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

Thu Feb 28 17:35:20 UTC 2019

In Nuuchahnulth (South Wakashan), right side is *ʔapcaas* or *čimcaas*,
which derives from *ʔap-* meaning 'straight' or 'correct', and *čim-*
which seems to be an old root for 'correct' or 'good'. Left side is *qacaas*,
which is not decomposable to my knowledge and is not (again, to my
knowledge) associated with anything sinister or wrong.

David Inman
PhD Candidate
University of Washington Linguistics

On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 7:33 AM Alex Francois <francois at vjf.cnrs.fr> wrote:

> 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
>>
> _______________________________________________
> 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/20190228/1931dce9/attachment.htm>