Going in all directions

One thing I had noticed when I was working on my MA thesis was that along with the verb wu 'to go' (though I think it might actually just be u), Sumi also had two other verbs: wo and hu.

The verb wo is generally used with the noun aki 'house', as in aki lo wo 'to go home' (lo is a locative or allative marker), suggesting that the verb also conveys the meaning of motion towards one's home / point of origin. The verb hu is usually used with the noun alu 'field', as in alu lo hu 'to go to the field', suggesting that the verb also conveys the meaning of motion away from one's home / point of origin. The verb wu therefore simply means 'to go' with no direction specified. Let's also not forget the verb ighi 'to come', which specifies direction towards the speaker / hearer / some common reference point, but at the time I was more interested in the wo and hu distinction at the time, which I think I've worked out.

In addition to these, I'd also found two other verbs, ipe which one speaker had told me meant 'to go out' or and ilo 'to go in' (iloghi also appears, containing the same ghi found in ighi 'to come' - something to work on). Again, I wasn't that surprised that the language made these distinctions. After all, English distinguishes between 'to enter' and 'to exit'.

Just recently on this trip, I'd been alerted to two more verbs: iqi 'to go down' and iqho 'to go up'. These can also mean 'to go South' and 'to go North' respectively. This is just like how people in Melbourne might 'go up' to Sydney for the weekend or people from Sydney will 'come down' to Melbourne. In French, on peut descendre sur la Côte d'Azur ou monter à Paris, ('One can go down to the Cote d'Azure or go up to Paris.'), assuming I'm coming from somewhere like Lyon. The image in people's minds I assume is that of a standard geographical map with North pointing up.

Similarly, a speaker in the town of Zunheboto might say:

(1)    Satakha lo iqini.
        (I) will go to Satakha.' (Satakha is south of Zunheboto)

(2)    Suruhuto lo iqhoni.
        '(I) will go to Suruhuto.' (Suruhuto is north of Zunheboto)

However, and this is the curious thing, if a speaker was going to Nito Mount (where I was and will be staying) from the centre of Zunheboto town, they would say:

(3)    Nito Mount lo iloni.
        '(I) will go to Nito Mount.'

And if a speaker in Nito Mount was going to the Zunheboto town centre, they would say:

(4)    Zünheboto lo ipeni.
        '(I'm) going to Zunheboto.'

At first I thought it was strange that one would say literally that they were 'going out' of town, where in English one would say 'I'm going into town.' Someone then pointed out that the important thing was that one was travelling west to Nito Mount and east to Zunheboto (which I'm slightly dubious about). Similarly, people would use the verb ilo to say they were going to Dimapur or Delhi, which all lie west of Zunheboto.

What it looks like then, is that the four verbs: ilo 'to go in', ipe 'to go out', iqho 'to go up' and iqho 'to go down', can also mean 'to go west', 'to go east', 'to go north' and 'to go south'.

As I've noted 'going up' and 'going down' are often associated with 'going north' and 'going south', but are there other languages where 'going in' and 'going out' correspond to 'going east' and 'going west'? And I don't just mean phrases like 'going into the East' or 'going out west', but instances where people will say the equivalent of 'I'm going in to (PLACE)' when that place is east of the speaker.