withershins and deasil - Wordsmith.org

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#119424 - 01/10/04 10:17 AM withershins and deasil
jheem veteran Registered: 01/06/04 Posts: 1474 Loc: California	Much less prosaic than the old counterclockwise and clockwise. The former is also spelled widdershins, and the latter is from Scottish Gaelic: deiseil cognate with Latin dexter 'right hand' and Sanskrit daksina 'right hand, south'.
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#119425 - 01/10/04 10:50 AM Re: withershins and deasil
Buffalo Shrdlu Carpal Tunnel Registered: 06/24/02 Posts: 7184 Loc: Vermont	those have to be characters in a book, somewhere, sometime. _________________________ formerly known as etaoin...
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#119426 - 01/10/04 10:57 AM Re: withershins and deasil
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13653	Widdershins is good old English and deasil, as you say, Gaelic. Is there a Gaelic version of widdershins and an English version of deasil?
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#119427 - 01/10/04 11:30 AM Re: withershins and deasil
jheem veteran Registered: 01/06/04 Posts: 1474 Loc: California	Is there a Gaelic version of widdershins? Well, I don't have a Scottish Gaelic dictionary, but there is a term in Irish (Gaelic): tuathal 'direction against the sun, wrong direction'; dul tuathal 'to go against the direction of the sun, anti-clockwise'. Irish forms of the Scottish Gaelic term: deiseal 'righhand direction, direction of the sun' dul deiseal 'to follow the direction of the sun, to go clockwise. The left hand in Irish is cle and the right is deis; there's also an older form deas which also means 'south'. Tuath also means 'left' or 'north' in Old Irish. So, I guess, a good word could be tuathal.
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#119428 - 01/10/04 11:40 AM Re: withershins and deasil
jheem veteran Registered: 01/06/04 Posts: 1474 Loc: California	an English version of deasil? Clockwise seems to be it. BTW, the shins in widdershins means sun also. So the meaning in Germanic is 'against the sun' like in the Gaelic.
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#119429 - 01/10/04 11:45 AM Re: withershins and deasil
Buffalo Shrdlu Carpal Tunnel Registered: 06/24/02 Posts: 7184 Loc: Vermont	I'm sure you have found similar things, but here are some resources: http://www.cas.usf.edu/languages/flresource.html#gaelic and http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/index.html fun to peruse! _________________________ formerly known as etaoin...
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#119430 - 01/10/04 11:51 AM Re: withershins and deasil
jheem veteran Registered: 01/06/04 Posts: 1474 Loc: California	etaoin-- Thanks, I'd forgotten about the Scottish Gaelic dictionaries being on line. I was using print copies for the Irish. I see in MacBains that a gloss for deiseil is 'sun-ward', so I guess that's a good term for clockwise in English.
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#119431 - 01/10/04 01:39 PM Re: withershins and deasil
jheem veteran Registered: 01/06/04 Posts: 1474 Loc: California	It just dawned on me that this might have something to do with the Irish blessing about the wind being at your back and the sun in your face.
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#119432 - 01/10/04 02:40 PM Re: withershins and deasil
musick Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/24/00 Posts: 2658 Loc: Chicago	If one stands on the north pole and looks at the earth spinning below, it looks like it's moving counter-clockwise under one's feet. If one is facing north at the equator the sun appears to be moving counter-clockwise... did someone from the southern hemisphere decide what *wise meant in order to redefine up? crossthreading-e
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#119433 - 01/10/04 04:41 PM Re: withershins and deasil
wwh Carpal Tunnel Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 13858	Widdershins reminds me of German "wieder" meaning against, and "Schein" = appearance. But I could find no German word combinging them.
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