Guugu Yimithirr Cardinal Directions
John Beard Haviland · Ethos · 1998
Speakers of Guugu Yimithirr (GY) make heavy use in discourse of four roots that mean north, south, east, and west. Describing location with cardinal directions involves principles strikingly different from systems based on the anatomies of reference objects, including speakers and hearers themselves. Nonetheless, the relational and situated nature of cardinal term systems has been insufficiently appreciated. This article explores the linguistic details of the GY cardinal term system, to expose the internal logic of the elaborated set of directional terms, to analyze the conceptual and ethnographic underpinnings of their use, and to demonstrate the anchored and deictic nature of GY directional discourse generally.