I don't know of any that do not give us some lexical basis for such a conception that is as related to the original sense of wilderness (uncultivated land, wild plants, wild animals, etc.) as we find in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, etc. However, the ways in which languages encode this sense certainly differs, and in most Native/Indigenous languages and language families of the Americas that I've studied (Navajo, Ute, Paiute, Carib, etc.) the tendency is to rely on adfixation, clitics, morphology, and/or lexical pairs to distinguish between cultivated plants/lands and domesticated animals vs. wild plants animals. Additionally, while e.g., ancient Greek relied more on metaphorical extension than compounding (despite extensive use of the latter), no languages I am familiar with match languages like Nahautl or Navajo in use of base forms that are extended through various means that nearly rival the 3-consonant base roots of Semitic languages yet without the haphazard, frequently unrelated sense-groupings, and generally loose relations between Semitic words built upon the same root. In other words, while Greek relied on a sense of words like "desert"/ἔρημος to connote "wilderness", these languages extended/altered the words using a complex system to connote the kind of distinctions English does via a massive vocabulary.

That said, it's also kind of hard to have a word matching the sense of wilderness that the English lexeme conveyed even in late middle English, because it requires a relevant (in the sociocultural sense) and clear distinction between land and often livestock that are cultivated/raised vs. found "in the wild". As most of our lexicons and dictionaries of indigenous languages, from Sapir through Dixon, date from the 20th century, it's hard to tell how many "atomic"-like constructions indicating such a distinction actually go back that far in time and there is good reason for supposing that such a conceptual distinction upon which any lexeme, lexicalized compound, etc., must necessarily be based couldn't really exist. It's a bit like looking for words for "mansion" among peoples that dwelt in caves, tents, or similar domiciles.

Mahalo (thank you) for your answer. I really like the mansion analogy. I realized that I had meant to lead off the discussion with an example. I have read and seen statements that say most of the world indigenous cultures do not have a word for wilderness, but like you said the way the conceptual distinction exists may just not be the same. I find it hard to imagine people on any culture not delineating, at least to some degree, areas that are impacted by people and areas that are not. But it is possible that some distinctions do exist when the correct viewpoint is found.

In Hawaiian the closest term that I would use to describe "wilderness" in anyway is wao akua, which means the realm of the gods and was used in opposition to wao kanaka, the realm of man. The wao akua was an area where human did not traverse or utilize much at all, and only went with a clear purpose and did not linger there once hte purpose was done. This is not a perfect definition by any means, and there were areas that were not wao akua, and yet were not utilized by people and were for all practical definition wilderness areas, although there were usually more marginal habitats that were arid and young volcanic flows so the wilderness itself was pretty minimal. So the "wilderness" in Hawaii was typically restricted to higher elevation forests (above about 3000 ft), while everywhere below that threshold, whether it was wilderness or not, more fell into the realm of wao kanaka.

This distinction, just for example, would be irrelevant in a culture where all aspects of the landscape were utilized to a greater extent, as indeed the Hawaiian population likely would have if it were left alone for another few centuries as it appears at the time of European contact they were still progressively developing increasingly marginal habitats.

Noa, I'm afraid your premise is false: "Many of the thousands of indigenous languages in the world do not have a word for "wild" or any of it's relatives -- wildness, wilderness, wilding etc."

Just to take two Austronesian languages of New Guinea that I am familiar with, Motu has uda, deep bush, forest, wilderness (wild things are uda gauna) and Mekeo has a'i, wild, ango alo (idiomatic meaning: the 'inside of the land') meaning the primary forest, wilderness, etc. I note that Mekeo a'i, wild, is superficially similar to Hawaiian 'ahiu (apostrophe = glottal stop) but probably not cognate with it. Incidentally, Maaori koraha, open terrain (?), seems to have connotations of wilderness; while Maaori maka has wild as one meaning. Not knowing Maaori I can't comment. Somewhat further afield, Ivens' Dictionary of Bugotu. an Austronesian language of the Solomon Islands, gives asi, wild (this is definitely cognate with Mekeo a'i) and lilama, nggou, both meaning wilderness. I think here of the famous distinction between the raw and the cooked, introduced by Levi-Strauss as a metaphor for the nature-culture-nature. The nature-culture divide, a common trope in contemporary anthropological analysis, probably represents a profound cognitive reality for indigenous peoples who live close to nature.

