart is not well
> 
> In Spanish centre is centro
> Centro-corazón I don't know if there is a simility


 
In Spanish "corazón" is used as "centre".  For example, "el corazón de la ciudad" (the centre of the city).  The example that the RAE gives is "corazón de la manzana".


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## anthodocheio

In Greece the word is καρδιά (cardiá) and has the same uses like those you have mention. 
The human heart and the romantic use and the center like mentioned before; the heart of the city or of the cabbage.


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## panjabigator

anubhav-experience


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## Aldin

In bosnian:
srce=medically and romanticly
srdašce(small heart)

in colloquial
srculence(small heart)


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## Pivra

panjabigator said:
			
		

> anubhav-experience


 
Anubhab in Thai means potential and its another word for power 

อนุภาพ I never quite understand the combination of this word since I was a kid. anu อนุ- to me it is a prefix for something small, and bhava ภาวะ- to me means the same as rupa-รูป as in picture (in Thai the word picture is rupbhab รูปภาพ) so I used to think it means a small picture or something like that back when I was like 6-7.


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## apmoy70

In Greek heart is *«καρδιά»* [kar.ðiˈʲa] (fem.) which is the Classical fem. noun *«καρδίᾱ» kărdíā* with synizesis (PIE *ḱēr(d)-/*ḱrd-(i)os- an old IE word for _heart_ retained in many languages: Hitt. kēr, Lat. cor, Skt. हृदय (hṛdaya), Proto-Germanic *hertô etc).
For the ancient Greeks «καρδία» was the seat of feeling and passion and the centre of the human mind.
For the Christian Greek thinkers of the late Hellenistic era, it was also the focal point of the human soul which when cleansed of sin is able to perceive God ("Theoria").
Jesus Christ in the early Christian literature often bears the epithet *«καρδιογνώστης» kărdĭŏgnṓstēs* (masc.) < «καρδία» + *«γνώστης» gnṓstēs* (masc.) --> _one who knows_ (from the v. *«γνωρίζω» gnōrízō*).
Centre in MoGr is *«κέντρο»* [ˈcen.drɔ] (neut.) < Classical neut. *«κέντρον» kéntrŏn* --> lit. _sting_, later also _(geometry) leg of a compass, centre of circle_ < Classical v. *«κεντέω/κεντῶ» kĕntéō* (uncontracted)/*kĕntô* (contracted) --> _to sting, goad_ (PIE *ḱent- _to sting_ cf Ltv. sīts, _hunting spear_, Proto-Germanic *handa- > OHG hantag, _pointed_; the Latin centrum is borrowed from Greek).
So, no relation between «καρδία» & «κέντρον».


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## Dymn

*Catalan*: _cor_ /kɔɾ/



Lore bat said:


> In Spanish "corazón" is used as "centre". For example, "el corazón de la ciudad" (the centre of the city). The example that the RAE gives is "corazón de la manzana".


I would venture this metaphor is nearly universal.


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## merquiades

In a metaphoric way, English often tends to use "core" rather than "heart" meaning "center"
The core of an apple/ a pear / a cabbage
The core of the earth
The core of the problem/ issue
The city core
The hard core
The core group, the core members


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## Welsh_Sion

Welsh:

calon (n.f.) [KAHlonn] 

- medically, romantically and the idea of courage/bravery 

We also use gwraidd (n.f.) [grayedh]

for the idea of being 'at the heart of sth' (lit. 'at the root of something')


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## Amirali1383koohi

In Persain we say : قلب ( Qalb )


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## Abu Rashid

In the Semitic languages the root is l-b-b and it means kernel/core.

In Arabic there's q-l-b which has the meaning of to fluctuate, flip-flop, as the heart beats. There is some suggestion this is a derived tri-consontal root from the above originally bi-consontal root with the addition of the initial q.



Amirali1383koohi said:


> In Persain we say : قلب ( Qalb )





ukuca said:


> Mostly, the word "Kalp" is used for centre of something


These are from the Arabic for heart.


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