In French, starboard and port are "tribord" (same etymology as "starboard", through Dutch) and "bâbord" ("back (of the oarman) board").
On stage, they are "côté cour" and "côté jardin" because the "Comédie-Française" theatre during the 1770 was in the Tuileries palace, and the stage was oriented with the Louvre courtyard on its right, and the Tuileries garden on its left.
In German it’s Steuerbord (meaning the same as starboard) and Backbord (compare Middle Low German ba(c)kbōrt and Dutch bakboort; oldest mention of this form is from old English: bæcbord!)
The word ‘back’ in German meaning ‘back’ in English doesn’t even exist. Only in this one loanword from Low German.
Only today I looked up this word, I never knew or understood that Backbord is literally backboard.
In English, there's an archaic "larboard" meaning "port side". My understanding is that this word was intentionally banished due to confusion originating from the sound being so similar to "starboard".
Makes good sense. Imagine trying to scream that to someone at night in a storm after you've both had a ration of rum.
Probably a non-trivial number of people were hurt or killed because of that linguistic similarity; we see the same with air traffic control and pilots using ambiguous language.
> because the "Comédie-Française" theatre during the 1770 was in the Tuileries palace, and the stage was oriented with the Louvre courtyard on its right, and the Tuileries garden on its left
On stage, they are "côté cour" and "côté jardin" because the "Comédie-Française" theatre during the 1770 was in the Tuileries palace, and the stage was oriented with the Louvre courtyard on its right, and the Tuileries garden on its left.