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Compared to the belly or the heart, a smaller proportion of Australian languages – perhaps one in ten or slightly more – use words for ‘liver’ in emotional expressions. We found instances of this in South Australia, Central Australia, Cape York, Queensland and New South Wales. Top End languages do not seem to use the liver at all. The particular emotions described by liver expressions resemble those described using the belly, albeit with significant regional variation. In South Australia, the liver often represents empathetic emotions like affection, compassion and grief. In Central Australia, on the other hand, many liver expressions map onto negative emotions like anger and jealousy. The liver also associates more marginally with a broad range of emotions such as desire, fear, surprise and self-control.

A different type of association?

While emotional expressions with other abdominal parts like ‘belly’ or ‘heart’ are likely inspired by some physical association between these body parts and emotions – for instance a tensed belly for anxiety, a faster heartbeat for fear – it is possible that ‘liver’ expressions emerged for different reasons. Indeed, the liver does not really associate physiologically with emotional states, since we can’t really feel sensations related to our livers. Instead, it is possible that, in some languages at least, liver expressions originated in belly expressions, where the word for ‘belly’ has evolved to mean ‘liver’. In all languages around the world, words change meaning all the time, and it is very common for a word that refers to one given body part to shift its meaning to a neighbouring body part. In some Central Australian languages, for example, the word alem(e) has shifted from ‘belly’ to ‘liver’ across time. Consider the Arrernte language, which has several emotional expressions using the liver, designated by the word aleme. It is possible that these expressions developed when the word aleme meant ‘belly’ and were inspired by physical associations between the belly and emotions. Later, the Arrernte word aleme may have come to mean ‘liver’, creating a linguistic association between the liver and emotions. All languages in the world are evolving all the time, and in this way linguistic changes can produce new metaphors.

External aspects of the liver

Once a linguistic association between the liver and emotions is established, speakers are free to elaborate further metaphors on this basis. For example, some liver expressions refer to colors, including green for jealousy in Alyawarr, Central Australia (alem atherrk-atherrk ‘liver green-green’, ‘jealous’) or red for desire. Such expressions are unlikely to be derived from belly expressions, where color metaphors are rare. Instead, they may be inspired by observable aspects of liver itself, which can look bright red when butchering game or green(ish) when cooked or left after a few days. We can imagine that speakers had come to associate the liver with emotions because there existed some emotional expressions involving the liver, thanks to the shifts in meaning described above. With this background, the colors they saw looking at liver may have inspired further metaphors. In a few other languages of the world, the association of the liver with emotions relates to divination practices based on the observation of the liver as a detached body part. All in all, it is likely that ‘liver’ gained an association with emotion via words that used to mean ‘belly’, and, in turn, the observation of liver from game inspired other metaphors, such as color metaphors.

Other metaphors

Apart from these color metaphors, liver expressions display the same sorts of images as other abdominal organs like the belly or the heart. For instance, the liver can be represented as the body part that feels the emotion, as in Gamilaraay (New South Wales) gana walingay ‘liver sad’, meaning ‘lonely, sulky’. It can also be described as crying or shaking, with reference to negative emotions, and a hot liver represents anger. The liver can be hard or soft, where softness relates to compassion and hardness to emotional strength; it can be open, as in Arrernte (Central Australia) aleme altywere ‘liver open’, ‘be friendly, like someone’; or damaged, for instance where a bursting belly represents grief . One difference with other abdominal body parts is that expressions like ‘liver good’ or ‘liver bad’ are not very frequent.

References

Ash, Anna, John Giacon and Amanda Lissarrague. Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay, & Yuwaalayaay dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD Press, 2003.

Goddard, Cliff. Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara to English dictionary (2nd edition). Alice Springs: IAD Press, 1992.

Green, Jennifer, David Blackman and David Moore. Alyawarr to English dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD Press, 2019.

Hansen, Kenneth C. and Lesley Hansen. Pintupi dictionary. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1974.

Henderson, John and Veronica Dobson. Eastern and Central Arrernte to English dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD Press, 1994.