"Imagination" Etymology in Different Languages

[ol bofosh]

Like the book etymology thread, but looking at various words for "imagination" in different languages.

Can't find the etymology, but following the wiktionary links I found this:

PIE: *aim-, *aiem-, *iem- (“similarity, resemblance”)
Latin: imāgō (“a copy, likeness, image”)

[Astraios]

Hebrew dimyon, and the derived verb ledamyen 'imagine', is from the root d-m-y whose meaning is approximately appearance, looks; similarity, likeness.

[clawgrip]

Japanese 想像 sōzō: 想 sō "thought; idea; concept" and 像 zō "image; picture; figure"

[Qwynegold]

Finnish: mielikuvitus (mind illumination), from mieli (mind) and kuva (picture). In Swedish it's fantasi, but you'll have to search for the etymology yourself. :/

EDIT: The verb imagine is föreställa sig in Swedish, literally fore-stand/put oneself. But its noun form föreställning means preconception (or show if the verb is non-reflexive).

[Thry]

Isn't Swedish/Norwegian fantasi obviously from Eng. fantasy (fantasia, fantastic, phantasm...) or some other way from Greek phain- "appearance, manifestation" [cf. phenotype], or it's just a look-alike?

more accurately:

From Old French fantasie (“fantasy”), from Latin phantasia (“imagination”), from Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasia, “apparition”), from φαντάζω (phantazō, “to show at the eye or the mind”), from φαίνω (phainō, “to show in light”), from the same root as ϕῶς (phôs, “light”).

[Salmoneus]

I would warn that "imagination" may be quite a culture-specific concept, so a proper 'translation' of the word into other languages may be lacking.
Even in English, aiui, the word used to meant visual mental representation - all the other stuff about having pictures of things that don't exist, let alone non-pictorial uses for suspicions, believes, flights of fancy etc, let alone the broader meanings of intellectual creativity and innovation, are later additions.

[----]

The Yoruba word is ìrò; the root rò itself means 'to plague, to bother'.

Do you guys think this is going to be a big enough trend to make a thread for all of these etymology q's?

[ná'oolkiłí]

Georgian has წარმოსახვა c̣armosaxva, which is also a verbal noun that means "depicting, depiction". The morpheme break down:

• წარ- c̣ar- — the archaic version of the preverb წა c̣a, which in directional contexts means 'setting off'
  მო- mo- — another preverb; indicates direction towards the speaker
  სახ sax — the root; truncated from სახე saxe 'face, form, image'
  -[ა]ვ -[a]v — the theme suffix; the vowel syncopates because of the following suffix
  -ა -a — verbal noun suffix

[ObsequiousNewt]

We ought to have one dedicated thread for these. I'm surprised one doesn't exist already.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Vuvuzuela!

[Grunnen]

Dutch: verbeelding

beeld: image, statue

ver- : verbal prefix indicating a change in state

verbeelden: verb meaning "to imagine, depict, portray"

-ing: nominalising suffix (exactly like in English)

verbeelding: imagination, portrayal

[Pole, the]

Polish
· wyobraźnia (imagination), wyobrażać (sobie) (imagine) ← wy- (out), obraz (image) ← iirc. obraz (appr. what is cut around) ← ob- (around), raz (strike, cut)

[Miekko]

Finnish: mielikuvitus (mind illumination), from mieli (mind) and kuva (picture). In Swedish it's fantasi, but you'll have to search for the etymology yourself. :/

EDIT: The verb imagine is föreställa sig in Swedish, literally fore-stand/put oneself. But its noun form föreställning means preconception (or show if the verb is non-reflexive).

The 'sig' in föreställa sig is an indirect object, btw. Important distinction.

[Ser]

Yes, that semantic extension suddenly makes more sense to me.

[hwhatting]

EDIT: The verb imagine is föreställa sig in Swedish, literally fore-stand/put oneself. But its noun form föreställning means preconception (or show if the verb is non-reflexive).

Swedish is probably a calque of German sich vorstellen "imagine (and also "introduce oneself"); the noun Vorstellung can mean "imagination", but mostly means the imagined object ("idea") and also "presentation, performance". "Imagination" is rendered by Vorstellungskraft (lit."imagining power") or Fantasie (obviously the Greek loanword).

