Geografia semantică a descântecului la Sanda Golopenția

Based on Sanda Golopenția’s work, The Language of Romanian Enchantments [‘Limba descântecelor românești’], our attempt is to highlight the importance of the word in the ritual scenario of folk spells. The semantic richness as well as the craft of putting together and uttering spells and verbal formulas is witness to the popular belief in the magic force of the word. Polysemous items, verbal licenses, and an archaic lexical stock create a semantic geography in which things mix and separate, in which the magical and the ordinary intertwine and this world communicates with the unseen and the netherworld. Sanda Golopenția’s effort to clarify the terminology, to organize the entire semantic inventory undertaken by the Romanian researcher together with other researchers of the phenomenon, creates new paths for understanding and interpreting the spells. Thus, the pragmatic approach to spells becomes a rich source of understanding and interpretation of this cultural heritage.