Imagine telling someone there is an ant on their north leg. For speakers of Guugu Yimithirr, an Aboriginal language of far north Queensland, that is a perfectly normal sentence.
No left, no right
The anthropologist and linguist Stephen Levinson, of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, studied the language closely. He wrote that Guugu Yimithirr does not use terms for left and right in a spatial sense, and does not directly encode ideas like "in front of" or "at the side of". Instead, speakers describe space with cardinal directions: north, south, east and west, built from roots with dozens of distinct forms.
That means you must know where north is at all times, indoors or out, or you simply cannot speak properly.
Does language shape thought?
Levinson ran simple experiments comparing Guugu Yimithirr speakers with Dutch speakers. Asked to remember the arrangement of objects and then rebuild it after turning round, the Guugu Yimithirr speakers tended to preserve the compass directions, while the Dutch speakers preserved left and right. He concluded that the language people speak can influence how they code memories of space.
His later book with Cambridge University Press extended the work to many languages and cultures, finding that non-linguistic thinking tends to mirror the spatial systems of the local language. It is among the most famous evidence in the long debate about whether language shapes thought.
Back in Year 9
Directions are a staple of GCSE topics, from à gauche to todo recto. Next time a student mixes up left and right, reassure them: some speakers on Earth manage without either. Then ask them which way is north. Most will point at the board.
