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Grant A.
November 22nd, 2009, 07:08 AM
Does anyone know why both French and Spanish borrowed the names for the points on the compass from Old English? I know that Spanish borrowed them from French, but why did French borrow them from Old English? Was there some discovery made by the Anglo-Saxons related to the directions that was really profound? I'm just confused, because Latin had words for these already.

Language above :: Old English :: Modern English


French:

nord :: norş :: north
ouest :: west :: west
sud :: suş :: south
est :: ēast :: east


Spanish:

norte :: norş :: north
oeste :: west :: west
sur :: suş :: south
este :: ēast :: east


Note: Upon further investigation, Italian and Romanian do this too. Why?

samh785
November 22nd, 2009, 07:13 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction#Germanic_origin_of_names


During the Migration Period, the Germanic languages' names for the cardinal directions entered the Romance languages, where they replaced the Latin names borealis (or septentrionalis) with north, australis (or meridionalis) with south, occidentalis with west and orientalis with east. It is possible that some northern people used the Germanic names for the intermediate directions. Medieval Scandinavian orientation would thus have involved a 45 degree rotation of cardinal directions.[1]
north (Proto-Germanic *norş-) from a root *ner- "left, below", i.e. "to the left of the rising Sun".
east (*aus-to-) from the word for dawn, see Ēostre.
south (*sunş-) is root-cognate to Sun itself, thus "the region of the Sun"
west (*wes-t-) from a word for "evening", root-cognate to Latin vesper.

SunnyRabbiera
November 22nd, 2009, 07:13 AM
Well most the major languages originated from latin.

Regenweald
November 22nd, 2009, 07:28 AM
Note: Upon further investigation, Italian and Romanian do this too. Why?

Because we all live on one solitary sphere and maybe in the thousands of years of human and language evolution...............we interacted with each other.

MasterNetra
November 22nd, 2009, 07:30 AM
...
Note: Upon further investigation, Italian and Romanian do this too. Why?

Lack of innovation.

Sealbhach
November 22nd, 2009, 07:40 AM
It is odd, because mostly words from Latin entered the Germanic languages, driven by technology and legal/administrative systems (Old English before the Conquest would be included here).

The traffic was mostly one-way, so this is strange.

.

Grant A.
November 22nd, 2009, 07:44 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction#Germanic_origin_of_names

Thanks, but I already knew the backstory, I just want to know why.



Thanks for the replies, so far.

LowSky
November 22nd, 2009, 07:47 AM
Because we all live on one solitary sphere and maybe in the thousands of years of human and language evolution...............we interacted with each other.

Its why the word 'no' is nearly universal, or how the phrase "OK" which is a relatively new is used around the globe.

samh785
November 22nd, 2009, 07:59 AM
Thanks, but I already knew the backstory, I just want to know why.



Thanks for the replies, so far.
It's because the Germanic tribes invaded areas around europe before the fall of the roman empire and melded their germanic languages with the then commonly spoken latin. I would think that the changes occured before latin branched into all of the romance languages you see today- this would explain why they all have similar germanic rooted words for the cardinal directions.