Through the Language Glass, Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages

Effects of language on thought are mundane: Pinker 2007, 135.

7: WHERE THE SUN DOESN’T RISE IN THE EAST

“In the A.M. four of the Natives”: Captain Cook’s Journal during the First Voyage round the World (Wharton 1893, 392).

“Mr. Gore, who went out this day with his gun”: Hawkesworth 1785, 132 (July 14, 1770).

“it is very remarkable that this word”: Crawfurd 1850, 188. In 1898, another lexicographer added to the confusion (Phillips 1898), when he recorded other words for the animal: “kadar,” “ngargelin,” and “wadar.” Dixon et al. (1990, 68) point out that the ethnologist W. E. Roth wrote a letter to the Australian in 1898, saying that gangooroo was the name of a particular type of kangaroo in Guugu Yimithirr. But this was not noticed by lexicographers.

Kant’s analysis of the primacy of egocentric conception of space: Kant 1768, 378: “Da wir alles, was au er uns ist, durch die Sinnen nur in so fern kennen, als es in Beziehung auf uns selbst steht, so ist kein Wunder, da wir von dem Verhaltni dieser Durchschnittsflachen zu unserem Korper den ersten Grund hernehmen, den Begriff der Gegenden im Raume zu erzeugen.” See also Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976, 380-81.

“we were in the middle of a young diggings township”: G. E. Dalrymple, Narrative and Reports of the Queensland North East Coast Expedition, 1873, quoted in Haviland and Haviland 1980, 120. For the history of Guugu Yimithirr, see Haviland 1979b, Haviland and Haviland 1980, Haviland 1985, and Loos 1978.

“when savages are pitted against civilisation”: “The black police,” editorial, Cooktown Herald and Palmer River Advertiser, June 24, 1874, p. 5.

No words for “in front of” and “behind”: Haviland (1998) argues that Guugu Yimithirr can in some limited circumstances use the noun thagaal, “front,” in relation to space, e.g., in George nyulu thagaal-bi, “George was at the front.” But this seems to be used to describe not spatial position as such but George’s leading role.

Guugu Yimithirr spatial language and orientation: Levinson 2003.

“two girls, the one has nose to the east”: Levinson 2003, 119.

Geographic coordinates in Australian languages: The Djaru language of Kimberley, Western Australia: Tsunoda 1981, 246; Kayardild from Bentinck Island, between the Cape York Peninsula and Arnhem Land: Evans 1995, 218; Arrernte (Western Desert): Wilkins 2006, 52ff.; Warlpiri (Western Desert): Laughren 1978, as quoted in Wilkins 2006, 53; Yankunytjatjara (Western Desert): Goddard 1985, 128. Geographic coordinates elsewhere: Madagascar: Keenan and Ochs 1979, 151; Nepal: Niraula et al. 2004; Bali: Wassmann and Dasen 1998; Hai||om: Widlok 1997. See also Majid et al. 2004, 111.

Marquesan: Cablitz 2002.

Bali: Wassmann and Dasen 1998, 692-93.

McPhee’s House in Bali: McPhee 1947, 122ff. In the south of Bali, where McPhee lived, the mountain direction is roughly north, so McPhee follows the usual practice of translating the terms seaward and mountainward as south and north, respectively. It should be noted that the directions of the dance in Bali have religious significance.

page 171 “But white fellows wouldn’t understand that”: Haviland 1998, 26.

The orientation skills of the Guugu Yimithirr: Levinson 2003, chs. 4, 6. On orientation skills of other Australian Aborigines, see Lewis 1976. On Tzeltal, see Brown and Levinson 1993.

strange sensation that the sun did not rise in the east: Levinson 2003, 128.

Jack’s shark story: Haviland 1993, 14.

Guugu Yimithirr spatial memory: Levinson 2003, 131.

The ongoing debate on the “rotating tables” experiments: See Li and Gleitman 2002; Levinson et al. 2002; Levinson 2003; Majid et al. 2004; Haun et al. 2006; Pinker 2007, 141 ff.; Li et al. (forthcoming). Many varieties of the rotating table experiments were conducted, and in most of them the subjects were not asked to “complete a picture,” as in the setup demonstrated here, but rather asked to memorize a certain order of objects and then “make it the same” on a different table. The “make it the same” instruction has attracted most criticism. Li et al. (forthcoming) argue that “make it the same” is ultimately an ambiguous instruction and that “in solving ambiguous rotation tasks, when the participant is asked to reproduce the ‘same’ spatial array or path as before, he or she needs to guess the experimenter’s intent as to what counts as the ‘same.’ To make this inference, people are likely to implicitly consult the way their language community customarily speaks about or responds to inquiries about locations and directions.” This criticism seems to me to be largely justified. However, the “complete the picture” experiment that I have presented above does not, as far as I can see, suffer from this problem, as it does not rely on the possibly vague and interpretable notion of “the same.” A further point of criticism by Li et al. that seems largely justified to me is against Levinson’s (2003, 153) claim that there is systematic downgrading of egocentric coordinates in the perception of Guugu Yimithirr and Tzeltal speakers. Li et al. did not find any evidence for such downgrading in the experiments they conducted with Tzeltal speakers. What is more, on the face of it, the downgrading claim is reminiscent of the Whorfian fallacy that the lack of a concept in a language necessarily means that speakers are unable to understand this concept. None of the claims made in this chapter rely on downgrading. Rather, they relate to the additional level of geographic computation and memory that Guugu Yimithirr and Tzeltal speakers are continually obliged to do and to the habits of mind that arise in consequence.

Jaminjung: Schultze-Berndt 2006, 103-4.

Yukatek: Majid et al. 2004, 111.

Hai||om orientation: See Neumann and Widlok 1996 and Widlok 1997.

Acquisition of geographic coordinates: De Leon 1994; Wassmann and Dasen 1998; and Brown and Levinson 2000. Some cultural artifacts may also contribute, of course. In Bali, for instance, houses are always built facing the same direction, the head of family always sleeps on the same side of the house, and children are always put in bed in a particular direction (Wassmann and Dassen 1998, 694).

8: SEX AND SYNTAX

The significance of the genders in Heine’s poem: Vygotsky 1987, 253, Veit 1976; and Walser 1983, 195- 96.

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem”: Heine quotes these lines in a letter to Moses Moser (Jan. 9, 1824) written not long after the poems were published: “Verwelke meine Rechte, wenn ich Deiner vergesse, Jeruscholayim, sind ungefahr die Worte des Psalmisten, und es sind auch noch immer die meinigen” (Heine 1865, 142).

“I also am a man of importance”: Bage 1784, 274.

Supyire: Carlson 1994.

Ngan’gityemerri: Reid 1997, 173.

Manambu: Aikhenvald 1996.

Underlying regularities in the distribution of genders in German: Kopcke and Zubin 1984.

The origin of gender systems: Claudi 1985; Aikhenvald 2000; and Greenberg 1978.

Loss of the genders in English: Curzon 2003.

“He that is become hoorse lately”: Brunschwig 1561, 14b-15a.

page 207 Dialectal uses of feminine nouns: Beattie 1788, 139, and Peacock 1877.

Femininity of “ship”: Strangely enough, “ship” is a relative newcomer on the gender ocean, for in Old English a scip was actually neuter, not feminine. So the use of a gendered pronoun here seems to