All languages I know of have four basic directions: left, right, backwards and forwards. Are there any that don't?
Maybe you could have just three: forwards, backwards-left and backwards-rigth? Or more then four, maybe with distinct names for some or all of the four in-between the common ones
29 Comments
TIN@feddit.uk · 43 pts · 33d
Largely unrelated, my son (19) described something as being W from him, as in the cardinal 4 directions W,A,S and D.
kibblebits@quokk.au · 21 pts · 33d
Did you question your parenting at that point?
TIN@feddit.uk · 13 pts · 33d
No more so than normal!
Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 32d
A 19 year old is capable of a joke, you know.
Snailpope@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 33d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guugu_Yimithirr_language?wprov=sfla1
Sorta related, these people only use the cardinal directions, north, east, south, west. No left or right
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 33d
Still four directions, but it's interesting that they use an absolute point of reference as opposed to the more common relative ones.
Snailpope@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 33d
Yea, this just happened pop into my head. I found it really interesting and thought you might too
Witchfire@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 33d
Huh, how do you say something is on the "left side" of an object then? Like "the left side of my ribs hurt"
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 33d
Depending on your facing, presumably "the East side of my ribs hurt".
EvilBit@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 33d
Pretty much this, if I remember correctly. Because of this linguistic feature, they have an exceptionally well-developed sense of absolute direction and basically know at all times which way is which.
Bob fell out of the boat. Which side? The south side. Turn the boat 90° clockwise. He’s still off the south side of the boat.
bluGill@fedia.io · 7 pts · 33d
I don't know that culture, but in general those are questions they learn not to say. Perhaps they point to a place "there" and that is enough.
When translating from a gendered language to English (which doesn't grammatically require a gender for everything) I often has to guess was gender important or not - sometimes this is not obvious.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de · 12 pts · 33d
I cannot find it anymore, but remember recently reading a blog post about a language where their concept of directions was "toward the river", "away from the river (or: into the jungle)", "down the river", "up the river", and they expressed only those directions. So when a western researcher asked them how they called "left" and "right", they gave different answers every time, or something like that…
spongebue@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 33d
There was a Lateral with Tom Scott episode about a small island that didn't use north, south, east, or west. Instead it was towards the ocean, inland, clockwise, and counter-clockwise
Quokka@quokk.au · 10 pts · 33d
Yes, I’ve heard of many. Can’t think of the names at 4am unfortunately.
My favourite was one that was basically in and out, as the centre of their island had a mountain so things were either towards or away from it.
riot@fedia.io · 15 pts · 33d
Perhaps it's Manam? Their island has a volcano, but they use a land-sea axis for directions:
The Wikipedia article doesn't specifically phrase it as "towards/away from the volcano" , but Reddit posts linking to the Wikipedia article phrase it like that.
trem@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 33d
I heard of this before, too, and they also used clockwise and counterclockwise then. So, in effect just a polar coordinate system.
But yeah, also having a hard time finding out which concrete island that was...
Nemo@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 33d
English and Spanish also feature "above" and "below", sooooo
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz · 3 pts · 32d
ana and kata for four-dimensional spaces too.
Nemo@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 32d
From the Greek for above and below, and also not in the general use. But I really appreciate seeing them in this discussion.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 33d
I know there is at least one with no concept of right or left, front or back, only the fixed directions of the world like north and south.
Archimedes@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 32d
Rimwards, hubwards, spinwards, widershins.
Infrapink@thebrainbin.org · 6 pts · 32d
That's Guugu Yimithirr, spoken by the Aboriginal Australian nation of the same name.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 32d
Yes thank you.
My mind works more like this - North is always north, I can't give directions using right and left and have broken every dance teacher I had, all ended up saying "toward the mirror, toward the window, toward the door, etc because I can't find right or left fast enough to dance, it moves every time I turn around, I want directions to be fixed.
tate@lemmy.sdf.org · 6 pts · 33d
The number of dimensions in space is three, and that has nothing at all to do with language. When you eliminate one of the dimensions ("up" in your example), you are left with two, and you're describing dimensions in a plane.
The reason all languages use four words for the two dimensions is because there are two directions per dimension.
ETA: why there are three (plus one for time), and how do we know that, are very interesting questions (to me).
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 33d
What does basic mean here? I feel everything hinges on that. Radians claim π/2, π/3, π/4, π/6 are all basic, so they have 16 basic directions. A compass has one, maybe 2 basic directions. When discussing locations it's very common to say northeast, southwest etc, so I'd say there are 8 basics in those terms.
deadcream@sopuli.xyz · 7 pts · 33d
Humans have bilateral symmetry and forward-facing eyes so we naturally have four basic directions.
Racoonwithbenefits@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 33d
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 33d
Also the Sun moves in one direction across the sky, along with everything else on the Ecliptic. So that defines one axis, with the perpendicular being another.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33d
cattywampas@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33d
Radians are not at all intuitive.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 33d
Disclaimer: I don't know, and I have no particular k owledge in this field, I'm only reasoning here..
I think those four directions are natural to use regardless of culture, based on our senses and bodies. There are things you can see, and things you can't, namely in front of you and behind you. And your references to the sides would naturally be your hands, where most people can distinguish right as dominant. These would serve as simple reference points in terms of directions, so the question is, if your bodies were different, for example asymetric, would our directions also be?
Imagine of we had four ears, two forward and two back, could that result in eight basic directions? What would it take for us to have three?