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

[Alex Francois]

dear Horia,

Mwotlap, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu, has a similar profile to Pattie's
example of Hup.

It employs a geocentric system for space reference [cf. paper1
<https://www.academia.edu/1330234/>, paper2
<https://www.academia.edu/14581844/>] and never uses *left *and *right*, or
anthropocentric coordinates, for spatial orientation.  These terms (*m*[*ō*]
*tō* 'right side', *g*[*a*]*la* 'left side') are essentially body parts,
and nothing else.

On the other hand (!), Mwotlap associates "right" hand with skill:

   - *m*[*ō*]*tō*  (n.) the right hand side
   - *m*[*ō*]*tōtō*  (adj.) skilful, dextrous    [= reduplication of
   *m[ō]tō*]

best
Alex
------------------------------

Alex François

LaTTiCe <http://lattice.cnrs.fr/Francois-Alexandre?lang=en> — CNRS–
<http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>
Academia page <https://cnrs.academia.edu/AlexFran%C3%A7ois> – Personal
homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
------------------------------

On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 15:59, Smith-Dennis, Ellen <
E.Smith-Dennis at warwick.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear Alec,
>
> It's interesting that you used the term * gauche *in your email, since
> that means 'left' in French!
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Ellen
>
> *Dr. Ellen Smith-Dennis, FHEA*
> Assistant Professor
> Centre for Applied Linguistics, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4
> 7AL
> Email: E.Smith-Dennis at warwick.ac.uk OR E.L.Smith at uon.edu.au
> Tel: (+44) (0)24 76 575912 (internal: 75912)
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Alexander Coupe <ARCoupe at ntu.edu.sg>
> *Sent:* 28 February 2019 14:08:07
> *To:* Horia Calugareanu; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Languages with connotations for 'left' and
> 'right'
>
>
> Dear Horia,
>
>
>
> There is likely to be a biological reason for this: approximately 90% of
> the world’s human population is right-hand dominant. So right-handedness is
> egocentrically assumed to be “normal” by the right-handed majority
> regardless of one’s language, and left-handedness is viewed as gauche.
>
>
>
> Metaphor may be responsible for particular connotations associated with
> direction, e.g. up is positive, down/south is negative. You might also
> expand your investigation to look at deictic verbs of motion ‘go’ and
> ‘come’, which correlate with movement into a marked state, and conversely,
> return to an unmarked state in English and Thai, and possibly in other
> languages*. *A possible paper of interest is:
>
>
>
> Gandour, Jack. 1978. ‘On the deictic uses of verbs of motion ‘come’ and
> ‘go’ in Thai. *Anthropological Linguistics*, v20 n9 p381-94.
>
>
>
> Alec
>
>
>
> Assoc. Prof. Alexander R. Coupe, Ph.D. | Linguistics and Multilingual
> Studies | Nanyang Technological University
>
> School of Humanities 03-56, 48 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 639818
>
> Tel: (65) 6592-1567 GMT+8h | Fax: (65) 6795-6525 | Email:
> arcoupe at ntu.edu.sg  | Web: http://nanyang.academia.edu/AlexanderCoupe
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Horia Calugareanu <horia.calugareanu at gmail.com>
> *Date: *Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 8:23 PM
> *To: *"lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org" <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *[Lingtyp] Languages with connotations for 'left' and 'right'
>
>
>
> 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
> ------------------------------
> CONFIDENTIALITY: This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and
> may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended
> recipient, please delete it, notify us and do not copy, use, or disclose
> its contents.
> Towards a sustainable earth: Print only when necessary. Thank you.
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20190228/667852b0/attachment.htm>