Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!oliveb!amdahl!johnm
From: johnm@uts.amdahl.com (John Murray)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Handedness
Message-ID: <0ejKI2d3Uw1010VXzqU@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 21 Mar 89 00:32:41 GMT
References: <1616@trantor.harris-atd.com> <5389@whuts.ATT.COM> <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 24

In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes:
>                                  Go back a few years (to
> when language was just becoming the biggest rage): did humans have any
> need for the abstract concepts of left and right?  Up and down, yes;
> near and far, yes; bigger and smaller, yes; harder and softer, yes;
> but left and right, I don't think so.

A recent Usenet discussion (in some of the soc.culture.* groups, I think)
bought to light an interesting correlation between left/right and points
of the compass, which crops up in many languages. As I recall, the usual
relationship is that the word for Left is the same or similar to the word
for North, and/or Right corresponding to South (which is the case if one
faces the rising sun). There are also some instances of Left/Right and
West/East correspondence, I think, but none of East/West.

This might seem to endorse the idea that abstract Left/Right concepts
were not as necessary as indications of direction. However, there is
also a traditional association of Left with evil or badness of some
kind, which occurs in many cultures. I would think that abstract Good
and Bad concepts are necessary everywhere. (The other association of
Left with awkwardness or clumsiness may derive from left-handedness
iteslf, rather than vice versa.)

- John Murray, Amdahl Corp. (My own opinions, etc.)