The taste-names of primitive peoples / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Charles Samuel Myers
Date:
[1904?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The taste-names of primitive peoples / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    senses. Thus the Latin acidus is derived from aceo, the Sanskrit tikta from tij (both of which mean to sharpen), our own bitter from the Anglo-Saxon bitan = to bite, and tart perhaps from the Anglo-Saxon teran = to tear1. As for the derivation of dulcis and <y\v/cv<; and the relation of w/aos, amarus, and the Sanskrit amla to each other and to the Semitic equivalents for bitter, they are too uncertain for inclusion here. (4) The terms salt and sour are often confused in Europe. The peasants of Marchfeld, writes Mach2, describe salt as saner, “because the word salzig is not familiar to them.” The Lithuanian word for salt is suras (cf. Anglo-Saxon stir = sour). Kiesow3, in the course of his experiments upon children, found that almost without exception sour was called salt, and that a few persistently called bitter salt, until “ their judgments were corrected by repeated practice.” (5) I made a few experiments in a small village of Aberdeenshire and even among the adults I met with precisely the same inability to give a distinctive taste-name to the dilute solution of quinine as I had found in the Torres Straits: they would call it a ‘ sort of acid ’ or a ‘ sort of salt ’ taste. To some extent, doubtless, this confusion of bitter with sour and salt is attributable to the similar tactile impressions which tend to accompany all three taste-sensations, varying according to the taste and its intensity from mere astringency to acridity, burning, and even pain. But apart from this it is quite certain that most people have a very vague idea of the sensation to which the word bitter should be restricted. In bygone days the word was applied in England to pungent, biting and saline tastes4, and we still speak loosely of the ‘ bitter brine ’ and the ‘ Bitter Lakes.’ In Latin, the word amarus was similarly used. In Greek Trucpos was applied to sea-water, unripe fruit and to pungent flavours, while in Sanskrit the corresponding tikta is found used to describe the taste of a gourd, of mustard and other burning tastes. 1 W. W. Skeat, Principles of English Etymology, First Series, Oxford, 1892. 2 Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations (Eng. Trans.), Chicago, 1897, p. 42, footnote. 3 Philosopliische Studien, Leipzig, 1894, Bd. x. S. 348, 344. 4 The Century Dictionary, New York, 1889.
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