Dear Organlearners,
Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net>
>You've hit the nail on the head, At. (By the way, what is
> the corresponding figure of speech in Afrikaans?)
Greetings Fred,
Hit the nail on the head.
[Slaan die spyker op die kop]
It is interesting that Afrikaans has exactly the same idomatic expression
as English. Why?
Since the beginning of this century (after the terrbile Anglo-Boer war)
many Afrikaans purists (mostly for political reasons) tried to free
Afrikaans from English influences called "anglisismes" (anglosisms). This
expression would probably also have hit the dust, were it not for the fact
that it also occurs in Dutch.
This idomatic expression is very old, going back 500 years ago to the
Hansa league. This league was formed between the seafaring peoples along
the North Sea -- not only the Hollanders, but also the Frisians, (Low)
Saxons (Nieder Sachsisch), etc. The people were able to construct bigger
and stronger ships because of using copper nails to join the wood, rather
using wood joints. The (Low) Saxon word for nail was "spiker", a word
which we still find today in English via Anglo-Saxon, namely spike. This
"spiker" and the Dutch word "spijker" and Afrikaans word "spyker" are the
same thing.
Even the Afrikaans word "kop" for head (German "Kopf") can still be found
in English via the Anglo-Saxon "copp", namely "cop". Except once in a very
old poem, I have never seen the word "cop" used elsewhere in recent
English literature. For the English word cup we use the diminutive word
"koppie". Even 'n big cup is never called a "kop". The origin of cup is
the Latin word "cupa" (tub).
The English word head comes form the Anglo-Saxon "heafod". Its remains are
"hoofd" in Dutch and "hoof" in Afrikaans. Only a human head is called a
"hoof". The word "hoof", like the English "head", is also used for an
overseer. In the case of a school the "head" is called a principal, but in
Afrikaans "head" is prefered over "prinsipaal". Obviously, calling a
principal a head is just another case which we can use to illustrate
anthropomorphism. But then, even St Paul would have been guilty of
anthropomorphism because he often used the figurative speach that Jesus
Christ is the head ("cephalos") of the the church.
I gave a rather lengthy discussion on this idiomatic expression to
illustrate once again that we are all part of one great family. I have
merely showed the "germanic" relationships. The university's library is
closed, otherwise I would have also tried to follow up at the least the
Indian branches to illustrate the Indogermanic relationship. Eventually I
would have tried to show how the essentialities sureness, wholeness and
otherness operate very prominently in human languages.
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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