Issacus Divus
H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú
A thread on Indo-European religion, from the reconstructed beliefs of the Proto Indo-Europeans to the divergent descendant religions.
Looks like some special characters were rejected by the forum.The Avestan is .
And, presumably, the Latin Diespiter.Of the old fathers, straight from Dyḗus Ph₂tḗr, is Dyáuṣpitṛ́, द्यौष्पितृ, the king of the Vedic pantheon.
!The main word for the moon, reconstructed as *méh₁-ot or *meh₁-n[é|s-] (meh₁nés), is of the root *meh₁-, to measure.
Haha, losers.In both Iranian and Slavic, the word means "demon" [Av. daēva, Slv. *divъ], a result of a religious reformation that denounced the old Indic gods as demons and gave way to the new religion of Zarathustra.
Haha, losers.
Definitely. Although the IE religions are pretty darn divergent, they're an essential piece of the puzzle.It's kind of interesting, though, that you can reconstruct PIE to a certain degree not only on the basis of languages that developed differently, but also on the basis of religious beliefs and concepts.
We were told that the moon aka mensis, the measure of time, was later called luna, aka the shiny, beautiful one, to appease it since it was something scary to the ancients...but I couldn't find any references to that claim.The main word for the moon, reconstructed as *méh₁-ot or *meh₁-n[é|s-] (meh₁nés), is of the root *meh₁-, to measure. As the concept of the month and its marker were so close, in daughter languages it is reflected as moon, month, or both; [OIr mī, Lat. mēnsis, Lith. mėnuo, Grk. mén, Skt. mās "moon, month", OCS mêsęcî "moon, month", Alb. mauj, "month", Arm. amis, "month", Avestan må, "moon, month"].
(The Hittite is armas, and the Tocharian B form is meñe.)
The other noun for moon, *(s)kand [Alb. hënë, "moon", Skt. cándra, "moon", Lat. candeo "to shine"] comes from the root verb *(s)kand-, "to shine".
So two views of the Moon can be deduced; one of practical importance, and one of sight, and beauty.
Christians took the same attitude toward the old pagan gods. In many early and medieval Christian authors, the pagan gods, rather than being said not to exist at all, are said to be demons. Milton follows that tradition in Paradise Lost when, listing the most prominent of the angels who fell with Satan, he identifies them with pagan gods:a religious reformation that denounced the old Indic gods as demons and gave way to the new religion of Zarathustra.
I love that word.sunwife
I hadn't even realized those two words were related.[Lat. augustus, "sacred", augur, "priest, seer"]
That was precisely discussed a few days ago in Sub Rosa.Yeah, the idea is that what was scary it's less scary if you give it a pretty name, aka avoiding taboos. There is another analogy - in Slavic languages bear, a scary animal is "someone who eats honey", therefore someone less scary - proto slavic *medvědь.
This is from Wiktionary, so I'm not taking all these reconstructions as 100% correct:
From earlier *medu-ēdis, equivalent to *medъ (“honey”) + *(j)ěsti (“to eat”), hence literally the epithet "honey-eater". Cognate with Sanskrit मध्वद् (madhuv-ád-, “eating sweetness”) (RV I 164,22). Presumably came into use as taboo avoidance of an earlier word, possibly something like *rьstъ (compare Lithuanian irštvà (“bear's den”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos). Similar proposed examples of linguistic taboo for 'bear' are Proto-Germanic *berô (“the brown one”), Latvian lācis (“stomper, pounder”), Old Irish math (“the good one”).
Although it seems others agree:
languagehat.com : Taboo Deformation and the Bear.
languagehat.com
"Because bears were so bad, you didn’t want to talk about them directly, so you referred to them in an oblique way”; I just wish I'd find something about the moon in the same taboo - avoiding sense.
"Because bears were so bad, you didn’t want to talk about them directly, so you referred to them in an oblique way”; I just wish I'd find something about the moon in the same taboo - avoiding sense.
It sounds rather made up or speculative, though, doesn't it? I mean, the honey badger is pretty bad-ass, too, but it mainly got its name from the mistaken belief that it eats honey. Such simple descriptive wordings would sound to me like the most logical explanation in the case of bears, too, rather than any abstract speculation over religious fear or the like.That was precisely discussed a few days ago in Sub Rosa.
Etymoline mentions both a possible derivation from a word meaning "brown" and a possible relation to ferus (ergo to ferox, too).The Germanic berô can be soundly derived from *ǵʰwḗr- ~ *ǵʰwér, "wild animal", *ǵʰwér-ō, to berô (this also gave Lat. ferōx, [PIE *ǵʰweroh₃kʷs]).
Indeed, the New Testament demon Beelzebub is a demonized version of the Philistine god Beelzebul.Christians took the same attitude toward the old pagan gods. In many early and medieval Christian authors, the pagan gods, rather than being said not to exist at all, are said to be demons.
I think Frazer & Gimbutas treat this matter, that the moon's celebrants were menstruating women, thought of as magical timekeepers. Hence the Indo-European witch, spinning at night, conjuring under a full moon: the sacred virginal moon-goddess Diana-Artemis, to see whom naked is to be transformed into a dead man, etc. There's also this, which though interesting is suspect. I don't know what special prerogative Queerists & Trans-scholars have in the realm of comparative myth.Bestiola dixit:I just wish I'd find something about the moon in the same taboo - avoiding sense.