Talk:orientering

Discussion from Wiktionary:Requests for verification

At question: origin of the term orientering. It is widely cited as having been coined in Sweden in 1918 but it appears in the combination Orienteringsløb in a Norwegian newspaper in 1897 (reproduced here). Furthermore, orienteering is widely cited as derived from the 1918 coinage, but that too is in question. The International Orienteering Federation claims (here) that orienteering dates from 1886, so it may predate any use of orientering. I am hoping someone with great access to online archives or dictionaries can fill in the details. --Una Smith 22:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

In the website of the Swedish Orienteering Association [1] the first item in a chronology of the history of the sport reads:

1886

Ordet orientering, i betydelsen att med kartans hjälp ta sig fram i okänd terräng, används för första gången. Chefen för Kongliga Krigsskolan på Karlberg, överste H Thulstrup, skriver: Angående den praktiska undervisningen må nämnas, att öfningarna i Topografi vunnit någon tillökning genom att under sommaren 1886 för första gången företagits orienterings- och kartläsningsöfningar, hvartill anslogos tvenne dagar.

Quick translation into English:

The word orientering, in the sense of finding one's way in an unknown terrain with the aid of a map, is used for the first time.The director of the Royal War Academy at Karlberg, colonel H Thulstrup, writes: "As the practical education is concerned, it is worth mentioning, that exercises in Topography have somewhat increased, as the summer of 1886 was the first time when exercises in orienteering and interpretation of maps were carried out, these taking twenty days." --Hekaheka 19:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Further, according to what I found about the history of the sport, orienteering as a sport is a Scandinavian invention, and it seems unlikely that the English term "orienteering" would predate "orientering". It is likely that IOF refers to the source cited above without making difference between languages. --Hekaheka 19:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrote a new etymology chapter based on above. --Hekaheka 15:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Brief correction of the translation: tvenne is a somewhat archaic word for two, not for twenty. \Mike 10:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)