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CGM talks about Heart Talk book **NEW**
the heart metaphor
‘Heart’
is a powerful and versatile word.
‘Heart’
is the organ that pumps blood through your body.
Yet it is not merely an organ that keeps us
alive but also a key metaphor in our language
that communicates our innermost feelings and
emotions.
We
use the word ‘heart’ to refer to
the most precious human emotion—love.
We love with our heart and have our heart broken
by love gone astray. We fight with our heart—our
nerve center. If we want to win, we can’t
lose heart—the core of our spirit, our
spunk. Heart is also the essence, the center—we
drive into a city center; we get into the heart
of the matter.
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A
courageous child or an athlete who gives it all usually
wins our heart, and we go to incredible length to win
someone’s heart. If not always, we often know
in our heart what we want and how we feel. In short,
the heart is ours to give, to keep, to lose, to win,
to share and to feel. In relationships, the language
of the heart is indispensable.
hearttalk:
thai language of the heart
 hearttalk
is a unique study of the Thai language of the heart.
If the English language of the heart is impressive,
the Thai language of the heart is exceedingly compelling,
encompassing and wonderfully intriguing.
The
word ‘heart’ (or jai,
as it is pronounced in Thai) is like stem cells of
the Thai language. It is difficult to imagine a conversation
in Thai where a jai
expression isn’t used. The Thai heart vocabulary—over
700 words and phrases that contain the word jai—covers
a vast range and fine shades of feelings, and emotional
and mental states of being.
Since
the Age of Reason, English speakers have become accustomed
to viewing ‘heart’ and ‘mind’
as different. A common perception in English is to
divide left-brain and right-brain ‘thinking’
as an explanation for conduct and vocabulary. In the
Thai language and culture, the consequences of the
post-Enlightenment tradition did not split mind and
heart into separate orbits of perception.
The
Thai word jai
means both ‘heart’ and ‘mind’.
Often, the heart metaphor is used interchangeably
to refer to the emotional and mental state of being.
At times the Thai jai is expressed as though
the heart and mind were one. (Learn more about
jai: the Thai language of the heart.)
hearttalk:
a key to unlock the thai heart
If
you have a heart connection with Thailand and her
people or if you are a student of Thai language, you
must have had a glimpse of the central importance
of jai
in the Thai culture. Even infrequent visitors of Thailand
may have heard basic jai
expressions such as jai
dii (good heart), dii
jai (glad heart), jai
rÓOn (hot heart), and jai
yen (cool heart).
Someone
who is good and kind-hearted is jai
dii (having a good heart), and you always
feel dii
jai (your heart is glad) to see the person.
If you are a kind of easy-going, cool-tempered person,
your Thai friends will say you are jai
yen (you have a cool heart), and they love
you for that. On the other hand, if you are hot-headed
and impatient, jai
rÓOn (having a hot heart), you will
not be received very favorably by Thais. When you
have steams coming out of your ears, you Thai friends
will tell you to be jai
yen yen (calm down, have a cool heart).
hearttalk
is an on-going book project that collects and presents
the Thai jai
vocabulary used in various situations in the Thai
contexts. It explores the basic Thai emotional expressions
such as these found in daily life, as well as other
more unique, interesting and puzzling expressions
that relate to the heart.
Christopher
G. Moore’s book hearttalk:
Say What You Feel in Thai is now in its third edition
(Heaven Lake Press, 2006), containing 743 jai
phrases—over 200 more than in the second edition
(Heaven Lake Press, 1998). hearttalk
explains the basic conditions of the Thai heart such
as ‘happy, sad, kind, cruel’, the more
vivid expressions such as ‘hard, soft, broad,
narrow, open, concealed, confident, doubting, sinking,
uplifting’, and the metaphors such as ‘bland,
salty, diamond, dog, monk, monster’ that are
often puzzling to non-native Thai speakers. (more
about the book: heart talk)
If
you are a student of Thai language, hearttalk
provides a learning tool that can help you not only
to understand and expand your vocabulary (see sample
jai
phrases), but also tap into the mainframe of the Thai
language. hearttalk
is a key to unlock the mysterious Thai language of
the heart; it equips you with insights into the linguistic
heartscape of the Thai language where ideas take shape,
feelings are formed, moods floated, and relationships
started or mended when broken, that will help you
in learning Thai and to
better express your feelings in different situations
in the way understood by Thai people.
Test
how much you know about the Thai heart.
Browse sample jai phrases from
the book.
Learn about the book: hearttalk.
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