Why do we say north, east, south, and west? The cardinal directions north, east, south, and west came about because of the position of the sun in the sky.
Nobody has any idea when the idea of cardinal directions came about. Early civilizations would have had no need for directions such as north and south because they wouldn’t have traveled far enough to need them. Prehistoric people would have travelled to hunt, and they would have travelled to trade with other groups of people. They might have walked 10 to 15 km in a day, but it would usually be over land they were familiar with, and they would navigate using landmarks. They had no need of north, south, east, and west. Head to the river and turn right is easier to follow than head north and then turn east.
The cardinal directions came about when people started to study the sky, and this came about when people started to farm. Humans developed agriculture about 10,000 years ago and once people started to farm, they began to study the heavens to work out when the seasons start and end. Early civilizations used solar calendars and the movement of the stars to work out their agricultural seasons and based their economic calendars on them. As they watched the night sky, they would have noticed that the whole sky and all of the stars rotate around one point, which is the magnetic north pole, if you are in the northern hemisphere. They would have also noticed that the sun is always opposite that point at noon. They would also know that the sun rose on the same side every morning and set on the same side every evening. Even without giving them names, they already had four points of reference.
When people started to travel more, directions would have become more important, but when words for the cardinal directions started to be used is unknown. Studies have shown that most ancient languages, such as Indo-European, Polynesian, Mayan, Uto-Aztecan, and others, don’t have words for cardinal directions. Groups of people, such as the Polynesians, would have been able to navigate fairly easily without having words for north, south, east, and west. They would aim for groups of stars, or certain colors on the clouds. Directional words only became necessary when civilizations became more mobile and had to navigate and keep track of more complex and larger areas of land. It is very useful for empires to have cardinal directions.
The cardinal direction words that we use come from a Proto-Indo-European language which could have begun in about 4,500 BC. The words for the cardinal directions were based on the most obvious navigational point that people had: the sun. For people in the northern hemisphere, the sun always rises in the same place and sets in the same place. When the people that started using these words came up with them, they were only looking to describe the positions of the sun and probably didn’t intend to come up with a system that we rely on so much today.
The word “East” comes from “aus” in the Proto-Indo-European language, and it meant “dawn”. What other word could sum up east any better than that? It is where the sun rises. This would probably have been the first direction that people used. It was taken into Proto-Germanic, and from there into Old English, where it became “est” and then “east”.
West comes from “wes” in the Proto-Indo-European language and meant “evening,” or “night”. The sun sets in the west, which is where the night is.
North comes from “ner”, which meant “left”. When you are in the northern hemisphere and facing the rising sun, north is to your left.
South comes from “sul” or “sun”, which was the Proto-Indo-European word for sun. From the northern hemisphere, the sun is directly south at noon, hence the use of the word for sun.
So, the words we use for north, east, south, and west come from the positions of the sun in the sky throughout the day. It was the most important thing for ancient people, and it makes sense that our cardinal directions would be based on it. We should rewrite our compasses. Instead of North, East, South, West, we should have Left, Night, Sun, Dawn. That makes a lot more sense to me. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.etymonline.com/word/north
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=east
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=south
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=west
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction
https://www.terratory.org/archive-1/2016/1/16/cardinal-directions
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