Re: Semantic typology?

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.


Carl Banks

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