Thank you Alan. I realized that I should not have made my premise as a statement, but rather that "I have often read it stated that many of the worldʻs indigenous languages do not have a term for wild or wilderness." I myself donʻt believe it because, as you said, the reality of wild and potentially dangerous areas, vs areas that are well "tamed" by man are more of a reality to those who live close to nature.

As I understand ʻahia (I speak Hawaiian, though the broken Hawaiian the was used in my family) it is not ever used to denote the state of a landscape, but only individuals, so I donʻt exactly think that translation works. I am especially interested in the idiomatic meanings, and particularly like your Mekeo example.

I understand that some Native American cultures (Mohawk) make a distinction between the village and what is outside of it. One is considered more safe and the other more dangerous. It was a log time ago I heard this and I think it was in context of Mary Douglas' _Purity and Danger_, althought I can't remember reading about this in that book.

In Witoto (a nortthwestern Amazon language) their is a clear distinction between the spaces that are transformed by humans (house, cultivated gardens) and the wild space. The general term for what we could call "wilderness" is jazɨkɨ (commonly translated as "forest"). The distinction between these two spaces is marked grammatically by two postpositions that are in fact indexes of what I could call a moral geography: jofo/jino "inside/outside". Everything "jino" is related to wild animal and plant species and the source of illnesses and pollution. This marked contrast between two clearly delimited spaces is shared by other neighboring languages: Muinane, Bora, Andoque.

The Mekeo of New Guinea also have an important inside/outside dichotomy running through areas of everyday life and lexical representations of their lifeworld. But, interestingly, for the Mekeo, the true or primary forest (ango-alo, land-inside) is the cosmic "inside" and to go into the forest is to "go inside the land" (ango-alo e-lao). The central ground of the village is the "stomach" (metaphorically = "centre") of the land (ango inaenga), also conceptualised as a "clearing" in the land = forest.

Relatedly, for the Mekeo, when a fire "goes out" (as it does in the English idiom), it "goes inside" (lo e-alo, the fire it-insides) - thus alo seems to be conceptualised simultaneously as a dangerous non-human domain that can yet in some instances be entered" (e-koko, "s/he went in" (idiomatically, to the forest). Entering the forest of course - for humans - is not final - hunters regularly enter the land and come out again. This true forest (in Bislama known as 'dak bus') is also referred to as au-f-a'i (au means "tree(s)" and a'i means "wild" as in a wild animal, undomesticated). The forst is known to be not just the realm of wild animals but also of dangerous - or "wild" - spirits.

I note also that for the Mekeo gardening land - secondary forest, extending usually from 5 to 10 kilometres from the village - is lexically and conceptually distinct from the true forest. It is called apungu and apungu-fafa (no etymology available).

Final note: Like most lexical roots in Mekeo alo "inside" functions as both noun and verb (cf e-alo, s/he, it inside(-ed/-s)). There is no past-present distinction.

Thank you very much for that elaboration Alan. Fascinating stuff!!

And also Marc and Juan for the contributions. Seems like definitely a common theme of inside and outside distinction, and not so much thinking of things as wild, but rather demarcating the places that have become areas for humans. I know that is a broad generalization but Iʻm thinking about the epistemology of the groups, which is hard with language and semantics because so much is lost in translation.

Hi Noa,

The idea of 'wilderness' or 'the wild' suggests a space that is beyond the realm of humans and human activity. For Inuit, the tundra, sea and sea ice are known places, that harbour memory and identity. No part of the physical environment is outside of human experience - everywhere is known or has the potential to be known. To the outsider the tundra, the sea ice, the sea, are meaningless, but for those who have experienced them or know the stories of places, they are filled with memory and meaning.

Similarly animals are not wild. Polar bear, beluga whale, caribou, ringed seal, goose, etc, behaviour is understood. These animals are co-inhabitants of a shared environment; the history and movements of humans and animals are co-constituted. However, when we start to interfere with animals - scientifically observing them, tranquilising them, putting radio collars on, tagging them, etc, many Inuit believe they become unpredictable, and I have heard Inuit elders use the word 'wild' in this instance...in the sense of becoming unknown and unpredictable.

