Re: CHAT: "the future," sci-fi, Quecha (Le Guin)

On Sun, 30 Jun 2002 04:02:56 -0400 Muke Tever
<alrivera@...> writes:
> From: "J Y S Czhang" <czhang23@...>
> >     "We know where the future is. It's in front of us. Right? It
> lies before
> > us - a great future lies before us - we stride forward confidently
> into it,
> > every commencement, every election year. And we know where the
> past is.
> > Behind us, right? So that we have to turn around to see it, and
> that
> > interrupts our progress ever forward into the future, so we don't
> really much
> > like to do it.
> Even though English doesn't do this.. "[be]fore" and "aft[er]" (in
> front of and
> behind) go with "before" and "after" (earlier and later).
> Spanish does the same thing:  "antes" means "before" (both 'in front
> of' and 'earlier').
>     *Muke!
-

So does Hebrew: "lifney" (before: literally 'to the face of') and
"ahharey" (after: literally something like 'the nexts of').  I also made
it that way in Rokbeigalmki, after realizing that the natlangs i know do
it that way.  The first time i encountered the explicit front=past /
back=future idea was actually in Michael Chrichton's novel _Congo_, in
which the signlanguage-talking gorilla uses that kind of view.  she was
discribed as explicitly looking over her shoulder (hence, towards the
future) when waiting for someone to arrive, even if that made her look
*away* from the door.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "i threw down."