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

Great ! I just made an error of 90 degrees. So at last
I will know where is my right hand and where my left
one. But the fact is that, without any natural
indication, it would have been quite hard to define.

This also probably means that East is considered as a
privileged direction, since the whole system is based
on "facing sunrise". South maybe too, if the Hebrews
also considered, like many civilizations, that left is
impure.

The name of the Portuguese region "Algarve" means "The
West" in Arabic. So I guess that the Hebrews would
have said it is "Behind". But they likely didn't care
very much about Portugal: enough trouble with Egypt !

(I wonder how the Inuits know which one is their right
hand ?)

--- Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:
> On Monday, January 19, 2004, at 10:12  PM, Philippe
> Caquant wrote:
> > 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"
>

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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