Egocentric and Geocentric Coordinates

There are two types of systems used in languages to give directions, writes Guy Deutscher in Through the Language Glass. First, the one most of us know (egocentric), i.e., directions wrt the individual. Turn left. Half a kilometer ahead. All directions are from the perspective of the individual. It is easy to understand why this is so popular – you don’t need a map or a compass, it feels so intuitive.

 

Except that, (second) many languages specify directions in geocentric terms. In those languages, directions are specified as north, south, east, and west, not left or right! Which languages are these? Many native languages of Australia, South East Asia, Mexico, Nepal and Madagascar.

“We have simply mistaken the familiar for the natural.”

 

The obvious feeling would be that geocentric terms can only work for groups that stay in small areas all their life. When they tested this hypothesis by driving some natives far from their native areas, places they had never been to, on roads that twisted and turned, surprise, surprise! The natives could quickly identify the right cardinal directions and use them even in the new places. Some of these folks even said that if taken on a plane ride, they got the strange feeling the sun didn’t rise in the exact same direction as before! This showed they were not deriving directions from natural markers like the sun.

 

All this is very fascinating, but does it matter? Aha, look at this pic and make a mental note of the placement of the girl and the house in the pic below: 


Done? Now remember the positions of the tree and the house below: 


Now, you are given the pic below and told to complete it with objects consistent with the two pics above.


 

Wondering what is the point of such a simple exercise? Well, those geocentric language folks often get this wrong! What is going on? The keyword is “often”. Keep the table and objects in the same orientation as before (north-facing or whatever) and those folks get it right. But turn the table to be east-facing instead, well, that’s when those folks get it wrong. Why? Because their memory is Object X is south of Object Y, not (like us who remember it as) X is left of Y!

 

Another setup that threw similar results was the seemingly obvious question whether the layout of these two rooms are identical or not? 


To egocentric speakers, the answer is Yes (table in right corner, so same). To geocentric speakers, it is a No (table in north, table in south, so different).

 

Such experiments have been repeated many times, and the pattern is that the answers are consistent within language groups (geocentric or egocentric), but usually different across language groups.

 

All of which brings us back to the question: is language then influencing how we remember reality? To egocentric speakers (like us), rotations don’t matter; to geocentric speakers, they matter a lot.

 

Fascinating. The environment clearly influences the choice of coordinates. In big towns, within large buildings, well, figuring out or navigating by egocentric coordinates is easy and intuitive. But if you don’t move too far from where you were born all your life and there are no/few man-made artifacts (roads, buildings, traffic lights) in the landscape, obviously it makes sense for language to reflect what is useful to navigate – geocentric coordinates.

 

The next time you think egocentric coordinates are “natural”, just look at a small kid – they take a surprisingly long time to internalize left and right. Nothing natural to egocentric directions, it is all conditioning and the environment.

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