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Why does 前 mean "past" in terms of time, but "forward" in terms of direction?

So far I was able to find that 前 is constructed from Chinese: 舟 and 止, which
can be interpreted as "leaving a footprint", hence the "past" meaning, but it
seems kind of far-fetched.
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2018-05-08T12:46:39.510
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etymology time
Why does 前 mean "past" in terms of time, but "forward" in terms of direction?
Because one thing happens ‘before’ another thing in time. Actually it has the
meaning of ‘in front of’ or ‘before’. So something can happen **in front of
you**. Or something happens **before** another thing happens.
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2018-05-08T12:55:19.327
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Probably for the same reason that someone who is "ahead" of someone else is
both _in front_ of them physically and also arrives _earlier_. For that
matter, the English word "before" also shares the same meanings of "earlier"
and "in front" (though the latter meaning is rarer in current usage).

Equating temporal directions with physical ones is a tricky matter that's more
complicated than it might intuitively seem. 前 is actually the simpler Japanese
example here, because it is at least very consistent in which direction it
refers to in each context. 先 is so nebulous that it can actually refer to the
past or future.
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My understanding is that it's analogous to English usage of the word
**before**.

In some cases, **before** in English has the connotation of something that
occurs prior:

> 学校から帰る **前** に、図書館に行かなきゃ。  
>  **Before** I go home from school, I have to go to the library.

In other cases, **before** has the meaning of something that is in front of
you (i.e. standing **before** you):

> 急にアリスさんは僕の **前** に立ち上がって、「好きだよ、きみのこと」と言った。  
>  Suddenly, Alice stood up **before** (or, in front of) me, and said "I love
> you".
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2018-05-08T17:13:43.840
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As a Chinese native speaker who knows a little bit about Japanese, I would
like to talk about this character on a Chinese perspective. I believe the
origin of your question can be traced to the Chinese origin. [![Source of "前"
in Chinese, source: http://www.fantizi5.com/ziyuan/ and search
"前"](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l2VjU.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l2VjU.jpg)

Picture source: <http://www.fantizi5.com/ziyuan/> and then search "前".

Translation: Original character: (止 over 舟). This character is from 舟 and 止,
where 舟 is a boat, and 止 is a foot, indicating the boat is going
forward.........

## Consider duck, which is an animal that uses its feet to pedal, 舟 with 止
should be considered as a person using his/her feet to pedal the boat to go
forward.

In Chinese, 前 has almost the exactly same meaning as in Japanese - the first
is something **in front of** something. E.g.: 面前, which literally means "in
front of the face", or just "in front of (a person)"; 站前, which is used by
many cities as "the area in front of the (main) train station". This can be
considered as a priority queue (sorry, but I'm a computer scientist, and this
is a computer science term, but I do think it is not hard to understand), 前
means A has a higher priority than B.

The second meaning is about time - which means " **before** ". However, in
Chinese, 前日 means "the day before something happens" (e.g.:结婚前日, "the day
before wedding"). Interestingly, 前天 means "the day before yesterday", though
people usually treat 日 and 天 as two characters with the same meaning. More
interestingly, "先前几天/先前几日" in Chinese both have the same meaning: "preceded
days before today (or someday)", "昨天/昨日" both mean "yesterday". Nevertheless,
前 means "preceding time". Time can also be considered as a queue - the
preceded time can be considered as having a higher priority. Or front another
perspective, the preceded time is "in front of" the following time.

Another meaning is "proceed". For example: "前进" literally means "proceed
forward", which means "proceed". When proceeding, it means to get higher
priority.

All in all, 前 means "a higher priority" as a state/time/etc, or "to get a
higher priority". Therefore, it means going forward.

* * *

I saw someone said that he/she is "always confusing the meanings of 先日 and 前日"
in Japanese - it's normal, as you can see from above, they are complicated
from the root (which is Chinese itself) of this question.

P.S., for Chinese, the words with "天" that can be changed to "日" without
changing the meaning (e.g. "昨天/昨日", "先前几天/先前几日", "三天/三日 (three days)",
"星期天/星期日 or 周天/周日(Sunday, 周天 is rare, 星期天 and 周日 are most used, 星期日 is a
little bit formal)", "工作天/工作日(Weekdays, though the first one is rare)"), the
one with "天" is more informal, and the one with "日" is more formal. Even for
most words with "日" that is not interpreted as "day" (e.g.: "日" itself can
either mean "sun" or "day" (and sometimes can be used as f-word in Chinese),
but "天" only means "day"), it's more formal than its synonyms (e.g.: 日 vs 太阳,
both mean "the Sun", and the first one is more formal; same when interpreting
"日" as a swear word, it is more formal than its synonyms).

