O'Tink, what a delightful article you found! I especially enjoyed the renderings "Swedish Jungfru Marias nyckelpiga (‘Our Lady’s servant in charge of the keys’), and Russian bozhia korovka (‘God's little cow’)."
Then at first I thought the author did not follow up on her promise to explore the idea of "Why do butterflies generate such diversity? Do they have a particular impact on our basic cognitive creative processes...?"
...but she rather did! Saying, "It was suggested that butterflies are distinguished as 'unique aesthetic creations of language,' as opposed to, e.g., cats and dogs, because their singularly inspirational poetic nature demands special linguistic treatment. In other words, 'the concept/image of butterfly is a uniquely powerful one in the group minds of the world's cultures, with its somewhat unpromising start as a caterpillar followed by its dazzling finish of visual symmetry, coupled with the motional unforgettability of the butterfly's flipzagging path through our consciousnesses; butterflies are such perfect symbols of transformation that almost no culture is content to accept another's poetry for this mythic creature.' This is why 'each language finds its own verbal beauty to celebrate the stunning salience of the butterfly's being.' "
However, then she proceeds to bring the whole thing down a bit; "As romantic as this explanation sounds, it does seem far-fetched: there are many other prominent poetic images the generic terms of which are perfectly recognizable, even in unrelated languages. The butterfly’s unicity in our linguistic cognition thus remains as 'mysterious as the creature itself'."
Anyhow, thoroughly delightful, thank you!!!