Embodiment in Cross-Linguistic Studies: The 'Hand'

The human hand lies at the center of action, perception, creativity, and social interaction, leaving deep traces in language and culture. This volume examines how the hand is conceptualized across a wide range of languages through metaphor, metonymy, grammar, and cultural models. Bringing together diachronic analyses, corpus-based studies, proverb traditions, and data from both well-documented and lesser-studied languages, it demonstrates how embodied experience shapes meanings related to agency, skill, morality, and cognition. Integrating insights from Cultural Linguistics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and embodiment research, this volume offers a comprehensive cross-linguistic account of how manual experience becomes embedded in linguistic structure and cultural knowledge.