Have you read Keith Basso's 'Wisdom sits in places', about landscape and morality in Apache culture?

I also think that there are differences between word/meaning and the cognitive social practice of use of landscape that I find fascinating in Alaskan Athapaskan (sp.) and Inupiat/Yup'iit thought.

Henry Sharp wrote a book, "The Transformation of Bigfoot," that incorporates the tension between concepts of wilderness/uncontrolled space/danger and camp/controlled space/relatively safe areas as the White idea of Bigfoot became syncretized with Chipewyan notions of Wild Persons or "Stick" indians. Sharp considers the aspect of gender roles and social control in a context of an indigenous culture undergoing rapid direct acculturation by Canadian cultural religious and political agencies (OCoLC)568720715

My experience with Yup'iit and Inupiat peoples indicates that once you are outside of "town" as presently conceived, the tundra or mountains are simultaneously imbued with magical potential and with banal quotidian reality. Former occupations may be haunted; hills on the tundra may be houses for little people or giants who to this day are seen by residents; and fantastical animal persons may present themselves as bigfoot/hairy people/monkey people, giant fish, and flying whales. Tom Lowenstein talks about the relationships between house and whale, people and animals in Ancient Land, Sacred Whale (oclc 29523028). Ann Fienup-Riordan wrote Boundaries and Passages (oclc 28674229) as a central work describing the rules and regulations of the Yup'iit of SW Alaska, richly contextualized in order to explain the cultural conceptions that underlie those rules and practices. For the Yup'iit the tundra, ocean, mountains and rivers are limnal spaces where fantastical events may take place; these fantastical events are culturally ordered and structured for multifarious reasons. Appropriate social behavior towards objects and creatures which are considered to have inua or spirits; cleverness in social, economic and military undertakings; and how to be a "real person" in whatever environment one finds oneself in.

These are all metaphorical concepts, however. The western concept of wilderness doesn't really fit, and in America I think it is a kind of mental jiu-jitsu move to avoid having to address the fact that the entirety of the continent was occupied by indigenous people who managed and cultivated bounded areas they considered their own, only to have them usurped by white invaders whose advance was aided by disease and fomented conflicts between indigenous groups. A critique by Grant (http://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-40456808/arctic-wilderness-and-other-mythologies) of contemporary White notions of "wilderness" is of interest in the conceptual discussion. Omar Stewart's "Forgotten Fires" (oclc 48966599) addresses indigenous management, written with politically sensitive land management aims.

Hopefully more than a ramble, Cheers!

Old Norse and modern Icelandic have a series of terms differentiating zones of "domesticated" and "wild" spaces for which the basic distinction is in the terms innangarðs and utangarðs, with the former translating directly to "within the fence" and the later "outside the fence." At one level, this is precisely descriptive of farms' layout - the fence surrounding one's home field, the túngarður (homefield fence), not only enclosed the prime hay-field from which the fodder was harvested to support domestic animals through the winter but also was a legal and quasi-magical barrier to which one's enemies had to ride in order to summons one to combat or announce legal procedures in conflict with the farm's members but within which they could not pass without violating the terms of the legal summons and destroying their case, or encumbering a legal counterchallenge for trespass. But, beyond that, the terms utangarð and innangarð also imply the difference between the settled realm of men, communities, and society (innangarð) and the unsettled outer wilderness (utangarðs) that was home to giants, trolls, spirits, and outlaws. The term garð, here, also implies the law as a fence surrounding and bounding society, and therefore making civilization - regardless of its interpersonal violence. At yet another level, Innangarðs implied the world of humans, Miðgarður represented the world under the control of the gods - incorporating not only areas that were innangarðs and the world of humans but also other non-human beings such as giants, trolls, dwarves, some elves, animals, etc., while utangarðs, in this extended metaphysical meaning, represented the realm of inchoate chaos and formlessness that surrounded the "constructed world" of Miðgarður. Miðgarður, itself, was surrounded by the Miðgarð serpent, a being/force of the chaos from utangarðs that the gods (Thor, specifically) subdued and laid around the circumference of the constructed world, biting its own tail, to form a fence separating innangarðs (the world, the universe of men and gods) from utangarðs (chaos). At the end of time, it was believed that forces from outside (utangarðs) would attack, the Miðgarð serpent would unbind itself, and the forces of the utangarðs realms would invade and destroy all that was innangarðs - including not only Miðgarður (the world of perceived existence as we know it or understand it) but also Ásgarð - the world or realm of the gods (a god is Ás, together they are Æsir; thus Ásgarð means the enclosure or world of the gods, with all of its own internal places).

