Publikace na Filozofická fakulta |
2021
Abstrakt
Breathing, as the essential force of our lives, is expressed in Baltic and Slavic languages by lexemes often etymologically or semantically linked to words for "soul". Both Lithuanian and Latvian languages have a larger amount of denotations for soul, and in their etymological nests, especially with respect to common Baltic-Slavic tradition, we can search for those that could also include the meaning of "breath, breathing".
By analysing the existing etymological findings from a semantic point of view, i.e. using a broader range of language and folklore material, the paper identifies lexemes with mythological connotations, which are related to the breath in a semantic sense (soul) but also in an etymological sense (spirit, dvēsele, dūšia).