> Also, I was quite old by the time I learned that "Oriental" literally just means "direction of the sunrise".

Even more literally "of the rising" ("occidental" meaning "of the falling"). The sun is of course implied here, but the Latin verbs orior and occido more generally indicate rising and falling motions of anyone and anything.

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Affric 4 days ago | parent [-]

Interestingly “meridional” could mean south in some languages because it was towards the equator… which is funny when it’s used south of the equator.

	▲	schoen 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		So again, even more literally, it's "of the midday, of the noon", so "toward the noon, noonwards". And in the northern hemisphere, the noon happens in the direction of the equator, so southward.