Names of Easter
The Christian holiday Easter has several names. The names differ depending on languages, but most are derived from Greek and Latin "pascha". The modern English term Easter developed from the Old English word Ēastre or Ēostre (IPA: [ˈæːɑstre, ˈeːostre]), which itself developed prior to 899, originally referring to the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ēostre.[4]
Second century
In both Greek and Latin, the second-century Christian festival was called "Pascha (πάσχα)", a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic form of the Hebrew פֶּסַח, the Passover feast of Exodus 12.[5] Paul writes from Ephesus that "Christ our Pascha (Passover) has been sacrificed for us", doubtless not the first interpretation of Exodus 12 as referring to the death of Jesus.[6] In most European languages, notable exceptions being English, German and the Slav languages, the feast is today called Pascha or words derived from it.[7][8]
English and German
The modern English term Easter developed from the Old English word Ēastre or Ēostre,[nb 1] which is said to have originally referred to the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ēostre.[4] Near the beginning of the eighth century, Bede noted that the native Old English month Ēostur-monath (Old English "Ēostre-month") was equivalent to the month of April, yet that feasts held in the goddess's honor during Ēostur-monath had gone out of use by the time of his writing and had been replaced with the Christian custom of the "Paschal season". He wrote: "Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated 'Paschal month', and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."[9]
This is generally held to have originally referred to the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess, Ēostre, a form of the widely attested Indo-European dawn goddess.[nb 2] The evidence for the Anglo-Saxon goddess, however, has not been universally accepted, and some have proposed that Eostre may have meant "the month of opening" or that the name Easter may have arisen from the designation of Easter Week in Latin as in albis.[10][11]
Semitic, Romance, Celtic and other Germanic languages
The Greek word Πάσχα and hence the Latin form Pascha is derived from Hebrew Pesach (פֶּסַח) meaning the festival of Passover. In Greek the word Ἀνάστασις Anástasis (upstanding, up-rising, resurrection) is used also as an alternative.
Christians speaking Arabic or other Semitic languages generally use names cognate to Pesaḥ. For instance, the second word of the Arabic name of the festival عيد الفصح ʿĪd al-Fiṣḥ, [ʕiːd ælfisˤħ] has the root F-Ṣ-Ḥ, which given the sound laws applicable to Arabic is cognate to Hebrew P-S-Ḥ, with "Ḥ" realized as /x/ in Modern Hebrew and /ħ/ in Arabic. ʿĪd al-Fiṣḥ is also the Arabic term for Passover. Arabic also uses the term عيد القيامة ʿĪd al-Qiyāmah, [ʕiːd ælqiyæːmæh], meaning "festival of the resurrection", for Easter, but this term is less common. In Maltese the word is L-Għid, where "Għ" stands for the common Semitic consonant Ayin, and is directly derived from Arabic ʿĪd, which in both cases means "festival". In Ge'ez and the modern Ethiosemitic languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, two forms exist: ፋሲካ ("Fasika", fāsīkā) from Greek Pascha, and ትንሣኤ ("Tensae", tinśā'ē), the latter from the Semitic root N-Ś-', meaning "to rise" (cf. Arabic nasha'a—ś merged with "sh" in Arabic and most non-South Semitic languages).
In nearly all Romance languages, the name of the Easter festival is derived from the Latin Pascha. In Spanish, Easter is Pascua, in Italian and Catalan Pasqua, in Portuguese Páscoa and in Romanian Paşti. In French, the name of Easter Pâques also derives from the Latin word but the s following the a has been lost and the two letters have been transformed into an â with a circumflex accent by elision. In Romanian, the only Romance language of an Eastern church, the word Înviere (resurrection, cf. Greek Ἀνάστασις, [anástasis]) is also used.
Albanian, although not a Romance language, borrows the Latin Pascha as Pashka. The holiday is frequently referred to in the plural, Pashkët.
In all modern Celtic languages the term for Easter is derived from Latin. In Brythonic languages this has yielded Welsh Pasg, Cornish and Breton Pask. In Goidelic languages the word was borrowed before these languages had re-developed the /p/ sound and as a result the initial /p/ was replaced with /k/. This yielded Irish Cáisc, Gaelic Càisg and Manx Caisht. These terms are normally used with the definite article in Goidelic languages, causing lenition in all cases: An Cháisc, A' Chàisg and Y Chaisht.
In Dutch, Easter is known as Pasen and in the Scandinavian languages Easter is known as påske (Danish and Norwegian), påsk (Swedish), páskar (Icelandic) and páskir (Faeroese). The name is derived directly from Hebrew Pesach.[12] The letter å is pronounced /oː/, derived from an older aa, and an alternate spelling is paaske or paask.
