The Aymara Concept of Time

[Tomcat]

Very interesting article:

"Backs To The Future: Aymara Language And Gesture Point To Mirror-Image View Of Time

Tell an old Aymara speaker to 'face the past!' and you just might get a blank stare in return – because he or she already does.

New analysis of the language and gesture of South America's indigenous Aymara people indicates a reverse concept of time ..."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 185239.htm

Here the article is discussed by neuroscientists:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MindBrain ... e/7046?l=1

[Quetzalcoatl]

Well I think it's even logical. You know the past more or less. You can see it, so it is in front of you.

But you don't know what will happen in the future.
So it's behind you, where you can't see it.

[Quetzalcoatl]

I remember a text about psychology:



People looking at the top on the left are thinking about the post. People looking at the top on the right are thinking about the future. People looking down on the left have an inner monologue and people looking down on the right have a feeling or think about a special feeling.


For those who read this for the first time: Pay attention to these rules next time when you're talking to someone.


I wonder if the Aymara do also look on the left when talking about past and look an the right when talking about the future.

[CoBB]

http://home.unilang.org/main/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7772

[Teup]

Hmm, I'm confused They point out it happens in other languages as well, so what's the big deal In Flemish Dutch the expression "after all" is literally "behind all", thus also puts a later event 'behind' the preceding.

Hmm would probably be pretty confusing to develop car navigation systems for those people.. "before 100m, turn right"

[Nero]

Reminds me of that chinese dialect that thinks of time in a vertical line (Wednesday above tuesday instead of after it)

[Emandir]

Hier a existé et existe encore en nos cœurs et nos corps. Pour l'homme, il n'y a que ce qui a été et ce qui est en train d'être. Plus tard n'existe pas encore, on ne peut à son propos que faire des suppositions. L'infini existe vers l'avant, vers ce qui est face à moi, c'est-à-dire le passé, que je vois. Le futur est dans notre dos.

Tomorrow existed and still exists in our hearts and bodies. For man, there's only what has been and what's being. Later doesn't exists yet, we can, about it, only make suppositions. Infinite exists forwards, towards what's in front of me, that is the past, I can seen. Future is behind us.

I wrote this in 1980...

Anyway, as Gruszka said, that's mere commonsense...

[Rounin]

You know, one of my Chinese teachers did the exact same thing and felt it very strange that Norwegians thought in the opposite way.