quo meridies ivit?

Just a question about the fate of the Latin words for south, east, north and
west (meridies, oriens, septentriones, occidens). Where did they go? The
modern romance names are:

French: sud, est, nord, ouest
Italian: sud, est, nord, ovest
Spanish: sur, este, norte, oeste
Portuguese: sul, este, norte, oeste
Romanian: sud, est (or rasarit- the a's have breves), nord, vest

All borrowed from Germanic (in fact, according to my Dictionary of French
Etymology, the terms are borrowed from English) sources. But how, why and
when? And why did all the Romance languages adopt them?

ObConlang: Carashan and the other Carastan languages take their names from
the directions from Aredos words meaning "right, sunrise, left, sunset". The
Kansu names derive from the Proto Kansu words for "sea, plains, mountains,
littoral", reflecting the geography of the davyá matú- the Kansetic
homeland.

Dan

PS, I recently updated the Kansú page: www.geocites.com/yl_ruil/kansu.html.
There's more background info and a short vocabulary list.

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Lo deu nu preca êl'aisún necoui.  God prays at noone's altar.

Dan Jones: www.geocities.com/yl_ruil/
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