Ekirch has found that the two periods of night sleep were called "first sleep" (occasionally "dead sleep") and "second sleep" (or "morning sleep") in medieval England. He found that first and second sleep were also the terms in the Romance languages, as well as in the language of the Tiv of Nigeria. In French, the common term was "premier sommeil" or "premier somme"; in Italian, "primo sonno"; in Latin, "primo somno" or "concubia nocte". He found no common word in English for the period of wakefulness between, apart from paraphrases such as "first waking" or "when one wakes from his first sleep" and the generic "watch" in its old meaning of being awake. In old French an equivalent generic term is "", a portmanteau of the French words "dormir" (to sleep) and "veiller" (to be awake).