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Etymology of North

The word north comes from Old High German and Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "left" or "below" as the sun rises on the left. Other cardinal directions relate to the sun's position. In Latin, Greek, and other languages, north is associated with winds, constellations like Ursa Major, or areas historically inhabited by non-Christian peoples. In many Mesoamerican languages and Hungarian, north can mean "up" in relation to the sun's position. North is often associated with colder climates as most high northern latitude land is in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Arctic Circle passes through northern areas like Scandinavia, Russia, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland.

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29 views1 page

Etymology of North

The word north comes from Old High German and Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "left" or "below" as the sun rises on the left. Other cardinal directions relate to the sun's position. In Latin, Greek, and other languages, north is associated with winds, constellations like Ursa Major, or areas historically inhabited by non-Christian peoples. In many Mesoamerican languages and Hungarian, north can mean "up" in relation to the sun's position. North is often associated with colder climates as most high northern latitude land is in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Arctic Circle passes through northern areas like Scandinavia, Russia, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland.

Uploaded by

Rakesh Paul
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© © All Rights Reserved
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The word north is related to the Old High German nord,[1] both descending from the Proto-Indo-

European unit *ner-, meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun.[2] Similarly,
the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position.[3][4][5]
The Latin word borealis comes from the Greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid,
was personified as the son of the river-god Strymon, the father of Calais and
Zetes. Septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of Ursa Maior. The
Greek ἀρκτικός (arktikós) is named for the same constellation, and is the source of the English
word Arctic.
Other languages have other derivations. For example, in Lezgian, kefer can mean both "disbelief"
and "north", since to the north of the Muslim Lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by
non-Muslim Caucasian and Turkic peoples. In many languages of Mesoamerica, north also means
"up". In Hungarian, the word for north is észak, which is derived from éjszaka ("night"), since above
the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north, except inside the Arctic Circle during the
summer midnight sun.
The direction north is often associated with colder climates because most of the world's land at high
latitudes is located in the Northern Hemisphere. The Arctic Circle passes through the Arctic
Ocean, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States (Alaska), Canada (Yukon, Northwest
Territories and Nunavut), Denmark (Greenland) and Iceland (where it passes through the small
offshore island of Grímsey).

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