Dear Brent,
You have started an interesting train of
thought. You, and others who have replied
to you, should dig out the February 2011
issue of Scientific American and read the
article:
How Language Shapes Thought
This is subtitled:
The languages we speak affect our
perceptions of the world
The article notes that some languages have
no words for left and right and speakers of
these languages use north, south, east and
west instead.
You say:
I think north and south, east and west,
up and down, top and bottom are arbitrary
directions that could change if we wanted
to.
The article argues (and I am only partially
persuaded) that perception of direction and
allied matters depends in part on culture
and language.
If you look at a car from one side, you might
say "the front of the car is on the left". If
you walk round the other side you would say
"the front of the car is on the right".
Speakers of languages which lack left and
right would say the front is to the north
(or whatever) in both cases.
To do this requires a strong sense of where
north is, otherwise you are stuck for words.
It turns out that even very young children
can tell you the direction of north to quite
high precision from the most unlikely of
clues.
I thought this would be a very useful trait
to have when setting out sundials!
Frank H. King
Cambridge, U.K.
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