• Question: why is it called a heart

    Asked by anon-178900 to Jordan on 14 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Jordan Moir

      Jordan Moir answered on 14 Jun 2018:

      Good question and I had to do some research on this as you got me wondering. However I have not been able to find an answer to this it seems to have been called a heart from way way back, it is only in recent times that we have actually worked out how the heart functions etc as in ancient times they only knew that it beated and pumped blood round the body. Sorry couldn’t answer your question I was thinking it was maybe going to be latin or greek and translated to beating pump or something along they lines but there doesn’t seem to be any mention of this.

Comments

  • Photo: anon-178921

    anon-178921 commented on :

    that’s okay. at least you did your best anyway you did learn something knew you found out that in ancient times they are the ones who discovered the heart. everyone learns something new everyday. even scientists. GOOD LUCK ON THE VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Photo: anon-178921

    anon-178921 commented on :

    That’s okay I am glad that you liked the comment.(: (: (:

  • Photo: Lucy

    Lucy commented on :

    OK so it seems to come from old German ‘Herton’ or old saxon ‘herta’.
    As with so many words the ‘ea’ spelling seemed to kick in ca. 1500….

  • Photo: Samuel

    Samuel commented on :

    That is a great question I once wondered because latin languages have totally different words for the heart but one common root: in french it is “coeur”, in spanish it is “corazón”, in italian it is “cuore”, in portuguese it is “coração”. Even in non latin language, you find this “cor” root: “kokoro” in Japanese, “croi” in gaellic, … For latin languages, the word for heart all comes from the latin word for heart “cor, cordis”. You do find a bit of this in English with words like “cardinal” (the most important part of something, like the heart to the body), “cardiology” (the study of the heart), etc.
    As for the “heart” in English, I don’t know much and think Lucy is right.

  • Photo: Urslaan

    Urslaan commented on :

    Usually an interesting way to find the answer to such questions is to search for something called “etymology”. Etymology is the study of the root of words. So for the word “heart”, we get the following: “Old English heorte, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch hart and German Herz, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin cor, cord- and Greek kēr, kardia.”

    You can also see: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heart#Etymology