[Lingtyp] “Rear=North” in Mainland Northeast Asia

[Marcel Erdal]

Hi,
In all varieties of Old Turkic / Old Uyghur (spoken in the Middle Ages in
the region you are interested in) 'back' is 'west', not 'north', as
described by David.
Marcel Erdal

Am Fr., 25. Dez. 2020 um 07:30 Uhr schrieb JOO, Ian [Student] <
ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>:

> Dear typologists,
>
> I am currently working on a doctoral project focusing on the areality of
> Mainland Northeast Asia (Korea, Mongolia, Northeast China, but *not* Japan,
> Russian Far East, or Southern/Western China).
> 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:
>
>
> (Note that, in Mandarin, *bei* 北 `North’ and *bei *背 `back; backside’
> differ only in tone, and are etymologically related)
> 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?)
>
> Regards,
> Ian
>
>
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