Up north

This essay owes its title to local patriotism. In Minnesota, which has recently become one of the centers of world politics and in which I happen to live and teach, when people move in the direction of the state’s northern border, they often describe their travel as “going up north.” I too am moving in that direction with my heavy burden of words of unknown origin. Two weeks ago, I discussed the etymology of east. Among other things, mention was made of Latin auster “south wind.” From a comment on the post, I learned that Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516), whose works I have never touched but whose name rings a bell from my dealing with Paracelsus and the history of the Faust legend, believed that the true East is in the South because that is where the sun originally rises! His opinion is a curiosity, but it may have older roots about which I know nothing. Perhaps some of our readers will enlighten us on such an esoteric subject. At the moment, enjoy the picture of a market (both “east” and “south”).

All four terms—north, south, east, and west—may be obscure or partly transparent from a historical point of view. In the entry “south” (that is, Süden), Elmar Seebold, the editor of the main etymological dictionary of German (Kluge-Seebold), admitted that the origin of those words is problematic. Yet in Germanic (he added), we observe an association between them and time. Thus, east is “sunrise,” west is “sunset,” north is evidently when the sun is “low” (because “midnight” cannot be tied to any position of the sun), while south should have some reference to “above.” However, we are often unable to discover the sought-after references.

More on south will be said next week, and here I can only repeat that though the associations, mentioned by Seebold, are non-controversial, the etymology of all four Germanic words is opaque to the modern speaker, that is, today, they cannot be connected with the roots meaning “up, down; warm, cold; right, left,” and so forth (or for that matter, with any adverb, noun, or adjective in any modern language). Only specialists, if they are fortunate, are sometimes able to uncover the most ancient ties. Thus, the Slavic word for “north” (for instance, Russian sever) is, according to the universal opinion, related to English shower. The connection is, presumably, with a cold shower! By contrast, the Slavic name of the south is almost hopelessly opaque. As a matter of fact, today, in Slavic, only the word for “west” is fully transparent. It refers to the sunset and means “fall,” that is, “(sun-)set,” or “(sun)-fall”: thus, Russian zapad (stress on the first syllable) has a prefix and the root pad-. East in Slavic, as mentioned two weeks ago, is a calque of the corresponding Greek noun (and thus, could not be very old?). In fourth-century Gothic (a Germanic language), in which the word for “north” did not turn up, the name for “east” referred to “out-running” (ur-runs), while the name for “west” referred to “sinking.” Again, both words look like calques from Greek. Are we allowed to conclude that in their everyday life, the Goths did without those concepts and hence lacked the terms? Such conclusions should not be drawn in haste. As is well-known, the French terms nord, sud, uest, and est are loans from twelfth-century English, when English was borrowing French words by the hundred! The situation elsewhere in Romance is similar, but the details differ. Those who remember the great controversy between the Nominalists and the Realists will find themselves on familiar ground.

Obviously, people need names for the four cardinal points in various situations. Yet seafarers perhaps need them most. Hence the prestige of Dutch terms in this area; at one time, the Dutch were especially famous for traversing the ocean. So of course, were the Vikings, but Old Norse words that interest us are just Germanic and provide no additional information. Also, the Ancient Greeks were great navigators. It is therefore no wonder that they developed the expected vocabulary. (By contrast, the Latin terminology is confusing: mainly references to winds.) The origin of the Goths is a moot point, but as far as we can judge, they were not seafarers. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that Bishop Wulfila, the alleged translator of the New Testament from Greek into fourth-century Gothic, lacked native words for the points of the compass. Even if this conclusion is correct, why then did the Slavs have native words for “north” and “south” but needed a calque for “east”? A conundrum, as learned people say.

Popular blogs are supposed to enlighten, rather than obfuscate, the readers, while I keep repeating that the origin of such and such words is unknown and may remain unknown until the crack of doom. The sad truth is that we are indeed unable to trace our words to the beginning of time. Their origin is at best debatable. Short answers and lists of cognates can be found elsewhere. My aim is to show how devious the etymologist’s path is.

Many associations could contribute to the coining of the word “north”. One study taught me extreme caution in dealing with such questions. The study is titled “Terms of Direction in Modern Icelandic” by Stefán Einarsson. If anyone is interested, I’ll give the reference and more information next week. Consider one of the opening sentences in SE’s article: “In this valley east and south were opposed; crossing the river from the NE bank was ‘cross the river to the south’, the opposite being ‘to the east’.” East and south were opposed! How could that be possible? But to return to our subject.

The prevailing opinion connects the word north with the concept of either “to the left” or “low, below.” Several authoritative sources do not distinguish between the two, probably because some cognates in Classical Greek and other old languages denoted both. Besides, both low and left might refer to bad things (compare the history of left-handedness). However, a few important words with this root referred to the kingdom of the dead, obviously, a region below our habitat. Also, the sun stands at its highest point at the Solar Noon and then goes below, not to the left. The fact that the north is to the left of a praying person seems to be of secondary importance in choosing between “left” and “low” in determining the origin of the word north. Such was also the latest opinion of Jaan de Vries, in his etymological dictionary of Dutch. (By the way, the Scandinavians worshipped the sea god Njörthr. Is his name related to the word north? Perhaps…)

Viktor Levitsky, the author of the most recent Germanic etymological dictionary (2010; unfortunately written in Russian, a language few Germanic historical linguists can read), shared this view and cited the ancient root ner– ~ nēr- “to sink”. Words with this root designated the regions devoid of the sun, including the aforementioned kingdom of the dead. He also referred to Hermann Hirt, who, while discussing this opposition, explained the name Red Sea as a southern sea, while the Black Sea is, by contrast, a northern sea. In this, Hirt followed the tradition going back to the Turks. As a general case, black, red, green, and white refer to North, South, East, and West. Those interested in this chapter of color symbolism are invited to Ancient Greece to test the waters of Homer’s wine-colored sea.

_{Featured image via Pickpik. Public domain.}