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

[HENNING ANDERSEN]

Hi there,

This correlates with the ancient Chinese yang ~ yin opposition. There are
some other examples (Indonesia, ancient Greece) and a larger cognitive
context in the attached. -- Enjoy, Henning A

On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 10:31 PM JOO, Ian [Student] <
ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk> wrote:

> 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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