English Easter, German Ostern, and related[edit]
Main article: Ēostre
Old English Eōstre continues into modern English as Easter and derives from Proto-Germanic *austrōn meaning ‘dawn’, itself a descendent of the Proto-Indo-European root *aus-, meaning ‘to shine’ (modern English east also derives from this root).[2]
Writing in the 8th century, the Anglo-Saxon monk Bede describes Ēostre as the name of an Old English goddess: “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.”[3]
Since the 19th century, numerous linguists have observed that the name is linguistically cognate with the names of dawn goddesses attested among Indo-European language-speaking peoples. By way of historical linguistics, these cognates lead to the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess; the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (1997) details that “a Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn is supported both by the evidence of cognate names and the similarity of mythic representation of the dawn goddess among various [Indo-European] groups” and that “all of this evidence permits us to posit a [Proto-Indo-European] *haéusōs ‘goddess of dawn’ who was characterized as a “reluctant” bringer of light for which she is punished. In three of the [Indo-European] stocks, Baltic, Greek and Indo-Iranian, the existence of a [Proto-Indo-European] ‘goddess of the dawn’ is given additional linguistic support in that she is designated the ‘daughter of heaven’”[4]
The first to propose this theory was Jacob Grimm, who in his Deutsche Mythologie, first published in 1835, linked Bede’s Eostre with the Old High German for Easter, ôstarâ, and wrote: “This Ostarâ, like the Anglo-Saxon Eástre, must in the heathen religion have denoted a higher being”. He linked the word with Latin auster (meaning “south”) and with Austri, the male spirit of light mentioned in the Edda, who if thought of as female would be called Austra. Grimm concluded: “Ostara, Eástre seems to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light.”[5]
John Layard, quoting Billson, cites several authorities both for and against the existence of the postulated goddess and himself concludes in favour.[6] The contributor Lincke to the Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens also cites scholars on both sides, but himself draws a negative conclusion.[7] One German scholar describes Ostara as a “pseudo-goddess”, the result of a misunderstanding.[8]
As of 2014, the Oxford English Dictionary has described alternatives to this etymology as “less likely”, adding that “it seems unlikely that Bede would invent a fictitious pagan festival in order to account for a Christian one”.[9] Of course, given how common false patronymics and false etymologies were in classical and medieval histories, it is possible that Bede was sincerely repeating an etymology he heard elsewhere without having to implicate Bede in intentionally inventing a fictitious pagan festival.
The name for Easter in Old English, including West Saxon, is usually not the singular feminine noun Ēastre, but instead the plural noun Ēastrun, -on, also -an. The neuter plural noun Ēastru, -o is also found.[10]
In 1959, Johann Knobloch proposed a different etymology.[11] Writing of “the relationship between dawn and springtime, between night - or early morning - and daybreak in the Christian Eastern rituals of the East and the West”,[12] he proposed that the Old High German name for the feast, Ōst(a)rūn, as a Gallo-Frankish coinage,[13] drawn from Latin albae in the designation of Easter Week as hebdomada in albis and in the phrase albae (paschales).[14] The Germanic word is connected with an Indoeuropean word for the dawn (uşás-, Avestan ušab-, Greek ἠώς, Latin aurora, Lithuanian aušrà, Latvian àustra, Old Church Slavonic za ustra), and Knobloch links this derivation with the word albae in the phrases in Church Latin, with which are associated the French and Italian words for the dawn, and connected it with the dawn service of the Easter Vigil in which those to be baptized faced east when pronouncing their profession of faith.[14][15][16][17] Jürgen Udolph, himself a proponent of a different view, says that, although the theory that the words “Easter” and “Ostern” come from the name of a Germanic goddess reconstructed by Jacob Grimm as Ostara is the most widespread at a popular level, Knobloch’s proposal enjoys most support,[14]
A still more recent theory connects the English and German words not with the dawn but with a word associated with baptism. Jürgen Udolph published in 1999 his Ostern: Geschichte eines Wortes,[18] in which he argued for an origin from the North Germanic verb ausa, “to pour”. A pre-Christian rite of “baptism” and name-giving was referred to as vatni ausa, “to pour water over”. Since baptism was the central event in the Easter celebration in the first centuries of Christianity, it was argued that this background explains the name given to the feast.[19]
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