Two hours southwards

[alice]

It's interesting to read about languages which, instead of using relative terms like "left", "right", "forwards", "backwards" instead use absolute terms like points of the compass. Do any of these languages combine this with the TIME IS SPACE metaphor?

[Pabappa]

It would be difficult to distinguish from a literal interpretation... e.g. at first I thought this thread was about you taking a vacation to the tropics. Even in a premodern era one could still speak of traveling on foot, on horseback, etc in a cardinal direction.

[Nortaneous]

In English, if distance is being measured in travel time, directions will be cardinal.

[Linguoboy]

In English, if distance is being measured in travel time, directions will be cardinal.

Except when crows are involved.

[dhok]

I think a more interesting question is whether there are languages that combine TIME IS SPACE distance-measurement with relative directions--e.g. "That hunting-ground is three hours left of here."

(Are there any languages that don't use time to measure distance at all? I presume it must have been a less widespread metaphor before the invention of the railroad or at least the stagecoach, since delays were more common and unpredictable.)

[Vijay]

I can't seem to think of an example in Malayalam of time being used to measure distance.

[akam chinjir]

In English, if distance is being measured in travel time, directions will be cardinal.

"It's four hours that way" (pointing).

I'm actually failing to come up with a direction expression that works with "It's four miles _____" but not with "It's four hours _____." (But I can be crappy with examples.)

[zompist]

As a partial answer to what I think is alice's question, time runs from east to west in Kuuk Thaayorre.

[alice]

As a partial answer to what I think is alice's question, time runs from east to west in Kuuk Thaayorre.

That's the idea, where you express relative time with reference to an absolute set of directions.

[anteallach]

It's not really the same thing, but there's a curious feature of Gaelic that the words for north and south, tuath and deas, can also mean left and right respectively, as if you're facing east. As deas is a cognate of dexter, right is presumably the original meaning.