Of Cardinal Directions
- A Crazy Little Bird Told Me
- Jul 23, 2023
- 3 min read
Did you know that not everybody uses cardinal directions?
I don’t know for you, but for me, cardinal directions are one of those things that just are, like the air around us or the Sun. Everybody knows what North, South, East and West are. Right?
Well, not quite, it seems.
First thing first, directions have always existed in one way or another in all cultures, because people needed to know where they were going, or where to meet. The need to establish a reference that could be used everywhere versus local points emerged as societies started to be more mobile and travelled further away. If you think about it, when you spend your whole life in the same place, all you need to know is that you are going to “Old Ilda’s Cove” or “Old Harry’s Rock”. Everybody knows where those are after all. However, if you are going to explore what is beyond the next mountain or what awaits you at sea, you need more transferable orientation points, ones that will ensure you can get home but also go back to the places you discovered.
The Cardinal points as they are known in our modern society came from the Germanic language, and entered the Roman language during the Migration Period (AD375 to AD568), replacing the following Latin words:
- Borealis = Septentrionalis = North (think aurora borealis, another term for Northern Lights)
- Australis = Meridionalis = South (think Australia people!)
- Occidentalis = West
- Orientalis = East
Those German words were not random, and you will see quite quickly what reference point our ancestors chose to establish directions.
- East comes from the word “dawn”, or where the sun rises
- North means “to the left of the rising sun”, therefore to the left of East
- South means “region of the Sun”, after all the sun shines all day on that side
- West comes from the word “evening” or where the sun sets
Just in case this wasn’t clear, our ancestors used the sun as reference to direct themselves, as this was a stable point: it always rises, it always travels the same way during the day and it always set. Considering the successive and successful waves of invasions that riddled Europe in the first millennia of our era, I think we can agree it turned out to be a wise choice!
But as we know, the world is made of more than just Europe! So here are some interesting facts about how others did it, or still do in some cases.
- Many cultures, especially in Asia as well as Mesoamerica and North America include a centre as a fifth cardinal point.
- Some aboriginal languages contain words for 5 or 6 cardinal directions
- Some civilizations use other referents for direction:
o Population of Hawaii or Bali use “toward the sea” or “toward the mountain”
o Population of ancient Egypt as well as the people using Yurok and Karuk languages (indigenous people from California) use “upstream” or “downstream”
o Population from Lengo (Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands) use “landward”, “seaward”, “upcoast” and “downcoast”
So, to summarise, cardinal points have developed first locally, adapted to localised needs and geography, before evolving to a bigger scale and allowing for migration, discovery and invasions, and finally became what it is today: something we all know but never really think about.
After all, our phones will always take us where we need to go!
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