PRESIDENT'S ESSAY
Tough Languages
POSTED
December 29, 2009

According to the Economist , the Estonian language has 14 cases (including inessive, elative, adessive, abessive), “Bora, spoken in Peru, has more than 350” genders, and the Solomon Island language of Kwaio has an exclusive and inclusive form of “we” and in addition to singular and plural has dual and paucal.

The Kuuk Thaayorre of northern Australia have no words for left and right, but instead use absolute directions: “as in ‘You have an ant on your south-west leg.’”  To “where are you going,” they’ll give answers like “north-north-east, in the middle distance.”

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