Re: Asian Migration to Scandinavia

Hi,

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Raucous D <raucousd@...> wrote:

> The other element is the "Aesir-Asura correspondence", the close
> correspondence between names of Germanic gods and names for
> Zoroastrian gods which was noticed by language scholars long
> ago... This seems to put the Germanic-speaking people on the
> Zoroastrian side of the Pandemonium, that is the trend in which
> the Zoroastrians demonized the devas of the Sanskrit speakers while
> the Sanskrit speakers demonized the asuras of the Zoroastrians.
> For this reason, a deva (daeva) is a demon in Avestan, and an asura
> is a demon in Sanskrit, especially later Sanskrit. The pattern is
> much wider than this: it includes many more gods and also other
> languages, both Indo-European and Semitic.

Could you kindly further elaborate on these points? My received
wisdom is that the deva/daiva vs. asura/Ahura(mazda) polarization
only developed in religious cultures (Vedic, Zoroastrian) descending
from the common Indo-Iranian stock. Where do you find traces, and
especially *linguistic* traces, of this polarization in other IE
language groups, or in Semitic?

Thanks and best regards,
Francesco