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The following table gives a rough equivalence of the classical 12-wind rose with the modern compass directions (Note: the directions are imprecise since it is not clear at what angles the classical winds are supposed to be with each other some have argued that they should be equally spaced at 30 degrees each for more details, see the article on Classical compass winds).Ĭlassical 12-wind rose, with Greek (blue) and Latin (red) names (from Seneca) Wind North, South, East and West in Old English were borrowed as Nord, Sud, Est and Ouest in French, and so forth.) Thus there is a common source of the modern compass point names found in nearly all modern west European languages (e.g.

However, Charlemagne did not invent the names of the points of the compass, which go back to Sanskrit and Ancient Greek for example the word 'east' is related to the Latin word aurora meaning 'dawn'. " Nordostdroni", the "northeasterly" wind). Intermediate winds were constructed as simple compound names of these four (e.g.

He named the four cardinal winds on the roots Nord (etymology uncertain, could be "wet", meaning from the rainy lands), Ost (shining place, sunrise), Sund (sunny lands) and Vuest (down, meaning evening). 830), the Frankish king Charlemagne himself came up with his own names for the classical 12 winds. Uniquely, Vitruvius came up with a 24-wind rose.Īccording to the chronicler Einhard ( c. Septentrio, Subsolanus, Auster, Favonius, etc. Seneca, Pliny) adopted the Greek 12-wind system, and replaced its names with Latin equivalents, e.g. Eratosthenes deducted two winds from Aristotle's system, to produce the classical 8-wind rose. To restore balance, Timosthenes of Rhodes added two more winds to produce the classical 12-wind rose, and began using the winds to denote geographical direction in navigation.

However, Aristotle's system was asymmetric. In his meteorological studies, Aristotle identified ten distinct winds: two north-south winds ( Aparctias, Notos) and four sets of east-west winds blowing from different latitudes-the Arctic circle ( Meses, Thrascias), the summer solstice horizon ( Caecias, Argestes), the equinox ( Apeliotes, Zephyrus) and the winter solstice ( Eurus, Lips). Nonetheless, both systems were gradually conflated, and wind names came eventually to denote cardinal directions as well. The four Greek winds ( Boreas, Notos, Eurus, Zephyrus) were confined to meteorology. The four Greek cardinal points ( arctos, anatole, mesembria and dusis) were based on celestial bodies and used for orientation. The ancient Greeks originally maintained distinct and separate systems of points and winds.