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

[Guillaume Jacques]

A relevant article, concerning Chinese, is the following:

Sagart, Laurent 2004.The Chinese names of the four directions. *Journal of
the American Oriental Society* 124 (2004), 69-76.
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00087314

Le ven. 25 déc. 2020 à 07:30, JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>
a écrit :

> 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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-- 
Guillaume Jacques

Directeur de recherches
CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO - EHESS
http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
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