One More Time about the Heart: Naive Anatomy in the Kazakh Language in Comparison with Russian and English

Abstract

The naive anatomy of the Kazakhs, the nomadic Turkic people, has evolved over millennia and is based on knowledge about the anatomy of animals. Various mental properties, emotions are attributed to the internal organs of a person, which is reflected in the metaphorical and metonymic use of their names and idioms. The article examines the somatism jurek (‘heart’) in the Kazakh naive anatomy which denotes the second most important internal organ, giving way to the primacy of the liver, the most important organ from the point of view of nomads. The carriers of Russian-speaking and English-speaking cultures consider the heart as the most important internal organ. The complex of meaningful features is determined, showing the universality of the conceptualization of jurek/ serdtse/ heart, while a number of descriptors demonstrate the peculiarity of the naive-anatomical views of the Kazakhs.