Re: left and right

It's really no weirder than English.
"Left" and "Right" are relative terms that have the most meaning to the speaker,
while the cardinal directions[except at the poles, where all ways are one
direction] are absolute and the same, regardless of the position of the
speaker.


"Define 'cynical'."-M. Mudd





----- Original Message ----
From: David McCann <david@...>
To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Friday, April 4, 2008 5:22:55 PM
Subject: Re: left and right

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 17:11:00 EDT, MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM wrote:
>
> Does anyone know of any cultures that don't have the concept of "left" and
> "right", or don't have words for these concepts?
>From anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_5.htm:
"Another example is provided by Guugu Timithirr language speakers of the
Cape York Peninsula in northeastern Australia.  This group of Aborigines
do not have words for left, right, front, or back.  They use absolute
rather than relative directions.  When they refer to people or objects
in their environment, they use compass directions.  They would say "I am
standing southwest of my sister" rather than "I am standing to the left
of my sister."  Critics of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis would point out
that the Aborigines who speak this language also usually learn English
and can use left, right, front, and back just as we do.  However, if
they do not learn English during early childhood, they have difficulty
in orienting themselves relatively and absolute orientation makes much
more sense to them."