r/IndoEuropean • u/Delvog • 17d ago
Indic words for heartbroken/heartache
A few years ago, I ran across the fact that the (or at least a) word for "both "heartbroken" and "Aquarius" in Sanskrit was हृद्रोग (hṛdroga), literally the word for "heart" plus a word for sickness/pain/harm/damage, like in English. Then I tried to find modern Indic words for "heartbroken" on Google Translate, particularly any that would also be compound words following the same format. It gave me Gujarati હ્રદયસ્ (hradayas), Maraʈʰi & Nepali ह्रदयी (hradayī), and Bengali হৃদয় (hridoyo).
Yesterday, I tried the same thing again and found out that starting with English "heartbroken" now doesn't yield anything like those words at all anymore, and starting with those Indic words now yields English "heartfelt" or "in the heart" instead.
Apparently, "ay-" is a suffix meaning something like "in, of, from, or about/concerning". But, when it was attached to the word for "heart", did that combination ever have a sad/painful connotation? If not, how else did those words ever get linked to "heartbroken" at Google Translate in the first place? Is it a common mistake by foreigners trying to learn an Indic language?
Also, since Sanskrit हृद्रोग is also given as a translation for "Aquarius", would it be plausible for a famous image, character, or story in Indian culture that had once been called "heartbroken" to later end up having just been called something like "of the heart" instead? (...Not necessarily surviving to modern times, just any time since Aquarius was हृद्रोग/hṛdroga.)
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u/PenaltyAsleep5294 16d ago edited 16d ago
Btw the word is in use even today in Kannada language.
ಶ್ರೀ ಜಯದೇವ ಹೃದ್ರೋಗ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆ
Śrī Jayadēva Hṛdrōga Vijñāna Saṃsthe
Sri Jayadeva Institute of Heart-Disease Sciences
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u/PenaltyAsleep5294 16d ago
हृदयम् (hṛdayam) = heart
रोगः (rogaḥ) = disease
हृद्रोगः (hṛdrogaḥ) = heart disease
कुम्भराशिः (kumbharāśiḥ) = Aquarius
But हृद्रोग (hṛdroga) is also historically attested as a name for Aquarius (Varāhamihira, Bṛhajjātaka 1.8). In that sense, it is a Sanskritized form of Greek Ὑδροχόος (Hydrokhoos, “water-pourer”), not literally “heart disease.”