[Lingtyp] Languages with connotations for 'left' and 'right'

[David Gil]

In much of Indonesia, the left hand is associated with bodily functions 
and thus has negative connotations: you're not supposed to eat with your 
left hand, or give something to somebody (or take something from them) 
with your left hand.  Also, in many parts of Indonesia, frames of 
reference are allocentric (e.g. north/south, seaward/landward, 
upriver/downriver).  And the two regions intersect in several places, 
such as — to cite just one example — East Java, which has all the 
left-hand taboos, and uses cardinal points for directions.  (A few days 
ago I was in a restaurant there, asking for the loo, and the man said Go 
through that door and then turn east.)


On 28/02/2019 19:22, Horia Calugareanu wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I am putting together a semantic typology in order to test the 
> following hypothesis:
>
> Across languages, the word for left (side/direction) (or some 
> derivation of it) tends to get a negative connotation, whereas the 
> word for ‘right’ gets a positive one, if the effect exists.
>
> Apart from Indo-European languages, where the effect is widely 
> present, this is a non-exhaustive list of languages which prove the 
> thesis: Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Fula, Golpa, Hungarian, 
> Malay, Turkish.
>
> Do you know of any other (preferably non-Indo-European) languages 
> which help confirm or infirm the generalisation?
>
> Finally, I am also researching whether the effect holds anyhow in 
> languages with allocentric frames of reference (i.e. uphill/downhill, 
> or north/south, instead of left/right). I haven’t been able to find 
> any due to scarce resources, but some examples of languages with 
> non-egocentric FoR are Tseltal, Haillom, Guugu Yimitirr, Kuuk Thaayorre.
>
> Thank you very much.
>
> Kind regards,
> Horia Călugăreanu
> University College London
>
>
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-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany

Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816

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