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<div dir="auto">Dear typologists,<br>
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I am currently working on a doctoral project focusing on the areality of Mainland Northeast Asia (Korea, Mongolia, Northeast China, but <strong>not</strong> Japan, Russian Far East, or Sout<span style="color:var(--textColor);background-color:var(--backgroundColor)">hern/Western
China).</span><br>
One of the interesting possible areal features of MNEA languages (Tuvan, Manchu, Korean, Mandarin, and Mongolian) that I’ve found is that these five languages, except Mandarin, can express “North” with the word meaning “rear; back; behind”. Please see the map:<br>
<img height="auto" src="cid:82A3F024701F4B0692CCA7C2CAE5EA7F"><br>
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(Note that, in Mandarin, <em>bei</em> 北 `North’ and <em>bei </em>背 `back; backside’ differ only in tone, and are etymologically related)<br>
I’m curious if this polysemy exists in other areas as well, and if so, what would be the motivation? (Historical? Cultural? Religious? Cognitive? Climatic?)</div>
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Regards,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
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