Aymara Indians see past, future in reverse, study says

[bananas]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20060622-9999-7m22aymara.html

Time flies – ahead of the Aymara

Indians see past, future in reverse, study says
By Bruce Lieberman
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

June 22, 2006

<snip>

For the first time, researchers have documented a culture that uses words and gestures to describe how the past stands before an individual and the future lies behind – unseen.

The discovery is described in the current issue of Cognitive Science. It suggests that the metaphors people use to describe abstractions – even everyday abstractions like time – are at least partly determined by culture, said University of California San Diego researcher Rafael Núñez, who co-authored the study with University of California Berkeley professor Eve Sweetser.

<snip>

Aymara speakers use the word nayra – which means “eye,” “front” or “sight” – to refer to the past. They use qhipa – which means “back” or “behind” – to refer to the future.

<snip>

The Aymara subjects, particularly the elderly who didn't have mastery of Spanish, thumbed or waved over their shoulders when speaking about the future. And they swept their hands or arms in front of them while speaking of the past – closer to their bodies for events in the recent past and wider gestures for events in the distant past.

<snip>

[Xipe Totec]

1. It makes sense

one can see the past, but not the future.

In that sense, the future is behind us because we cannot see it.

[xchrom]

2. also the past is alive in a way that future can't be.

i can also see how -- based on past events -- one can make certain, limited, predictions about what will happen in the future.

[Igel]

3. Interesting, but limited.

"It suggests that the metaphors people use to describe abstractions – even everyday abstractions like time – are at least partly determined by culture ..."

Not all that controversial a view, but with limited empirical data. Having the data is good. Where it goes is a guess, because it's the next step that's important, in a way. Langacker and Lakoff would want it to go in one general direction (with differences, to be sure), linguists of other theoretical bents would expect it to go in another direction. Choice of words here is meaningful. Most studies like this are ad hoc and post hoc: the evidence that can be interpreted to support their views supports their views, evidence that can't be is simply irrelevant. It's as though the data serves for exegesis, while in more formal theories the data serves as a source of disconfirmation and theory building.

The business about evidentials is trivia. ("The speaker must elaborate on how he or she knows that fact, either through attribution or other evidence.") Some languages have really complex evidential systems, where you have to state if you saw it, heard it, if it was reported to you or you figured it out (etc.). Others, like Bulgarian, simply slide everything that's not vouched for one step back in the past. I've heard the claim that journalistic German has a similar trick, but never was good enough to observe it.