Re: Semantic typology?

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 15:48, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
>> The basic directional roots would all be 22.5 degrees clockwise
>> off from the cardinals.
>
> Nah.  Far too regular.  I'd start with North, Southeast, and
> West-by-Northwest, and derive the others from there. :)
Sounds a bit like Klingon, whose "cardinal" directions are tIng
"southwest", 'ev "northwest", and chan "east".

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 16:46, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:44:32 -0400, Jim Henry wrote:
>>> 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?
>
> Finnish; clockwise from North, _pohjoinen koillinen itä kaakko etelä lounas länsi
> luode_. The only completely opaque ones are SE, SW and W, but eg. _itä_
> being a zero-derivation of the verbal root "to germinate" isn't exactly
> transparent, either. :)
>
> IIUC this system was standardized together from quite a few dialects, none of
> which consistently differentiated all eight terms.
I was reminded of Maltese, which has, again clockwise from North,
_tramuntana grigal ilvant xlokk nofsinhar ilbiċ punent majjistral_
(also used for the corresponding winds, e.g. _tramuntana_ = North
wind).

Of those, the only one transparent in "Maltese" (i.e. the Arabic base
of the lexicon) is nofsinhar < nofs in-nhar "middle of the day";
indirectly also xlokk < ital. scirocco < arab. šurūq "sunrise".

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>