Spatial Reality in Language

Language can be a guide to how we conceive of space. Suppose an etholinguist heard someone say "I live in the 1100 block of East 52nd Place." What would this phrase signal about how we order our lives spatially? Click the appropriate response below:

They live in the 1100th cube, located in the 52nd "place" East of here.

You live along a stretch of tarmac located approximately 52 major tarmacs East of the city center. Your dwelling is situated along this strip of tarmac somewhere between the sequentially ordered life-space-units numbered between 1100 and 1200.

Our culture has a wide vocabulary for the kinds of life-space-units we inhabit. You might live in a condo, an apartment, a town house, or a house. Your home might be a Victorian, a ranch, a Tudor, a colonial, an early American, and so on. You might have a family room, vaulted ceilings, etc.

Looking at the words we have to describe life-space, it becomes obvious that Americans place great importance on individualized, self-expressive dwellings.

In contrast, Hopi Indians have no such space and shape descriptive terminologies. The words they use to describe buildings are the same words they use to describe features in the natural environment. Thus a setback in a building is described with the same word used to describe a ledge on a mountain. This knowledge, gleaned through an understanding of Hopi language, leads us to understand that Hopi view their villages as a part of the natural environment - sort of akin to a bee hive or ant hill. They are not concerned with fitting in with nature, as a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home might be. Rather, they are a part of nature.