Re: Letf / Right, was Re: Count and mass nouns

On Monday, January 19, 2004, at 10:12  PM, Philippe Caquant wrote:
> I think the very concept od left / right may be based
> on the position of the heart (rather on the left), or
> on statistical considerations (more right-handed than
> left-handed, so if you want to know where is your
> right hand, look for a person who is recognized as
> right- (or left-) handed, and do like he does, or the
> opposite).
> Well no, there is an easier system: stand in front of
> the sun in the middle of the day; on your left hand,
> you will have its rising position, and on your right
> hand the place where it will go down. At least under
> "normal" latitudes. In that case, left / right would
> be very close-related to north / south, east / west.
In some languages it is.
For instance, in Biblical Hebrew, there are a lot of synonyms for the
directions.  One system is:

east = |qedem| "forwards"
west = |ahhor| "behind"
north = |semol| "left"
south = |yamin| "right"

East is for sure; I can't remember any explicit use of this term for
West, although another form of it appears in one of the names of the
Mediterranean, |hayam ha'ahharon| "the sea behind" (*not* 'last sea').
North and South appear by Abraham's splitting up with his nephew Lot
(Genesis 13:9), where Abraham gives Lot first dibs on direction, saying
    "if you go |semol| then |eimina| (=i will go |yamin|), and if you go
|yamin| then |asme'ila| (=i will go |semol|)".  Lot, of course, decides
to go east into the African-Asian Rift, instead.

The Hebrew name for "Yemen", |Teiman|, comes from the same 'right'
root, YMN.  The Arabic name, of course, is more transparent.  Also in
Arabic, the normal word for 'North' is /Sama:l/ (if i remember the
short vowel correctly), from the same root as Hebrew |semol|.

Rokbeigalmki follows a similar pattern, except that since it's in
Tolkien's World (or Aambalá as the Rokbeigalm call it), the forwards
direction is the West.

right = |yamli|
left = |lemya|

north = |ya~mil|
south = |le~mii|


-Stephen (Steg)
  "it's history because it's not happening anymore."
      ~ g

Replies