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In the micro-area in Bavaria, Germany, described in this attached old paper of a Konstanz colleague of mine (it’s in German, ‘rear’ is in Section 5), ‘rear, behind’ (German hinten) are godforsaken places, at some distance from the deictic centre, in the north
and north-east. Where I come from, a town at the northernmost point of the river Danube, also in Bavaria, ‘rear, behind’ is east, be it near (such as the Bavarian Forest at the border to Czechia, once forming the Iron Curtain, then the end of the world,
from the local point of view) or far (such as Russia, Siberia, East Asia in general). </div>
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It seems to me that the use of such behind/front directional deictics can be very micro-areal. The concept of “hinterland”, area under the influence of a mercantile/cultural/political centre, plays an crucial role, overriding all other relevant factors for
the choice of a deictic (down-river, up-river etc.), in what is imagined as being behind and in front. Presumably this concept is not as idiosyncratic as the provenance of the term might suggest. </div>
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The etymologies of cardinal direction terms are a different matter from live directional deictics; for the former, Bavarians Ost < dawn, sun-rise, West < evening, sun-down, like for many other Indo-Europeans/Indo-Germanics.
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<div class="">Frans<br class="">
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<div class="">On 26. Dec 2020, at 08:32, Jonathon Lum <<a href="mailto:lum.jonathon@gmail.com" class="">lum.jonathon@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="">Dear Ian (and all),
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<div class="">A highly relevant paper on this topic (though not specifically on Northeast Asia) is:</div>
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<div class=""><b class="">Brown, Cecil H. (1983). 'Where do cardinal direction terms come from?'.
<i class="">Anthropological Linguistics. </i>Vol. 25 (2). Pp. 121-161.</b></div>
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<div class="">It appears that where cardinal direction terms are related to terms for 'front', 'behind', 'left' or 'right' at all, the most common situation involves an eastward orientation, i.e. 'east' corresponds with 'front', or 'west' with 'behind', or
'north' with 'left', or 'south' with 'right', or more than one of these correspondences. This is the kind of system described by various others in the thread, and appears to relate to the salience and cultural significance of the rising sun. However, other
canonical postures are possible, including the one you describe for Mainland Northeast Asia, but also others (e.g. Hawaiian apparently has a right/north and left/south association). It would be interesting to know whether the relationship between 'back' and
'north' is mainly restricted to languages spoken in the far north of the globe.</div>
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<div class="">Best,</div>
<div class="">Jonathon</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="x_gmail_attr">On Sat, 26 Dec 2020 at 11:55, Siva Kalyan <<a href="mailto:sivakalyan.princeton@gmail.com" class="">sivakalyan.princeton@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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<div class="" style="">Sanskrit likewise has <i class="">dakṣiṇa</i><span class="" style="font-style:normal"> (> "Deccan [plateau]"), which means both "right" and "south". And I just learned that
</span><i class="">teṉ</i><span class="" style="font-style:normal"> in Tamil has the same polysemy. The terms for "north" do not mean "left" in either of these languages, though.</span>
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<div class="">Siva<br class="">
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<div class="">On 25 Dec 2020, at 9:18 pm, David Gil <<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank" class="">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>> wrote:</div>
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<p class="">Dear Ian (and all),</p>
<p class="">In the Middle East, forward/backwards maps on to the cardinal points at a 90º rotation to what you describe for NE Asia. In (poetic) Hebrew, E is 'forward', while in Arabic, N is 'left', while 'Yemen' is, etymologically, 'right' — in all three
cases, you're facing east.</p>
<p class="">One might speculate that both systems are sun-oriented, the Middle-Eastern system towards the highly-valued rising sun, and the NE Asian system towards the location of the sun at midday.</p>
<p class="">David</p>
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<div class="">On 25/12/2020 08:29, JOO, Ian [Student] wrote:<br class="">
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<div dir="auto" class="">Dear typologists,<br class="">
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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 class="">not</strong> Japan, Russian Far East, or Sout<span class="">hern/Western China).</span><br class="">
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 class="">
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(Note that, in Mandarin, <em class="">bei</em> 北 `North’ and <em class="">bei </em>背 `back; backside’ differ only in tone, and are etymologically related)<br class="">
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" class="">Ian</div>
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<pre cols="72" class="">--
David Gil
Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank" class="">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
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