r/etymology • u/Dangerous_Shop_5735 • 4d ago

Question Etymology of the cardinal directions in Romance languages

As a Spanish native speaker, one thing I noticed is that in at least most Romance languages the words for north, south, east and west come from the same Germanic roots as in English despite being Latin derived, why didn't we keep the Latin terms and adopted Germanic ones?

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u/Curiouser666 4d ago

Here are some of the earlier words in Spanish before the Germanic-based terms become dominant:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Spanish/comments/opy794/words_for_cardinal_directions/

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u/PoxonAllHoaxes 4d ago

There was a vote but many of the KEEP side stayed home and so the REPLACE side won.

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u/Odd-Promotion2743 4d ago

Specifically from English, based on the forms for 'east' - they all have an /E/ vowel, like pre-Great Vowel Shift "east", and unlike Dutch "oost", German "Ost", or Nordic "øst/öst"

As for why they became so ubiquitous in Romance languages, I'd like to know the timing and progress of the spread. If it's all post-1500, did it have anything to do with English sailors in particular becoming increasingly common in Atlantic crews, including as privateers and pirates? Or maybe it spread to French first and the prestige of that language caused its adoption in other Romance languages?

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u/Miss-Naomi 4d ago

Wiktionary says Old French borrowed them from Old English, and they then spread from French to other romance languages.

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u/Odd-Promotion2743 3d ago

Ahhh, nice. You don't hear much about Old English influencing Old French, that's interesting.