Research in this location was conceptualized as a challenge to our main ecological hypothesis, namely that a geocentric FoR is more adaptive in rural areas while an egocentric one is more useful in the city. Previous research by Pederson (1993) with Tamil in south India, and our own research in Bali, India and Nepal have systematically brought this out. So, how generalizable is this conclusion?

During a discussion with the late Professor Babban Mishra, a psycholinguist at the University of Gorakhpur in northern India, he mentioned that he knew of a rural area in the vicinity where people systematically used an egocentric FoR in spatial language. He took us there, and we informally elicited some spatial language, particularly by drawing our standard “route” on the ground, and asking a few informants to use this to give directions. Indeed, many of these informants did use egocentric language, at least partly. When one young man used geocentric language systematically (NSEW cardinal directions), he was scolded by an elder, who shouted “Speak properly, this is not how one gives directions, you have to say ‘turn right, and then left’!”

This convinced us that an egocentric FoR seemed to be the standard in that village, and that it was worthwhile looking at this possible “exception” more closely. Professor B. Mishra later took us for a short visit to another village, Panditpur, where we made the same informal observations. We therefore organized data collection with our standard tasks and a child questionnaire (see chapter 2).