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thither (thith-er) - adv., to or towards that place; to there. adj., in the direction away from the speaker; farther away.

Now rare. The form of there to use when there is an element of motion towards it -- "he goes thither" versus "he is there." Its opposite direction, from there, is thence ("he comes thence"). Which is to say, English (going back to Old English þider, alteration of earlier form þæder) used to have a distinction of direction of motion to or from the speaker that, say, Chinese and Japanese have, and Icelandic still has.

---L.

Crossposts: https://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/813810.html

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From:

thistleingrey

Also hither/hence, whither/whence!

From:

prettygoodword

Yup! Didn't get to mentioning that. (Or the two types of "there"s in Japanese -- over towards you the listener versus over away from both of us.)

From:

thistleingrey

Curious whether one's borrowed (or both?) in Japanese. Korean has yeogi and iri, both translatable as "here," but yeogi is part of a progression similar to hic ille iste and iri has a directive sense (though TBH I'm not sure whether towards speaker, listener, something else--I should check sometime).

From:

prettygoodword

My understanding is that there is considerable debate over whether the yeogi/geogi/jeogi and koko/soko/asoko triplets are borrowed (and in which direction) or evidence of descent from a common ancestral language.