Prentiss Riddle: Language: East is South and South is East

East is South and South is East

Amartya Sen in a talk at Rice University happened to mention something interesting about the geographic metaphors we use to distinguish between the "developed" and "underdeveloped" parts of the world.

The British colonial way was to refer to "East and West", or London vs. India, while the French colonial way was to refer to "North and South", or Paris vs. Africa. Sen observes, drily, that the French won.

I'd add that the French victory might be due to overloading of the "East and West" metaphor with another distinction, that of Washington vs. Moscow, with perhaps some additional cognitive interference from the prosperity of Japan and other countries at the eastern edge of westerners' mental maps.

language 2004.02.25 link

Comments

And that brings up the even trickier metaphorical map of the "first", "second", "third" and "fourth worlds". I'd had some idea that the "first world" is the capitalist West, the "second world" is the old Soviet bloc, the "third world" is the euphemistically described "developing" nations, and the "fourth world" is the set of nations so far behind in the race that they're not even "developing".

Some Googling turns up this explanation from Gerdard Chaliand which is even more complicated and, coincidentally, very French:

`The French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the expression ("tiers monde" in French) in 1952 by analogy with the "third estate," the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution-as opposed to priests and nobles, comprising the first and second estates respectively... It conveys as well a second idea, also discussed by Sauvy, that of non-alignment, for the third world belongs neither to the industrialized capitalist world nor to the industrialized Communist bloc.'

I guess the French did win.

Prentiss Riddle [riddle cxe io punkto com] • 2004.02.25

Actually, 'fourth world' also has been used to refer to indigenous groups within current nation-states who have been deprived (partially or totally) of territory and/or natural resources. A discussion of the term is here

liberal japonicus [jtomei cxe poppymail punkto com] • 2004.03.14

Yes, LJ, you remind me that I'd heard that usage for "fourth world" as well. Thanks.

Prentiss Riddle [riddle cxe io punkto com] • 2004.03.14

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