The concept of ―embryo‖ between the Indo-European and the Semitic worlds: a multilinguistic and multicultural analysis.

The concept of ―embryo‖ between the Indo-European and the Semitic worlds: a multilinguistic and multicultural analysis.

Bertonazzi, Francesca

The present contribution aims to a multilinguistic and multicultural analysis of the concept of ‗embryo‘ both in Indo-European and Semitic worlds. The question about embryo‘s status is strictly linked to the present ethic and medical scientific environments. Leaving out bioethical problems, this contribution sketches the main features of the concept of embryo mostly from a linguistic point of view and then tries to value some cultural consequences. Starting with the presentation of the Garbhopaniṣ ad, an ancient Sanskrit text, composed between the 7th and 4th centuries BC, that illustrated the development of embryo from the fertilization and the very first weeks of pregnancy to birth, through a representative selection of Greek and Latin Authors who explicate embryo‘s nature, its features, its development and the moment in which a foetus can be considered a human being (the exempla are selected from both medical and philosophical classical texts), we close with a few words about the ―embryo‖ in semitic languages and cultures. The analysis is about linguistics (with a close terminological examination) and cultural studies.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

70