Past in the Ñaupa: The Body and Temporal Deixis

Abstract

Modern culture favors the conventional picture of a linear time, where the speaker (ego) is represented as facing to the future. The past is behind at his back. The semantic theory of “conceptual metaphors” claims that such correspondence between the front-behind axis of the body and the divisions of time is due to natural and universal principles, as we usually look and move forward. From this perspective, the future is the goal toward which we are moving. This is consistent with an ideological propensity, based on the idea of unlimited progress, which gives primacy to the notion of “going forward.” The analysis of temporal notions belonging to three South American native languages —quechua, aymara and toba— provides examples that contradict this, revitalizing the idea that conceptions of time vary widely from culture to culture.