Magic Vocabulary: Amulets Cover Image

Vocabular magic: amuletele
Magic Vocabulary: Amulets

Author(s): Sanda Golopenţia
Subject(s): Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Editura Palatul Culturii
Keywords: advar; baier; fetish; luck; palindrome; cure letter; talisman

Summary/Abstract: Undertaking this scientific task, the author turns to the miraculous fountain of charms, an inexhaustible source for linguists in pursuit of the archaic way of using the Romanian language. Terms related to the semantic field of amulets are considered. Each word is separately analyzed within the context of an adequate bibliography, searching origins and semantics. The first semantic meaning is focused on the idea of writing – in Hebraic, Greek, Slavic, Latin, possibly with numbers -, the second one is related to the idea of contiguity with the human body they are attached to, the third to the magic target: luck or cure. A special interest is generated not only by the magic of writing itself (numbers, words, texts), but also by the heuristic and metalinguistic function of some terms rarely used in the rural area

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 14
  • Page Range: 167-190
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: Romanian
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