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THE PHYSICAL FOUNDATION OF LANGUAGE (Chapter V)

Non-central sound/gesture systems

As for Basque, the Finnish, Hungarian and Korean sound/gesture systems are regular transforms of the Central sound/gesture system. Finnish uses a RIGHT reference point, Hungarian a LEFT reference point and Korean a HIGH reference point.

Finnish vowels are associated with arm positions directed to the righthand side, not to the front as is the case for Central languages. Hungarian vowel positions are directed to the left. Korean vowel positions are systematically higher than for Central languages.

The line of vowels for Finnish is:

Positions and movements for speech sounds other than vowels in Finnish, Hungarian and Korean are correspondingly transformed.

Words in Korean, Finnish and Hungarian against which the sound/gesture equivalences have been tested include:

KOREAN        FINNISH             ENGLISH             HUNGARIAN 


KÓM-ÚN        MUSTA               BLACK               FEKETE
HÚIN          VALKOINEN           WHITE               FEHER
PULK-ÚN       PUNAINEN            RED                 PIROS
TÚL           PELTO               FIELD               MEZÖ
BYAM          POSKI               CHEEK               ARC
KWI           KORVA               EAR                 FÜL
NUN           SILMÄ               EYE                 SZEM
AP'-I-MA      OTSA                FOREHEAD            HOMLOK
SON           KÄSI                HAND                KEZ
MÓ-RI         PÄÄ                 HEAD                FEJ
MOK           KAULA               NECK                NYAK
K'O           NENÄ                NOSE                ORR
MOK           KURKKU              THROAT              TOROK
I             HAMMAS              TOOTH               FOG
P'AL-KUM-CHI  OLKA                ELBOW               KÖNYÖK
CH'AM-DOEN    TOSI                TRUE                IGAZ
KA-DA         MENNÄ               GO                  JAR
NO-TA         PANNA               PUT                 HELYEZ
KA-JI-DA      OTTAA               TAKE                VESZ
MAN-JI-DA     KOSKEA              TOUCH               ERINT
CHA-RÚ-DA     LEIKATA             CUT                 VAG
CHU-DA        ANTAA               GIVE                AD
MAT-CH'I-DA   LYÖDÄ               HIT                 ÜT