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

[Nurmio, Silva M]

Dear Ian,

Just adding Celtic to the list of families where east is in front of you and hence 'right' and 'south' correlate (Middle Welsh deheu, Modern Welsh de; Old Irish dess, Modern Irish deas). Also Welsh gogledd 'north' (go- + cledd 'left', archaic) and Middle Irish fochla 'north' (fo- + clé 'left', cognate with W cledd).

All the best,
Silva


Dr Silva Nurmio

Postdoctoral researcher

Department of Languages

University of Helsinki

PO Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40)

00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/silva-nurmio
<http://helsinki.academia.edu/SilvaNurmio>


________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Siva Kalyan <sivakalyan.princeton at gmail.com>
Sent: 26 December 2020 02:54
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] “Rear=North” in Mainland Northeast Asia

Sanskrit likewise has dakṣiṇa (> "Deccan [plateau]"), which means both "right" and "south". And I just learned that teṉ in Tamil has the same polysemy. The terms for "north" do not mean "left" in either of these languages, though.

Siva

On 25 Dec 2020, at 9:18 pm, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:


Dear Ian (and all),

In the Middle East, forward/backwards maps on to the cardinal points at a 90º rotation to what you describe for NE Asia.  In (poetic) Hebrew, E is 'forward', while in Arabic, N is 'left', while 'Yemen' is, etymologically, 'right' — in all three cases, you're facing east.

One might speculate that both systems are sun-oriented, the Middle-Eastern system towards the highly-valued rising sun, and the NE Asian system towards the location of the sun at midday.

David


On 25/12/2020 08:29, JOO, Ian [Student] 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:
[cid:82A3F024701F4B0692CCA7C2CAE5EA7F]

(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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--
David Gil

Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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