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There are many languages in the world, some spoken by billions of people, and others just a handful. One of many languages that is at risk of dying out is called Guugu Yimithirr (GY). It currently only has about 800 fluent speakers, most of whom are adults living in Northern Australia, according to a 2021 census.
All languages are interesting, but this one has something about it that really makes it stand out. They don’t have words for spatial descriptions such as ‘left’ or ‘right.’ Stephen C Levinson works for the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. He wrote a paper on the language, in which he said:
“In Guugu Yimithirr (henceforth GY) nearly all spatial descriptions involve essential reference to something like our cardinal directions. In order to describe someone as standing in front of the tree, one says something equivalent (as appropriate) to ‘George is just north of the tree.’ To tell someone to take the next left turn, one might say ‘Go north’; to ask someone to move over a bit, ‘Move a bit east’; to instruct a carpenter to make a door jamb vertical, ‘Move it a little north’.”
This will likely sound very difficult to speakers of most other languages since many people do not always know which direction is North, for example. In this language, however, the speakers develop a very strong aptitude for determining these directions. From the time they are young, they need to use the directional descriptors so they intuitively pay attention to things like where the sun rises and sets, where the ocean is located, and more. From this, they can accurately describe something as being to the South of another object, for example. Levinson continues on in the paper, saying:
“Since Guugu Yimithirr does not employ terms for left and right in a spatial sense and does not directly encode notions of relative location such as English in front of, behind, and at the side of, it is essential to use these cardinal direction terms for almost every description of location on the horizontal. It is also customary to specify direction when using verbs of motion.”
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As if that weren’t difficult enough, it is necessary to note that the GY speakers do not use the terms North, South, East, and West in the same way that most people do in English and most other languages. John B. Haviland is a linguistic anthropologist who wrote a paper on this topic, in which he said:
“GY terms assume quadrants rather than idealized points on the horizon. Moreover, the GY system is rotated slightly clockwise from standard Western compass directions, possibly reflecting the line of the coast, prevailing winds, or the seasonal arc of the [Sun].”
While this may seem very confusing and difficult to those who don’t speak the language, it comes more naturally to those who have spoken it from childhood. There are many things in all languages that just come naturally, but when they are looked at closely or from the outside, appear very confusing. If you would like to hear someone speaking it, take a moment to watch this video where a woman speaks GY and then translates it into English. She is working on projects to help preserve the tongue.
Linguists are paying special attention to this language because of the fact that it is dying out. Fortunately, however, there are efforts being made to try to revitalize it. Currently, however, even within the Guugu Yimithirr populations, only about half of the people speak the language. Whether it will be able to be preserved or not remains to be seen.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about 50 amazing finds on Google Earth.