Slavic languages
In most Slavic languages, the name for Easter either means "Great Day" or "Great Night". For example, Wielkanoc, Veľká noc, velika noč and Velikonoce mean "Great Night" or "Great Nights" in Polish, Slovak, Slovenian and Czech, respectively. Velihden (Veligden), Velikdeň (Velykden), Velikden (Velikden), and Vjalikdzeň (Vyalikdzyen') mean "The Great Day" in Macedonian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Belarusian, respectively.
In Croatian, however, the day's name reflects a particular theological connection: it is called Uskrs, meaning "Resurrection". It is also called Vazam (Vzem or Vuzem in Old Croatian), which is a noun that originated from the Old Church Slavonic verb vzeti (now uzeti in Croatian, meaning "to take"). In Serbian Easter is called Vaskrs, a liturgical form inherited from the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic, corresponding to Croatian Uskrs. The archaic term Velja noć (velmi: Old Slavic for "great"; noć: "night") was used in Croatian while the term Velikden ("Great Day") was used in Serbian. It should be noted that in these languages the prefix Velik (Great) is used in the names of the Holy Week and the three feast days preceding Easter.
Another exception is Russian, in which the name of the feast, Pascha (Paskha), is a borrowing of the Greek form via Old Church Slavonic.[13]
The words for Easter in Kashubian (Jastrë), Upper Sorbian (jutry) and Lower Sorbian (jatšy) apparently derive from a Germanic word related to English Easter and German Ostern.[14]
Finno-Ugric languages
In Finnish the name for Easter pääsiäinen, traces back to the verb päästää meaning to be released, as does the Sámi word Beassážat[citation needed]. The Estonian name lihavõtted and the Hungarian húsvét, however, literally mean the taking of the meat, relating to the end of the Great Lent fasting period.
References
- ↑ Barnhart, Robert K. The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, p. 229. (1995) HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-270084-7
- ↑ West, M. L.. Indo-European Myth and Culture, p. 227, cf. 217-218. (2007). Oxford University Press
- ↑ Mallory, J. P. and Adams, Douglas Q.. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, pp. 148-149. (1997) Taylor & Francis.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Barnhart, Robert K. The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology (1995) ISBN 0-06-270084-7.
- ↑ Karl Gerlach (1998). The Antenicene Pascha: A Rhetorical History. Peeters Publishers. p. XVIII. "The second century equivalent of easter and the paschal Triduum was called by both Greek and Latin writers "Pascha (πάσχα)", a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic form of the Hebrew פֶּסַח, the Passover feast of Ex. 12."
- ↑ Karl Gerlach (1998). The Antenicene Pascha: A Rhetorical History. Peeters Publishers. p. 21. "For while it is from Ephesus that Paul writes, "Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed for us," Ephesian Christians were not likely the first to hear that Ex 12 did not speak about the rituals of Pesach, but the death of Jesus of Nazareth."
- ↑ Norman Davies (20 January 1998). Europe: A History. HarperCollins. "In most European languages Easter is called by some variant of the late Latin word Pascha, which in turn derives from the Hebrew pesach, passover'."
- ↑ Vicki K. Black (1 July 2004). Welcome to the Church Year: An Introduction to the Seasons of the Episcopal Church. Church Publishing, Inc. "Easter is still called by its older Greek name, Pascha, which means "Passover", and it is this meaning as the Christian Passover-the celebration of Jesus' triumph over death and entrance into resurrected life-that is the heart of Easter in the church. For the early church, Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover feast: through Jesus, we have been freed from slavery of sin and granted to the Promised Land of everlasting life."
- ↑ Faith Wallis (editor), Bede: The Reckoning of Time (Liverpool University Press 1999 ISBN 978-0-85323693-1), p. 54
- ↑ Ronald Hutton, Stations of the Sun (Oxford University Press 2001 ISBN 978-0-19157842-7)
- ↑ "Easter (holiday)". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
- ↑ Room, Adrian (1988). A Dictionary of True Etymologies. Routledge & Kegan Paul Books. ISBN 978-0-415-03060-1. Retrieved 5 April 2009.
- ↑ Max Vasmer, Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg, 1950–1958.
- ↑ Muka, Ernst (1911–15). Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow / Wörterbuch der nieder-wendischen Sprache und ihrer Dialekte 1. Prague: Verlag der russischen und čechischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. S.v. jatšy.