There was an article posted here not too long ago which talked about decoding an old Polynesian map, which the sailors used to navigate between islands in the pacific, and it turned out to be similarly situational - the map wasn’t useful for telling objectively how far you were from one place to another, but it was very useful for navigating from one spot to another based on references to what you could see.
I’ve mentioned it a few times around here, but James C Scott’s Seeing Like A State* has a fascinating look at the way language changed to prefer “overview”-type ways of describing location/distance/etc, as opposed to these more situational/embodied measures & directions which were previously commonplace.
I’ve mentioned it a few times around here, but James C Scott’s Seeing Like A State* has a fascinating look at the way language changed to prefer “overview”-type ways of describing location/distance/etc, as opposed to these more situational/embodied measures & directions which were previously commonplace.
* https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780300078152