Celestial Bodies

East and west are often translated by the rising and the setting of the sun (note that the origin of English and other Indo-European languages is “dawn” for “east” and “evening” [i.e. sun-down] for “west”):

• Maan: “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down” (source: Don Slager)
• Kankanaey: “from the coming-out of the sun “and “going-away of the sun” (source: Kankanaey back-translation)
• Northern Emberá: “from where the sun comes up” and “from where the sun falls” (source: Charles Mortensen)
• Ejamat “the side where the sun comes from” and “the side where it sets” (source: David Frank in this blog post )
• Tzeltal: “where the sun pours-out” (west) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
• Mono (DRC): “of-hole-sun” (west)
• Belanda Bor: “place morning” and “place evening”
• Shambala: “side sink sun” (south)
• Northern Ngbandi: “the sun behind the chief’s house” (east — the chief lives traditionally at the eastern side of the village, therefore he does not get the sunlight into his eyes) and “under the sun” (west)
• Northwestern Dinka: “earth behind” (east — the place behind the earth, i.e. the area where the sun rises)
• Bari: “Morning Star” / “Venus” (east)
• Chopi: “sky” (north) (source for this and six above: Angelika Mietzner and Helma Pasch in Skase Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 4, 3/2007 )

Geographical Landmarks

• Kele: “down-river” (west) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
• Jula: “salt village” (north — because salt comes from the north, from the Sahara Desert) and “kola village” (south — since kola comes from the coastal region to the south) (source: Garber Kompaoré)
• Matumbi: “toward the beach” (East) (the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas), “north” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
• Lamba: “to the Aushi country” (north) / kumausi and “to the Lenje country” (south) / kumalenje (source C. M. Doke in The Bible Translator 1958, p. 57ff. )
• Acoli: “right” (of the local White Nile) (north) and “left” (of the White Nile) (south)
• Zande: “interior (dry) land” (east); “place-inside-country” (north / south) — Zande, like a number of other languages, including Matengo and Hehe, traditionally only has three cardinal directions.
• Belanda Bor: “lower place” (north) and “higher place” (south)
• Turkana: “(up)stream” (north) and (down)stream (south)
• Mono (DRC): “water place” (south) (source for this and five above: Mietzner / Pasch)

Climatic Phenomena

• Shilluk: “opening westwind” (north) and “opening eastwind” (south)
• Swahili used to have six directions. In reducing them to four, kusini and kaskazini which used to refer to south-west and north east respectively (the directions from where the two monsoons blow) have become the terms for “south” and north.” (source for this and one above: Mietzner / Pasch)

Bodily Reference Points

• Nuer / Burun: “face” and “sun face” respectively (both: east)
• Kalenjin: “eye sun” (east) (this and the one above indicate that the sun is “facing” the spectator from its position in the east:
• Shilluk: doesn’t use a fixed position of the speaker, instead it has “eye sun morning” for east and “eye sun evening” for west
• Mono (DRC): “foot-sun” (east — the start of the sun’s journey)
• Burun: “sun leg” (west — the end of the sun’s journey)
• Bari: “back” (north — when people are facing south, north is at their back) (source for this and above: Mietzner / Pasch)
• Northern Emberá “the looking [left] hand” (north) and “the real [right] hand” (south) (source: Charles Mortensen)
• Morelos Nahuatl: “from above” (north) and “from below” (south) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)

When all four directions are mentioned, translators tend to avoid listing the four, sometimes verbose terms, and chose solutions like “all directions” (such as in Maan or Manya (source: Don Slager). Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) and Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).

The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture. Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”