Word of the Day

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Orient and origin

The word Orient, or the East, is where the sun "is born", from Latin orior (to be born), thence origin, originator, original, etc. I recently found out that Hungarian uses the same concept to express the idea of originate and Orient. Kelet is East, Orient, and keletkezik is originate. I was somewhat surprised because Hungarian is the only non-Indo-European language I've come across that does that. I wonder if it is a calque. But from what language? German doesn't do that, at least I can't think of such words. Maybe from a Slavic language, like Czech východ (east), východ slunce (sunup, sunrise), vycházet (to go/come out).

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