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[Facts] Re: On the etymology of Theos (God)
The etymology of Theos is well understood, as there are cognates in all the Indo-European languages. just look it up in wiktionary.
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the "well-understood" etymology seems far-fetched to me... they want to deny that theos [θεός] and deus are related, so they invent a connection between god and the concept "to set, put" rather than "to shine" as is claimed as root meaning for deus. it looks rather unlikely to me.
many linguists through the ages have acknowledged that deus and θεός are cognates. recent application of PIE "laws" are used to "disprove" the connection... but let's keep in mind that ALL of the entire PIE project is based on conjecture. it is a model. how does one *prove* anything based on reference to a reconstruction... it's like "proving" that all ancient Athenian statues were flamboyantly painted by pointing to a museum's reconstruction which shows them thus...
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Theos does not fit the established pattern for Indo-European words developing into Greek. The "set, do" meaning of the root is indeed conjectural, more relevant are the cognate words which also refer to deities from the same root ("Phrygian δεως (deōs, “to the gods”), Old Armenian դիք (dikʿ, “pagan gods”) and Latin fēriae (“festival days”), fānum (“temple”)"), distinct from that of Zeus/deus. þ is a difficut phoneme, and does not develop from /d/ alone, it requires the dʰ of Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁s. Because it is difficult, it may be fronted to /f/ as in Italic, "stopped" as in Phrygian and Armenian, or alveolarized to /s/ or /z/ as in Laconian. The distinction is also preserved in Mycenaen, teo for later Attic Theos (Attic speakers arrived after the Mycenaens), and Diwos for Attic Zeus (/zeu/ from /diu/ similarly to the development of t in nation etc.). It's the Mycenaen form which confirms for us that Zeua is cognate with Germanic Tiwaz, rather than Greek theos.
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