Thus, the concept of fence or boundary (garð, garður) is far more than a "fence" and a fence is far more than a simple boundary. The concept of fences/boundedness extends semantically from the fence around one's home and the legal/magical protection it provides to the division between the settled zone of settlements united in law and the wilderness beyond, inhabited by lawless men (outlaws were those formally thrown "out" of the law and without legal protection due to their violations of the laws that held society, innangarðs, together), as well as non-human sentient and assumed corporeal beings (e.g. giants, trolls) that nonetheless were considered "of the world formed by the gods...where "formed" means regulated and put into shape through laws governing existence rather than "made": the giants and trolls existed independent of, and prior to, the gods). At a still more distant remove, the fence/boundary/garður differentiated the universe (for want of a better term) that was held together by the laws and actions and intervention and attentiveness of the gods, against the worlds or realms beyond - in utangarðs, where forces of chaos live, lurk, and wait to destroy the realms/world within the fence of the Miðgarð serpent.

(It's hard to find a suitable term for these utangarðs beings in western terms, because they are considered sentient and omnipotent and are represented in humanoid or animal-like form but were not considered gods - as they do not establish or defend or prosecute law or create form from formlessness, and as they kill the gods, and/or existed before the gods. What term do we have for things/beings that can kill gods? The Norse used the term jötunn [sing], at times, for these, but it gets translated as "giant" which also describes less powerful, large beings similar to what we colloquially understand as "giants" living within the "utangarðs" parts of Miðgarður and that were clearly allied to, and perhaps descended from these other major Utangarð beings that existed in the realms beyond the Miðgarð Serpent).

I don't know if this helps, Noa, or whether you would consider the Norse and Viking Age or medieval Icelanders "indigenous" - some don't because they are European, but it's a European quite distinct from the Christian, colonizing Europe of later centuries.

By the way, Kirsten Hastrup has written somewhat about these concepts, especially in Culture and History in Medieval Iceland (1985).

Kevin, you might be interested in the role of fences in the Mekeo conceptualisation of space (inside/outside; home/wilderness). Mark Mosko has noted the symbolic role of the light fence (fangapu) made of croton plants that surrounds a typical rectangular Mekeo village. You can read about this online. Use google to find:

Mosko, M. 2006, 'Self-Scaling the Earth: Relations of land, society and body among North Mekeo, Papua New Guinea', in Thomas Reuter (ed.), Sharing the earth, dividing the land: Land and territory in the Austronesian world. ANU ePress, Canberra, pp. 277-297.

Other sources (e.g. Hau'ofa, 1981, as well as numerous myths and folktales I've collected) suggest that in fact inside and outside are relative conceptions and that the Mekeo divide up space - around the inner self as around the sacred central ground of the village - in terms of either six or three successive boundaries (fences, walls, guardian spirits, etc,).

Interesting, Alan. Many thanks. And also to hear that work with the Mekeo is so current and engaging. For 12 years I was curator of anthropology at the Buffalo Museum of Science, in Buffalo, NY, where there's quite an amazing collection from PNG (ca. 6,500 objects), including a large Mekeo collection, all collected 1885-1914 by P.G.T. Black, who was a branch inspector and later director of Burns Philp, Ltd. Came to Buffalo in 1936, after the Australian government declined, for 15 years, to purchase the collection from the family. Anyway, I had a very difficult time finding anyone interested enough in the Mekeo or any of the other groups represented by material in that collection to work on it, but given its age there cannot be many other such collections, or on its scale. I'll look into Mark Mosko's article!

