The Universe of Discourse

Compass directions in Catalan

Looking over a plan of the Sagrada Família Sunday, I discovered that the names of the cardinal directions are interesting.

• Nord (north). Okay, this is straightforward. It's borrowed from French, which for some reason seems to have borrowed from English.

• Llevant (east). This one is fun. As in Spanish, llevar is “to rise”, from Latin levāre which also gives us “levity” and “levitate”. Llevant is the east, where the sun rises.

  This is also the source of the English name “Levant” for the lands to the east, in the Eastern Mediterranean. I enjoy the way this is analogous to the use of the word “Orient” for the lands even farther to the east: Latin orior is “to rise” or “to get up”. To orient a map is to turn it so that the correct (east) side is at the top, and to orient yourself is (originally) to figure out which way is east.

• Migdia (south). The sun again. Migdia is analogous to “midday”. (Mig is “mid” and dia is “day”.) And indeed, the south is where the sun is at midday.

• Ponent (west). This is ultimately from Latin ponens, which means putting down or setting down. It's where the sun sets.

Bonus unrelated trivia: The Russian word for ‘north’ is се́вер (/séver/), which refers to the cold north wind, and is also the source of the English word “shower”.

[ Addendum 20231203: Compass directions in Czech ]

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