A Mind with a Compass
In the Aboriginal community of Pormpuraaw on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula, many people speak Kuuk Thaayorre. This Paman language has no words for "left" or "right." Instead, its speakers use an absolute frame of reference based on cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. This applies to all scales of space. A speaker might say there is an ant on your "southeast leg" or ask you to move a cup "to the north-northwest a little bit." This linguistic requirement means speakers must remain constantly oriented. The typical greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is not "Hello," but a question: "Which way are you going?". An appropriate response would be something like, "South-southeast, in the middle distance."
This constant spatial awareness gives speakers of Kuuk Thaayorre a navigational ability that seems almost superhuman to those who use a relative frame of reference. Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky conducted research with the Kuuk Thaayorre people, documenting this difference in spatial cognition. Speakers stay oriented with precision, even inside unfamiliar buildings or new landscapes. This is not an innate skill, but a direct consequence of the language they use daily.
Arranging Time in their environment
The Kuuk Thaayorre's absolute frame of spatial reference also shapes their concept of time. Boroditsky and her colleague Alice Gaby conducted experiments where they asked speakers to arrange a series of cards that showed a temporal progression, such as a man aging or a banana being eaten. English speakers, whose language and writing system follow a left-to-right pattern, consistently arrange such cards from left to right to represent the future.
The Kuuk Thaayorre speakers, however, arranged the cards from east to west, following the path of the sun. This orientation was consistent regardless of the direction they were facing. When a speaker faced south, they laid the cards from left to right. When they faced north, they arranged them from right to left. When facing east, the cards were placed coming toward their body. They did not orient time relative to their own bodies; they oriented it to the fixed environment. The language of space shows, not specific metaphors for time, can structure how humans conceptualize time's passage.