Re: CHAT: Directions (was: Re: CHAT: living conditions/conditionally)

Dennis Paul Himes wrote:


> daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...> wrote:
> > And sometimes they also use words like 'sun' for 'south', (rather than
> > 'east' or 'west' which would be more expected) because the sun disappears
> > behind some mountains or trees when it's in the south.
> I would expect "sun" to mean "south", because in the Northern Hemisphere
> the sun is highest in the sky when it's due south.
Ah yes, you have it right. But still, when the word for sun is used
for a cardinal direction, 'south' is clearly outnumbered by 'east'
and 'west'. I finally found the table I was looking for. I reproduce
it here since I think it might be of interest to y'all. (Be sure to
use a fixed width font :) ).

=========

Salient source concepts for cardinal directions terms in 127
languages (based on Brown 1983):

                                Cardinal direction
Conceptual source         West  East  North  South  Total
---------------------------------------------------------
Sun                        59    58     1      13    131
Other celestial bodies                  2              2
Darkness or nighttime                   4              4
Wind                                   17       4     21
Weather conditions                1                    1
'Up'                        5     3     6       2     16
'Down'                      1     3     2       7     13
'Front'                           4                    4
'Back'                      3     1             1      5
'Right'                           1     1       2      4
'Left'                                  3       1      4
'Upstream'                        1     1       2      4
'Downstream'                            1       3      4
Environment-spec. feat.     2     1     5       5     13
Others                                          3      3
---------------------------------------------------------
Total no of occurrences    70    73    43      43    229

=========

All of these are of course very specific to the surroundings
you live in, (very obvious in cases like 'upstream' and
'downstream') but still, the word for 'sun' is in 117 occurrences
used for 'west' or 'east' but only in 14 occurrences used for
'north' or 'south'. The word for 'wind' is almost always 'north',
and the word for 'front' is always 'east'.

Daniel