[Salmoneus]

EDIT: The verb imagine is föreställa sig in Swedish, literally fore-stand/put oneself. But its noun form föreställning means preconception (or show if the verb is non-reflexive).

Swedish is probably a calque of German sich vorstellen "imagine (and also "introduce oneself"); the noun Vorstellung can mean "imagination", but mostly means the imagined object ("idea") and also "presentation, performance". "Imagination" is rendered by Vorstellungskraft (lit."imagining power") or Fantasie (obviously the Greek loanword).

(Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung was early on translated 'The world as will and idea', but is now more commonly found as 'the world as will and representation'. This may be complicated by the way that Schopenhauer tries to distinguish 'Vorstellung' from 'Idee')

[Qwynegold]

Isn't Swedish/Norwegian fantasi obviously from Eng. fantasy (fantasia, fantastic, phantasm...) or some other way from Greek phain- "appearance, manifestation" [cf. phenotype], or it's just a look-alike?

more accurately:

From Old French fantasie (“fantasy”), from Latin phantasia (“imagination”), from Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasia, “apparition”), from φαντάζω (phantazō, “to show at the eye or the mind”), from φαίνω (phainō, “to show in light”), from the same root as ϕῶς (phôs, “light”).

Well, it's obviously a cognate to fantasy, but I don't know which way it got into Swedish.

[Arzena]

Arabic takhayyul is the masdar of the wazn V form of khāla (kh-y-l). According to the online dictionary Al-Maany, khāla translates as 'deem, consider, believe' and takhayyala 'sway, strut, praise oneself'. The adjective 'imaginary' is derived from the fi3āl wazn and the nisba suffix: khiyāliyy

[linguoboy]

Arabic takhayyul is the masdar of the wazn V form of khāla (kh-y-l). According to the online dictionary Al-Maany, khāla translates as 'deem, consider, believe' and takhayyala 'sway, strut, praise oneself'. The adjective 'imaginary' is derived from the fi3āl wazn and the nisba suffix: khiyāliyy

Turkish makes use of the same root (probably via Persian خیال). Hayal can mean both "imagined thing" and "imagination" more generally (e.g. hayal mahsulü "figment of the imagination", hayale kapılmak "let one's imagination run wild"). "Imagination" in the sense of "imaginative power" is also expressed hayal gücü. (Güç means "force" or "power".)

[Hakaku]

Okinawan has:

かんげー【考げー】 kangee
"thought; idea; conception; hope; resolution; imagination; etc."
[nominal form of the verb kangeein "to think; to consider; etc."]

ちむうみー【肝思みー・心思みー】 chimu'umii
"imagination; fancy"
[compound of liver/heart + thought]

Which I suppose are relatively close to Japanese かんがえ【考え】 kangae and おもい【思い】omoi , which can also bear the meaning of "imagination" (among other things).

French uses the same word as English: "imagination".

Plains Cree has ᒫᒥᑐᓀᔨᐦᑕᒧᐃᐧᐣ mâmitoneyihtamowin "imagination; the act of thinking"
(roughly: mâmitoneyihta - "to think; to ponder", mowin - nominalizer)

[Ser]

Arabic takhayyul is the masdar verbal noun of the wazn derivational transfix V form of khāla (kh-y-l). According to the online dictionary Al-Maany, khāla translates as 'deem, consider, believe' and takhayyala 'sway, strut, praise oneself'. The adjective 'imaginary' is derived from the fi3āl wazn transfix and the nisba suffix -iyy suffix that (among other things) very productively derives adjectives from nouns: khiyāliyy

You could try using somewhat more pan-linguistic terminology instead of downright jargon from Arabic linguistics, since not all of us know something about Arabic linguistics. Hell, you could even call the verbal noun a "gerund"...

[Yng]

(s)he(????) also missed out on خيال xayāl which is a very common word for 'imagination', and which is where خيالي xayālī is derived from in the first place. It looks like xayāl originally meant 'spectre, ghost' and from there 'thing imagined'. تخيّل taxayyul is the gerund of taxayyala 'to imagine; to appear as the object of an imagination, to seem'. This lines up nicely with another expression خُيّل إلى xuyyila ʾilā, which means 'imagine, seem' and is the passive of a verb meaning 'make someone think that'. tafaʿʿala) is often a reciprocal/middle voice version of faʿʿala (the ablaut exhibited by xuyyila ʾilā), which makes sense given that passive and middle voice often overlap enormously.