Shouting the distance
Krosa is Sanskrit for a cry, and thus has come to mean the distance over which a man’s call can be heard, roughly two miles. In the central forests of Sri Lanka calculations of distance are also made by sound: a dog’s bark indicates a quarter of a mile; a cock’s crow something more; and hoo is the space over which a man can be heard when shouting the word at the highest pitch of his voice. While in the Yakut language of Siberia, kiosses represents a specific distance calculated in terms of the time it takes to cook a piece of meat.
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