Eastre & *Aus-

Raymond Brown wrote:

> At 7:51 pm +0100 24/4/00, yl-ruil wrote:
> [....]
> >
> >"Easter" was quite a while back, it was the Vernal Equinox.
>
> By definition, it wasn't of course.  The Vernal Equinox, as I'm sure
> yl-ruil knows, is one of the factors used in determing the date of Easter,
> the other being the date of the full moon.
I was being pagan there for a minute, we call our vernal equinox
celebrations easter, too. Christians don't have a monopoly on the word. I
was simply referring to "easter"'s original meaning.

> >Originally,
> >Easter (OE. eastre, Old Frisian asteron, OHG ostarun) was the festival of
> >Eostre (actually the WS form was Eastre, Eostre was Bede's Northumbrian
> >form), the goddess of the dawn.
>
> This begs a few questions IMHO.  Old English for Easter is 'éastre', with
> initial _long_ e; like the modern German 'Ostern' it is clearly cognate
> with the word for 'east', 'éast' in Old English; 'Ost' in modern German.
Obviously, I never said it wasn´t. OE éast, OF ást, OS óst, OHG óst, PG
*austra-.

> >The Proto-Germanic was *Austron, based on
> >*austra "east", from PIE *aus-, which also gave Latin aurora.
>
> Latin auro:ra (with long o) is derived quite regularly from earlier
> *a:uso:sa which, in turn is from a root *a:uso:s (note long initial a).
> The latter came into protoGreek as *a:uho:s --> *ha:wo:s, from which we
> have, as expected - Homeric he:o:s (<-- *he:wo:s, with loss of [w]
> 'digamma'), Corinthian ha:wo:s, Attic heo:s (with shortening of initial
> vowel) and Ionic e:o:s.
Where has the long initial a come from? The Latin auro:ra comes from
auso:sa:, with long _final_ a, cognate to Aeolian aúo:s. All this
information is lifted from the Oxford Dictionary if English Etymology, who
have a certain authority in such matters.

> I'm not so well versed on protoGermanic, but presumably we have to posit a
> PIE *a:ws- which is comes into Gemanic with the extension -str- as
*a:ustr-
> meaning 'East' and into Greek & Latin with the extension -o:s(a), and
> meaning 'dawn'.  Is this stem attested in other IE languages, with or
> without any extension?  Indeed, do all IndoEuropeanists unreservedly
> connect the Germanic, Latin & Greek forms?  I think we have one or two
> 'IndoEuropeanists' on the list who can, maybe, give us the answer   :)
OK, I seem to have caused some confusion. When I gave all the forms, I
neglected to add in diacritics, because they're a hassle to read for some
people, but here goes:

Old English: éastre, Old Frisian: ásteron, Old High German: óstarún, all
from PG *austrôn-. This is related to "east", naturally. Note how the
suffix -ôn is used to form the name of the goddess, similar to the Celtic
process, whereby Welsh Mabon < *mapo:nos < mapos "son".

> The east, of course, long had a significant meaning for early Christians.
> Churches were always built in medieval times with east/west orientation;
> very often the exact orientation was determined by where the sun rose on
> the feast day of the saint to whom the church was to be dedicated.  All
> maps were drawn with the east at the top - hence out use of the verb to
> 'orientate'.  The east & the dawn signify the coming of light.  And Easter
> ceremonies anciently began (as they still do) with the 'ceremony of
light'.
>
> Hence I see no problem with a straigh connexion of Easter & East.
>
> We have IIRC only the Venerable Bede's authority to connecting 'éastre'
> with the name of the goddess Eostre (or Eastre) whose name begins with a
> short e.  Do we have any independent accounts or evidence about this
> goddess.
Yes, cognates are found in most of the Germanic languages. Éostre was the
Northumbian form of Éastre. It did have a long initial e, AFAIK.

> Is here name really derived from the same root as East, Latin &
> Greek words given above.  If so, how do we account for the different
> vocalization of éastre and Eastre?
We don't. There isn't a different vocalisation.

> Or has been got the goddess's name
> wrong?  Or is her name rather to be associated with the 'austr-' found in
> Latin 'Auster' (south wind), [hence 'austra:lis' "southern" and the modern
> Australia "the southern land"]?
>
> Do we have, indeed, independent evidence about this goddess - other than
> what Bede tells us?  What exactly was she goddess of?  When was her
> festival?  Was it actually at the Vernal Equinox itself or was the moon
> also used in calculating the exact date?
There is no way we can be sure, pre-literate Anglo-Saxons were not big on
writing things down, and why would Christans preserve any more than minimal
information on the faith they were trying to stamp out?

> These are genuine questions.  I don't know the answers.  But the older I
> get, the more Bede's etymology seems to me like a perpetuation of 'folk
> etymology' of his day.
>
> >
> >BTW, is an oestrus cycle anything like a menstrual cycle,
>
> Quite similar - and one thing we can be certain of, Greek 'oistros' has
> nothing to do with Easter (nor, I guess, with Eastre).
>
> Ray.
Dan

----
Bengesko niamso.
Cursed German.
----
Dan Morrison (http://www.geocities.com/yl_ruil/index.html)