1. Home
  2. Issues
2020
No. Nr (13), Oral History - Emotions 2019
No. (12), Public History 2018
No. (11), Cultural History of Knowledge 2017
No. (10), Anthropology – Folklore – History 2016
No. (9), Cultural Heritage 2015
No. (8), Anthropology and History 2014
No. 1 (6), Semiotics of History No. 2 (7), History and Gender 2013
No. 1 (4), On Representation No. 2 (5), Genealogies of Culture 2012
No. 2 (3), Readings of the Past No. 1 (2), Anthropology / history of the Contemporary World 2011
No. 1-2 (1), Preliminaries
ISSN 2084–1418
The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2017, No. (10), Anthropology – Folklore – History

Katarzyna Tilgner
The Taboo Relating to Soul and Body Names in Notions of Ancient Italic Peoples

PDF version
Keywords: taboo in w lexis, Latin anatomic names, Indo-European images of body

Abstract:
The article discusses Latin names of the body parts that could be included a taboo ban. This refers to the places such as head, heart, liver, or substances as blood, tears, sperm, which were considered to be the centres of the soul or the magic power. In the opinion of the linguist Franz Specht there were some Indo-European names of body parts that contained the u vowel. That phoneme was thought to be a sign identifying the anatomical names connected to the sacred sphere. The article discusses the results of the research verifying that view basing on the Old-Italic material. It turns out that, for the ancient Italic peoples, only some names of body parts were of magic significance, crucial from the point of view of oblational and divination practices.

About Author:
KATARZYNA TILGNER - doctor of philological sciences in Indo-European and Latin linguistics, lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages Studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice. E-mail: katarzyna.tilgner[at]us.edu.pl

References
Go back