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Rafael Núñez and colleagues studied how members of the Yupno, an Indigenous group in Papua New Guinea, conceptualize time in both spoken language and gestures. The researchers recorded Yupno speakers explaining certain temporal words and phrases, such as omo-ropmo bilak, a past-oriented expression that translates to "a couple of years ago," and coded each speaker's manual gestures. Previous research has found a tendency in many cultures to make temporal distinctions along imagined linear axes: for instance, English speakers often refer to the front/back axis to describe events in time. Some researchers believe this tendency is universal, but Núñez and colleagues claim this is not the case.