Re: left and right

Michael Poxon wrote:
>
>I don't know if this is true for the other islands, but on the Big Island
>of Hawai'i, you don't use compass directions, but "Mauka" (towards the
>mountain, usually inland) and "Makai" (towards the sea).
ma- either 1. adjective marker or 2. < *mai directional marker
uka < *qutan, Ml. hutan 'forest'
kai < *tasik, Ml. id. 'sea'

Yes it's true. Many island cultures in Indonesia have similar terms--
usually sea vs. inland; generally the smaller islands, where the sea is
usually close at hand.  In a few cases they're adapted to refer specifically
to the cardinal directions.

Malay may have had such terms originally, but borrowed utara 'north' <
Sanskrit; selatan 'south' is supposed to refer to the Straits (selat) of
Malacca; barat 'west' may originally have referred to the west monsoon (that
brings rain and cooler weather), but timur 'east' is unanalyzable AFAIK;
similarly tenggara 'southeast'.  Others (NE, NW, SW etc) are compounds IIRC.

I've always wondered about barat-- Bharat ís India, after all; but reflexes
occur in Oceania (with ref. to various wind directions) where Indic loans
are not found.  And "India/Bharat" probably did not exist as an
ethnic/national entity at the time of the disperal into Oceania around
3-4000 BC.

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