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- The four main cardinal directions are iparra<\/strong><\/em> (north), ekialdea<\/strong><\/em> (east), hegoa<\/strong><\/em> (south), and mendebaldea<\/strong><\/em> (west). Larry Trask, in his Etymological Dictionary of Basque<\/em>, discusses the origins of each of these, most of which are connected to the directional winds:\n
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- iparra<\/em>, or in its indefinite form ipar<\/em>, is a word native to Basque. While its origins aren’t completely clear, some have suggested it derives from ibar<\/em>, the Basque word for valley. The logic here is that ibar-haize<\/em>, meaning valley wind, is also the north wind and so ipar<\/em> arose from ibar<\/em>. For fishermen, ipar<\/em> sometimes means east. ipar haizea<\/em>, the north wind, is cold. ipar beltza<\/em>, or black north, blows from the northwest while ipar zuria<\/em>, the white north, blows from the northeast.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- ekialdea<\/em> is the most transparent. It is a compound of eki<\/em> and aldea<\/em>, or sun and side, meaning literally sunny spot.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- hegoa<\/em> is less clear. It might be a native word, but variants used in some parts of the Basque Country egoe<\/em> and egoi<\/em> suggest it might not be (native words tend not to have those extra vowels). Possibly it comes from the Latin aqualem<\/em> (watery) through B\u00e9arnais. This would suggest an origin meaning “watery wind,” which aligns with the saying Hegoak hegala urean du <\/em>(The south wind has a wing in the water). That said, there is a Basque deity, Hegoi or Egoi<\/a>, that was the god of the south wind… Just like the north wind, hego beltza<\/em> (black south) blows from the southwest and hego zuria<\/em> (white south) blows from the southeast.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- mendebal<\/em> is of Roman origin, from something like the French vent d\u2019aval<\/em>, meaning valley wind. It is very similar to the Spanish vendaval<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Intermediate directions are described by compounds of the principal directions. For example, northwest is designated by ipar-mendebaldea<\/em> while south-southeast is hego-hego-ekialdea<\/em>. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The compass rose is called a haize-arrosa<\/em> in Basque, or wind rose, which is another term for a compass rose in English too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- ekialdea<\/em> is the most transparent. It is a compound of eki<\/em> and aldea<\/em>, or sun and side, meaning literally sunny spot.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- iparra<\/em>, or in its indefinite form ipar<\/em>, is a word native to Basque. While its origins aren’t completely clear, some have suggested it derives from ibar<\/em>, the Basque word for valley. The logic here is that ibar-haize<\/em>, meaning valley wind, is also the north wind and so ipar<\/em> arose from ibar<\/em>. For fishermen, ipar<\/em> sometimes means east. ipar haizea<\/em>, the north wind, is cold. ipar beltza<\/em>, or black north, blows from the northwest while ipar zuria<\/em>, the white north, blows from the northeast.<\/li>\n\n\n\n