"Haʼaʼaah łitsxo."

Translation:The east is orange.

October 6, 2018

14 Comments
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https://www.duolingo.com/profile/DavidONeil4

Other Asiatic languages also assign colours to cardinal directions. Hence Black Sea (black denoting north) and Red Sea (red denoting south) from the perspective of the middle east.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/AngelMark7

I'm Diné, East is actually Yellow. Łitso


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Ollie-Benson

What do you mean it's yellow?


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Duskylark

Chinese here, and we have a similar system that associates color with directions.I'm not sure if the "is yellow" has similar meaning for native Americans and I'm also curious to learn about that, I hope this helps for people whose culture doesn't have similar systems. :)

We have a traditional theory/view of the world that is called Wu Xing (Five Element Theory) that the world is made up of 5 basic elements:Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth(soil), and theses five elements are linked and represent everything like seasons, climate,colors,directions, human body organs, etc.

The association is like this when it comes to directions: East is of the attribute Wood, and colors like azure/green/cyan/aqua represents Wood, so azuregreen/cyan/aqua is used to represent the East. Similar thing works for other directions. Fire-South-Red/Purple(and this sort of colors);Metal-West-White/Silver;Water-North-Blue/Black;Earth-Middle/Center/Zenith-Yellow/Brown.

If there's imbalance in the proprtions of the basic elements, people can get sick or unlucky, things like that, and one way of help restoring the balance is to place things of corresponding color or texture/material in proper directions in your home or take theses things with you when you're travelling to somewhere not balanced, as there's a creation and overcoming circle like Water overcomes/destructs Fire. The relationship can be also used in art and literature. And this is how you link colors and directions together (with everything else in the world actually XD)

I suppose that when Westerners link chasity with white so brides wear white, there's a similar relationship: you consider white is/represents chasity.

Of course there's chance that this sentence in the course may just mean that oh the sun is rising in the East and the sky and the ground and everything are just orange XD


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Eric174937

It part of the 4 scared mountains yellow East! Not orange.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/ashkii6

East is represented by white...not yellow. South is blue West us yellow North is black

https://discovernavajo.com/experience-the-navajo-nation/navajo-culture/


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Eric174937

Your absolutely right. Thanks.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Eric174937

East is yellow -łitso. Part of the 4 sacred mountains. Ha' a'aah (Dook'ó oodłííd) mountain. Tádídììn łitso


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/ashkii6

East is white - łigai

West is yellow - łitso

Ha'a'ah does mean East but Dook’o’oosłííd is the mountain of the west


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/ashkii6

East is supposed to be white.

South is blue West is yellow North is black


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/JaysLearning

I put 'It is orange in the East' and got it wrong. What's the difference?


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/475.ColpOUPUnBoM

Is this the same term for dawn? For what it's worth glosbe says haʼííʼą́ągo is the word for sunrise.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/jtaylor162

Especially with AngelMark7's comment, I'm guessing this is literally saying it is orange in the east (e.g. it looks like the sun is coming up soon). DL does reject "It is orange in the East," but I'm further guessing that may be an omission in this Beta version... Native speaker comments??

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