The Twilight Zone

[tealin]

A REVERSE PERCEPTION OF TIME
Apparently there is a tribe in South America who have an opposite perception of time to the rest of the world, that the future is behind and the past in front. Linguists are not quite sure why yet. No word on if they've tried the Trolls' logic for it...

Comments

[lydaclunas.livejournal.com]

I was reading about this earlier -- it's actually not unique, perhaps not even uncommon. And they do have a theory about why: you can see what's in front of you, but not what's in back of you -- thus, you can see what happened in the past but not in the future, so there's the reversal. Enjoy this lovely post (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003250.html) on the subject by the fine folks at Language Log.

Er... I'll just go back to lurking now.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

That ... would be the trolls' logic. More or less.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

[upon reading]
Ooh, most interesting, thanks! The original article does refer to English, for example, also having a certain amount of ambiguity regarding the spatial positioning of time relative to the speaker, but they seem to put a lot of emphasis on how this linguistic oddity is culturally ingrained enough to have spread its way even into the subconscious gestures used when talking about time.

It would be interesting to investigate parallels in 'Austronesia' (as your article calls it ... neato) as there seems to be evidence of contact if not travel between western South America and the Pacific islands.

[disneyboy.livejournal.com]

Wow! (nothing intelligent to add, as usual)

[okiwan.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's trippy.

I'm having a hard time even getting my head around it. Darn Trolls.

[canisdoofus.livejournal.com]

There are alot of pharmaceuticals in South America!

[verselus.livejournal.com]

That's a very interesting way to look at life. I never really thought of it that way. It throws the way you look at life into perspective...a bit.

[blooappall.livejournal.com]

My head ith thpinning.

Front ith back and back ith front?

...

Hokay, that'th jutht wierd.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Here, have some Slab, it'll help. ;)

[violsva]

That's so cool ... and in a weird way it makes sense.

Western culture especially sees itself as walking towards the future (drive towards progress, etc.) ... this seems to be based more on what we can see instead of where we're going.

Like the trolls, I suppose, but the Aymarans don't seem to believe we're going backward.

Bet fortune tellers don't make much money in that culture.