The archive
Kuuk Thaayorre
No left, no right
An Australian language with no words for left and right, whose speakers keep a compass running in their heads all day.
ScriptLatin, in linguistic use
Speakers0k
Weeks to a working levelNot taught commercially. Around 250 speakers.
- There is no left or right. Everything is north, south, east and west, including where the ant is on your leg.
- Speakers know which way they are facing with very high accuracy, indoors, blindfolded, at any age.
- Asked to arrange photographs in time order, they lay them east to west, so the row turns around when the person turns around.
- A greeting can amount to asking which way you are heading, and answering wrongly is not an option.
- It is spoken at Pormpuraaw, in Queensland, by a few hundred people, and it is one of the most cited languages in cognitive science.
Where to practise it
Reading about a language is not speaking it. These are the places I would go to find someone to speak Kuuk Thaayorre with.
The Kuuk Thaayorre Passepartout is not out yet
Five printed pages that carry you through the arrival. Leave your address and you hear about it first, and nothing else.
Leaving takes one click.
Stories in Kuuk Thaayorre
Short stories written inside a measured vocabulary, with the word lists and nothing invented for a textbook.