Kirjoittaja aikalainen » 02 Loka 2016 11:59
The the meaning of 'davvi' could be 'to the coast' but alternatively also 'down the river', as Jussipussi suggested. Maybe even 'away from the water divide (watershed)´.
On the other hand, in northern Sweden, where rivers flow to the Baltic Sea, 'davvi' is still towards Norwegian coast and upstream. Thus, the cardinal directions are somehow connected to Baltic-Ocean direction, something like 'from Baltic to the ocean' or vice versa. (At Kola Peninsula, Kuolan niemimaa, that may be not so clear.)
If the original home of current sami languages is at Perämeri, as I suppose, all the cardinal directions might be derived from Perämeri: away from Perämeri along rivers and even over water divides towards the Ocean (davvi), and from the Ocean towards Perämeri and downstream rivers flowing to Perämeri (lulli).
The next issue would be to find out the etymological root of those sami words. Did they originally mean something, for example: away, towards, downstream, upstream, down, up, ocean, left, right, etc.