It's hard to feel the inner meaning of a word when learning another language.
I personally learn English (since 2001-2002, when I was 4-5) and German (since
2014), and I do speak better English than most of my Chinese friends - but
still worse than real native speakers...... It is necessary to be soaked in
that environment in order to be a better user of one language.
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There are many issues with the question, because it doesn't differentiate
between _words_ and _characters_. Fully addressing the question requires a
discussion of the following:

  1. The glyph origin of「前」
  2. Spatiotemporal metaphors
  3. The Chinese word (Old Chinese: /*[dz]ˤen/) meaning _front/forward, past_ and translating this Chinese word into the Japanese word「まえ」

* * *

Firstly, there is no demonstrable link between the character「前」and the meaning
_forward_. The oracle bone version of「前」looked like

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FMrn4.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FMrn4.png)

That is, a compound of「止」( _foot_ ) and「凡」( _a tray_ , now written「盤」). The
original meaning was _to wash one's feet (e.g. in a basin)_ , and sometimes to
emphasise the meaning, drops of water「氵」were added around the foot, and「凡」was
replaced with「用」( _a tub/bucket_ , now written「桶」).

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DSm27.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DSm27.png)

The original meaning was extended to mean _wash_ in general, now
written「湔」.「凡」is often confused with「舟」(seen in many characters such as「盤」,
where the tray-shape is morphed into「舟」), because「凡」and「舟」looked very similar
in many bronze inscriptions:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wnY9D.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wnY9D.png)

_(Bronze script forms; Left: 舟, Right: 凡)_

This leads to the form「歬」, and by this time「凡」and「用」were long gone from the
character and「歬」was used for the meaning _forward_.

The character didn't stop changing, however, and eventually「刀」was added to
represent the meaning _cut_ , later written「剪」(to emphasise the meaning _cut_
differentiated from _forward_ via the addition of yet another「刀」). An overview
of the change over the years looked something like this:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QgG1C.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QgG1C.png)

Hopefully this demonstrates the importance in separating the concepts of
_words_ and _characters_ ; the one series of characters「前」has been used to
represent three completely different words (meaning _wash, forward, cut_ )
which merely sounded similar.

* * *

Now that we've determined that the character has nothing to do with the
meaning, the second point of interest is the association of forward and past,
and backward and future. Neurobiology/psycholinguistics terms the description
of temporal directionality using spatial language as _spatiotemporal
metaphors_ , noting that words that describe spatial locations are borrowed in
most languages around the world to also describe temporal sequencing. Studies
relating to the English language typically categorises these as _time-based_
and _ego-based_ metaphors:

  * Time-based metaphor, viewing a sequence of events from past to present. Future is _behind_ , past is _in front_. 
    * English: after, before
    * Chinese:「後」,「前」
  * Ego-based metaphor, viewing a sequence of events as approaching you or leaving you. Future is _in front_ , past is _behind_. 
    * English: forwards (what's coming ahead), backwards (what's left behind)
    * Chinese:「未來」,「過去」

It is clear that English also has a metaphor equating _front_ as _past_ ,
which is directly translatable to「前」; however it is the time-based _before_
rather than the ego-based _forward_.

Japanese「まえ」(etymology/historical spelling:「[目方]{まへ}」, _the direction which
the eyes are looking in_ ), as a spatial term is an easy enough correspondence
to Chinese /*[dz]ˤen/ ( _front_ ), but did it carry a connotation of _before,
past_ prior to the importation of _kanji_? The presence of a few other
Japanese vocabulary items specifying the past suggests a preference towards
ego-based metaphors:

  * 「[古]{いにしえ}」 - from「[往]{い}にし[方]{へ}」, _in the direction of that which has left you_ ;
  * 「[昔]{むかし}」 - from「[向]{む}く」+「し」, _in the direction of that opposite to the present (where you are located)_.

* * *

To summarise:

  * 「前」has nothing to do with _forward/past_ in terms of glyph origins;
  * Chinese uses「前」as a time-based metaphor indicating _the past_ ;
  * It is unknown whether「まえ」had the association to the meaning _past_ before「前」was imported. Such a meaning would at least not be obvious from the etymology「[目方]{まへ}」, and we would expect an abundance of fossilised words containing a derivative or cognate of「[目方]{まへ}」referring to _the past_ if「まえ」was associated with _the past_ before the importation of「前」.
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