While we were wad through the origins of thenames of the U.S. stateslast fall , reader Brit asked me where the North in North Carolina and North Dakota fare from . We ’re happy to oblige .
North“North ” issue forth from the Proto - Indo - European terminology ( the suppositional , reconstructed ancestor language of the Indo - European oral communication ) basener- , ( “ result ” ) , as Frederick North is to the leftfield when you face the rising sun .
“ North American , ” as a noun , was first used by Ben Franklin in 1766 . “ North Star ” come from the Middle Englishnorþe sterre .
SouthFrom the Old Englishsuð(“southward , in the south”).Suðcame from the Proto - Germanicsunthaz , which may have been ground onsunnon(“sun ” ) in reference point to sunnier , warmer southerly regions .
“ South Sea ” signify the Mediterranean until the 1520s , when the plural form came to refer to the South Pacific Ocean .
Orient
From Old English , in turn from the Proto - Germanicaus - to - oraustra-(“east , toward the cockcrow ” ) , which may derive from either the Proto - Indo - Europeanaus-(“to shine ” ) orhausos , the reconstructed name of a theoretical Proto - Indo - European goddess associated with the dawn . Both root marry to the fact that east is the direction from which dawn good luck .
The first reference to the “ East End ” of London is from 1846 and the “ East Side ” of Manhattan from 1882 . The “ East Indies ” were so called start in the 1590s to distinguish them from the West Indies .
WestFrom Old English , in turn from the Proto - Germanicwes - t- , in turn from the from Proto - Indo - Europeanwes- . The PIE foot might be an hypertrophied var. ofwe-(“to go down ” ) , as west is the focus in which the sun sets .
“ West ” used in a geopolitical sensation to assort western Europe and the U.S. from the Middle East / the Orient / the Soviet axis originate in 1918 , when it was used to sort out Britain and France from Germany and Austria - Hungary during World War One .
Why do we call them thecardinaldirections , anyway?“Cardinal " comes from the other fourteenth hundred and was derived from the Latincardinalis(“principal , chieftain , all-important " ) .
