# 'kara' -meaning north



## cyaxares_died

In a discussion on another forum about the frequent use of the word 'kara' in Turkish placenames, someone said the following:

"                                                          "kara" in old turkic language means north 
"ak" means south ; blacksea (karadeniz )  , mediterean sea ( akdeniz) "

Now I am wondering whether someone on here might comment on the veracity of that. Is it a commonly known fact, or rather obscure?


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## Revontuli

Hello again, cyaxares_died,

I really didn't know that those words meant ''north'' and ''ak'' in Old Turkic language. Today, we use neither of those words in that sense. We say ''Karadeniz'' or ''Akdeniz'' according to the colour of the seas.

Could you please ask that member where he/she got that information?

Revontuli


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## Revontuli

Please have a look at these links, cyax:

Compass Points
Wikipedia entry


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## cyaxares_died

Thanks a lot revontuli. Very interesting indeed. Since the second one is Wikipedia I would tend to trust the first one more. But still am curious to hear whether anyone else can shed more light on this (false) belief.


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## AlpArslan

Never heard of this kind of usage, and i highly doubt it is true.


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## Volcano

_*I have never heard either,we use kara for land and the person who has dark skin...*_


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## Revontuli

But it's mainly about color symbolism and it's traditional. People used to call (or still call in some regions, who knows) each cardinal direction with a color's name, which represented that direction.

Interesting, indeed.


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## avok

Ahhhh now I guess, that's why we also have "*Ak *koyunlu" / "*Kara* koyunlu" / "*Sarı* Uygur." !!!!!!



> *West:* White; Autumn; Metal
> White Sheep Turkmen


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## ukuca

This topic made me think that there may be a correlation: the word "karayel", wind from northwest contains the word "kara".


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