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In many cultures across the world, love – particularly romantic love, with its broad emotional ramifications –, receives special treatment as a privileged theme in artistic forms, whether they involve language or not. Linguistically, in Australia love is typically associated with the heart, eyes and throat. Interestingly, jealousy, although closely acquainted with love in practice, displays its own body part associations, distinct from the trends observed for love.

I hold you in my heart

Love is very well represented in heart expressions. Some of them are clearly assigned to romantic love, including sexual attraction, and some heart expressions actually mean desire (or even want more generally) rather than romantic love. In line with the general association of the heart with sympathy, some expressions with the heart have a broader meaning of strong affection, i.e. attachment to others. Love associations also occur with other abdominal body parts and organs, such as the belly, liver and chest, yet such representations remain somewhat marginal as compared to the heart.

 Amongst heart expressions, some associate romantic love, or sexual desire, with heartbeat: in Yolngu Matha (Arnhem Land), d̪ukt̪ukthirr(i)/-tji means ‘want, desire, love’, where kt̪ukun means ‘beat, throb, palpitate (of heart)’. This could mirror a physiological response to desire. Some expressions with the chest evoke heavy or irregular breathing, another plausible physiological sign of strong attraction. Beyond these, a broad range of metaphors for love can be observed with the heart and other abdominal body parts. The body part can be depicted as open or touched for instance. Expressions representing loving someone as ‘having them in one’s heart (or belly, for instance)’ are not uncommon. This is illustrated in Gija (Kimberley), where ngarrkalen ‘to have someone in the heart’ means ‘to be in love’. Perhaps less expected – in comparison with English – are metaphors where the position of the heart – namely standing or being high – represents love. This occurs in Dalabon (Arnhem Land), where ngerh-waddi, literally ‘heart is high up’, means ‘feel strong affection’.

Feel it in the throat, say it with the eyes

With the eyes and the throat, love sits in clear association with desire and want, and romantic affection is overall less prevalent – contrary to the patterns observed above for the heart and other abdominal body parts. Metaphors involving the eyes can allude to behaviors, like in Wik Mungkan (Cape York), where mee'ang wakan, literally ‘follow from the eyes’, means ‘covet’. Amongst some Australian groups, it is culturally expected that lovers will communicate their desire for each other via eye contact. With the throat, a majority of expressions implicitly equate the throat with the emotion of desire or love itself, for instance in Arrernte (Central Australia), where ahentye-irreme, literally ‘become throat’, means ‘fall in love, start to want’. In some languages, the word for throat itself also means ‘love’.

Green with jealousy

In spite of the very clear relation between love and jealousy, these two emotions are not generally associated with the same body parts. The eyes are the only body parts that occur in jealousy expressions as well as in love or desire expressions. By contrast, jealousy is not well represented with the heart and throat, despite the strong associations of these body parts with love and desire. Instead, jealousy associates with the belly and liver, as well as (more marginally) with the head, forehead and nose, where love expressions are absent. In fact, jealousy appears to associate with the same body parts as anger, or sulkiness, rather than love.

Indeed, some of the metaphors for jealousy align with those for anger or sulkiness too. For instance, in Djinang (Yolngu, Arnhem Land), bumir ṭinydjigi ‘turning one’s forehead away’ – a metaphor observed with the nose for sulkiness – can mean ‘be jealous’. Jealousy is also represented as heat (e.g. of the belly), which is otherwise typical of anger. However, jealousy also attracts metaphors rarely found with other emotions, involving for instance colors (alem atherrk-atherrk ‘green liver’ in Alyawarr, Central Australia) or the body part being itchy (particularly the eyes, but also the skin).

References

Blythe, Joseph. Yuwurriyangem Kijam (our language Kija): A phrasebook of the Kija language. Halls Creek, W.A.: Kimberley Language Resource Centre, 2001.

Bowern, Claire and David Zorc. Yolngu Matha dictionary. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, AILEC 0778, n. d.

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

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

Kilham, Christine, Mabel Pamulkan, Jennifer Pootchemunka, and Topsy Wolmby. Wik Mungkan-English interactive dictionary. AuSIL Interactive Dictionary Series A-6, Australian Society for Indigenous Languages, 2017. Retrieved from http://ausil.org/Dictionary/Wik-Mungkan/lexicon/mainintro.html.

Ponsonnet, Maïa. The language of emotions: The case of Dalabon (Australia). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2014.

Waters, Bruce E. An interim Djinang dictionary. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1983.