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Re: Semantic typology?

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 11:23
I always felt something was wrong with the
compass directions in Sohlodar. Now I realize
that they are shifted 45 degrees
counterclockwise, so that I have:

| Kijeb     | Sohlob    | English   | Direction
|-----------|-----------|-----------|----------
| kimra     | kember    | 'north'   | NW
| yasa      | yah       | 'east'    | NE
| stirkyu   | istirdj   | 'south'   | SE
| styungwa  | aesjtong  | 'west'    | SW

It makes perfect sense WRT local climate too,
where the 'north' and 'east' are both more arid
and desert-like than the 'west' and 'south'. I now
see that it is the NORTH which is dry and the
SOUTH which gets more rain. Since the 'south-west'
is temperate rather than tropical Sohlodar is
probably located on the southern hemisphere of its
planet. You learn something every day!

Carl Banks skrev:
> Andreas Johansson wrote: >> Quoting Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...>: >> >> [snip] >>>> Compass directions, maybe? I would assume any >>>> language distinguishing roots for any of the >>>> intercardinals should also distinguish some >>>> for the >>> cardinals. >>> >>> That's a sensible hypothesis. Do you know of >>> any languages that have roots for the >>> intercardinals rather than deriving them from >>> cardinals? >> >> I recently read an old (1928) article by L. >> Weibull which argued that in pre-Christian >> Scandinavia, the "north", "east", "south", >> "west" actually designated NE, SE, SW, and NW, >> respectively. I haven't heard of the idea in >> anything written in the eighty years since, so >> I guess it didn't win academical acceptance, >> but it does render more sensible some >> geographical informations in viking age texts. > > At Penn State University, where the streets are > aligned almost exactly diagonally (45 degrees) > relative to the cardinal directions, everyone > uses North, South, East, and West to refer to > the street directions: north is actually > northwest. The campus maps are even drawn with > northwest to the top. > > This leads to oddities such as the North > Residence Halls being at almost the same > latitude as the South Residence Halls.

Reply

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>