Hi, Kevin, I am intrigued to hear about your large collection of Mekeo artefacts. Perhaps I'll be able to visit it one day. I would be very interested in book rescuing the material culture of the Mekeo from museum drawers. A teaching career focused on professional and organisational discourse has diverted me from my anthropological concerns based on linguistic fieldwork on Mekeo carried out in the early 1980s. Now, retired from teaching, I am working up my field notes, translating collected texts (Mekeo, Motu and Kuni), etc., within a framework of cultural interpretive anthropology. Big focus on mythology. See my article in the current issue of the Journal of the Polynesian Society: "Mythic origins of moral evil: Moral fatalism and the tragic self-conception of the Mekeo."

Also, as a linguist first, I am an unashamed proponent of comparativism , hence very interested in cross-culturally exploited "primary symbols" (Ricoeur) like the fence.

Twi speakers (Akan) in Ghana have a firm concept of wilderness, which is labeled "wuram", (usually rendered as "bush" in West African English) in opposition to settled areas, which are in turn classified as towns, nkoro (sing koro), or villages, nkura (sing, akura). The bush is considered to be an area beyond the range of normalcy, the preserve of various monsters, spirits, and other supernatural forces.

I am fluent in the Hausa language, which is the West African trade language and counterpart to the East African Swahili trade language. The Hausa term for wilderness is "Daji". Daji is the uncultivated unoccupied lands where wild animals "namomin daji" live, such as Giraffe and zebra.  

I am from the Kalinga ethno-linguistic group of Northern Philippines. The Kalinga term for wild is "atap". This applies to animals that are untamed and are living in the wilderness. The Kalinga term for wilderness is " tattalon"  while wild forest is "ginubat". I hope this will help you.

Sure - among the Telefolmin of the Sepik headwaters, the word /sep/ means "bush", and is associated among other things with "bush enemies" (whom one would have killed pretty much on sight in the old days) = /sepwaasi/, as opposed to "house enemies" /amwaasi/, with whom one could make peace. It was also the abode of wild pigs /saaman/, who had no spirit /sinik/, vs. domestic pigs /kong/ who do have spirit..... I don't think this is a particularly unusual configuration in PNG. In fact, I would *especially* expect people who plant crops and keep domestic animals to make such a distinction.

A very interesting question! I am very interested in the Inuit culture and I asked some time ago an Inuit expert whether there is a word for wilderness in Inuktitut (the language of Inuit). She answered that in Inuktitut there is no word for it. In our conversation the idea was that for certain concepts "names"  are only invented after these concepts are becoming increasingly scarce or threatened.  The experts also explained that this appears to apply to the concept of  "identity" for which the Inuit had no specific word either. This general idea appears to be confirmed by wilderness legislation developments: in law the term wilderness has particularly been introduced in a time period where wilderness has become more scarce, positively valued and/or under specific threats (e.g., the concept of wilderness was introduced in Icelandic environmental law in 1998, a time period characterised by public debate on the large energy projects). However, also in law not all terms 'wilderness' exactly mean the same. For instance, I learned from Finnish colleagues that in Finland the concept of wilderness is much more related to a 'wild area' that is well-fitted for subsistence ways of life (to find water and food), etc and the Act on Wilderness Reserves in this country is primarily related to finding the right balance between nature conservation and the cultural rights of Sami people. So, although most concept of wilderness in modern law relates quite well to the  Western concept of wilderness as defined by the World Conservation Union/IUCN (category 1b), there are cultural influences that may explain differences in the meaning of wilderness in law as well.

However, I am a lawyer, specifically interested in the role of law in protecting wilderness, and the rich answers above by Martina, Kevin and others clearly show that this legal perspective is only one perspective relating to recent times. If I am correct, written law is a typical Western phenomenon (which may explain the strong overlap between the IUCN definition and wilderness in law), while I learn from the answers that in indigenous languages the concept has various meanings or may be absent (for instance, I find the explanation of Martina on the concept of 'wild'  in Inuit culture very interesting indeed! So, thanks for uploading this question and the interesting answers. Are you planning to publish outcomes of your research in this issue?