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Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

There's also the approach taken in some Australian native languages, e.g. [1], where they use absolute directions instead of relative directions, so they would call what we call the port side of a boat the north side if the boat was heading east, and call it the west side if the boat was heading north.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuuk_Thaayorre_language

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There's a few other languages that do this (as the primary version. Most languages mix)[0]. In fact there's 3 main classes:

- relative: in relation to the viewer (e.g. The mouse is to my right)

- absolute: using some coordinate system, such as cardinal (e.g. Plant is on the North side of the room)

- intrinsic: relative, but with respect to another object and not the viewer (e.g. the TV is on top of the TV stand which is opposite of the door)

It is worth mentioning that this is overly simplified and that there is a lot more nuance to all this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_and_spatial_cognition

FWIW, if you read the literature closely, Kuuk Thaayorre is also mixed. They have words for left and right and use them to describe relative orientation, notwithstanding the emphasis on cardinal directions. A related language, Guugu Yimithirr, does seem to completely lack use of left and right to describe spatial orientation; it has the words--similar to Kuuk Thaayorre, words identifying left and right hand/arm--but it doesn't extend them figuratively as Kuuk Thaayorre does. (They both extend other body-related orientation terminology, e.g. to describe being ahead or behind something or someone.) However, Guugo Yimithirr seems to heavily rely on hand and body gestures to help establish relative orientation of the subject or object. Reading the literature, I don't think Guugo Yimithirr would be capable of adequately conveying direction and orientation over the telephone.

Alot of the literature also makes hay about these language speakers having preternatural skills at maintaining a cardinal orientation mentally. I don't doubt they're good at it, but I suspect that that skill is something that has only recently become uncommon in the industrialized world. As a kid growing up in the U.S., being able to keep track of cardinal orientation was something I understood as a skill expected of men, and not by tracking the sun or consciously using other obvious markers. It was quite obviously a vestigial gendered skill at that point--noteworthy if you had any proficiency at it--but clearly one within recent memory of male adults. Moreover, AFAIU, there's also research showing that Americans tend to use cardinal directions and navigation more than many European countries, presumably related to our lived geography.

Interestingly, the literature on Guugu Yimithirr says that cardinal orientation accuracy relative to the Earth is much better the further away the described location. For descriptions closer to home (i.e. the central city/village of the group), accuracy was often off by 30+ degrees, seemingly because cardinal orientation is more dominated by familiar local topographic features. Moreover, IIRC, it seems cardinal direction isn't absolute in these languages. Which, at least intuitively, makes alot of sense to me. For example, the Bay Area is askew; when giving directions "north" is closer to north-west (middle peninsula, East Bay) or north-by-north-west (city), but everybody (conscious or not) is very consistent about the rotation and bending.

> Alot of the literature also makes hay about these language speakers having preternatural skills at maintaining a cardinal orientation mentally.

Wahern is referring to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis[0] (Linguistic Relativity). I do find that this is also often misunderstood. I'm in your camp about the directions. I've always viewed linguistic relativity as just saying that your language is a framework. It should be relatively obvious that if you use something a lot that you'll be good at it. You'll find that mountaineers, sailors, and pilots are better than most at of the population because they use cardinal directions a lot. It is experimentally provable that you can make your brain prioritize rather arbitrary things. For example, get a watch and set it to beep every hour. You'll probably get a better sense of time (especially if you can get different tones for 15 minute intervals). So what I'm saying is that the weak Sapir-Whorf is well recognized (what we discussed) but very few realistically believe the strong Sapir-Whorf.

But either way, if anyone reading these comments hasn't been interested in languages before I promise you that they are a lot cooler than you imagine. Far from just communication (which is rather incredible in the first place) and if you're interested in LLMs you should learn a minimal amount of linguistics.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

Ask a farmer for directions. In my experience it's more likely they will tell you to turn north/south/east/west than left or right.

Maybe in the US and other places that have a grid system as their main road planning principle and route naming principle? In Europe, where roads tend to follow the terrain more, I've not really heard this.

The US doesn't really have a (consistent) grid system outside of cities, with the notable exception of Utah (due to planning efforts by the Mormon pioneers). And even in cities it can be a mess. For example Seattle grew from three different smaller areas that all planned their roads to be parallel to the coast. The problem is the coast isn't in a straight line so as they grew and combined into a single city it created a lot of awkward intersections where the roads meet.

? I'm not talking about the suburbs of Seattle, check out maps of rural areas of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, or even the plains in the east of Washington state, most of the rural roads are running primarily North/South or East/West. Not that it's a grid system as in Manhattan, but it is following a grid pattern, and the names of the routes on signs and in spoken language are like "380 West" "215 North", etc. In the interstate system and many state road systems, this is reinforced by numbering convention that East/West roads are numbered even, while North/South roads are numbered odd. None of that exists in Europe.

> East/West roads are numbered even, while North/South roads are numbered odd. None of that exists in Europe.

The E roads of Europe are generally numbered that way too[1], though exceptions exist.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_E-road_network#N...

You can just look at a map over the US and see quickly how the grid pattern exists at almost any zoom level. You also notice it in how people think about directions. As a European I found it tricky to deal with but I saw the opposite when Americans drive in Europe. They really struggle with a system not built around thinking east-west and north-south.

I think generally in Europe people think in terms of landmarks rather than fixed directions.

Much of the inner US was divided by the Homestead Acts of the 1860's into square mile (640 acre) sections, 160 acre quarters, and then further into forty's. cf "back forty". These are all square.

Yes, highly likely. My experience of such is mostly in the Canadian prairies, which are sectioned into square mile grids.

I started to make a joke about correction lines, but couldn't come up with a punchline :-(

You’ll be told about uphill and downhill for sure.

Surely they don't have built-in compasses, so what would they do in an unfamiliar location on an overcast day?

Actually I reca reading some interesting studies where they found that children from these tribes even after turned around blindfolded could readily point out absolute directions. I don't recall reading an explanation, but they did seem to have a better inherent way of orient themselves absolutely.

Although possible, this is not happening to them frequently. The language hasn't optimized for that use case.

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