Re: On the etymology of Theos (God)
in reply to a message by mikosloper
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.