Heart or the heart???

Well, this question is a follow up of the archived post posing a query of "Why does heart=love". The question and subsequent answer discuss the historical development of the heart/love/soul/being relationship. Cecil referenced many old texts such as the bible, along with other Eastern cultural references. This got me to thinking. While the Egyptions were known as pioneers in the anatomy/physiology field, did they name the heart first as the organ, or was the heart a label for the center of emotion. Now I realize this may be a bit convuluted and I may not be as succinct as one would like, so I'll carry on. I understand that all your references cross several languages and likely are lost in several translations and interperetations, but was the heart named for the emotional concept and the figurative idea of its essence, or was it understood as a organ asociated with these functions. A subset of the inquiry is do other languages, current and archaic, refer to the organ and the emotional feelings using the term as English does. My gut instinct tells me that texts such as the bible, and early eastern texts were written before the understanding of the body's being an amalgam of organs and systems. This being said, how can you refer to their use of the word heart in conjunction of the equation of heart=love. It seems like you proving the age old concept of their relation, using expamles of text written before one part was concieved. Intuitively, this bothers me, while I conceed I may be a bit unschooled in the timeline of anatomic discovery. Cecil, please set this straight.

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The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw...

Omniscient; BAG

OOOPPPS.

It should read

"A subset of the inquiry is do other languages, current and archaic, refer to the organ and the emotional feelings using the same term as English does."

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The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw...

Omniscient; BAG

I'm guessing that the human race did have an understanding of the heart as an organ from a) hunting, b) killing each other, long before the written languages came about, and probably long before they settled down to articulate concepts like love and kindness.

Also, I'm not a language expert, but the Vietnamese equivalent of a "good heart" (kind) is "good stomach" or "good instestines". That may be true of other languages as well.

Chi la hai dong cua toi thoi!



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