Day and dies, deus and theos

This is what I found. These words almost form a circle together.

English 'day' and Latin 'dies'

When I studied Latin, I took it for granted that these words were related, but, like Piotr said, their origin is different. The OED says that the 'OTeut' (this is what we would call Proto-Germanic if I recall correctly, the OED terminology was recently mentioned on this list) form of 'day' was '*dago-z'. This word "is usually referred to an Aryan (Indo-European?) verb" 'dhagh-' "to burn". This verb also lies behind Old Prussian 'dagis' "summer".

Latin 'dies', on the other hand, is connected to the PIE 'sky' and 'god' words. According to Alois Walde (Lateinisches etym. Wörterbuch, Heidelberg 1930) the PIE form was '*d(i)e:us', "sky", "day". The next pair of false friends, deus-theos, made me wonder what 'day' looked like in Greek; I looked it up and found 'he:mera'. Getting into a little deeper water: if 'day' and 'dies' did come from the same PIE word, would they look as similar as they do now? Not all PIE words with d- in Latin have d- also in Germanic. Compare 'decem' - 'zehn'.


Latin 'deus' and Greek 'theos'

'Theós' is "nicht sicher erklärt" says Friske's Griechisches etym. Wörterbuch (Heidelberg 1970). But it cannot be connected with 'deus' - such a connection is "lautlich umöglich", phonetically impossible. I guess this means that some phonetical law is operating here, but he doesn't say which one. He connects 'theós' with Armenian 'di-k' "gods" and a reconstructed PIE word '*dhe:s-es'. This PIE word lies behind some Latin words as well, but these words do not look anything like 'deus'; two of his examples are 'fanum', "temple" and 'feriae', "holidays". Perhaps '*dh-' gives Latin 'f-'?

When I looked up '*dhagh' in Pokorny's etymology I found some examples that gave me this idea. There's no '*dhagh' in Pokorny, he lists the reconstruction as '*dheguh-' and connects it to a lot of Latin words beginning with 'f-': 'foveo', "to warm", 'fo:culum', "Feuerpfanne" (I guess this last word is connected to French 'feu'). And a newbie question - what exactly is the sound '*dh-'? Is this the same sound as in English 'there'?

'Deus', old Latin 'deivos', comes from PIE '*deiuos', which is said to be an ablaut of the verb '*deieu(o)-', "shine". It is a part of the names Iuppiter and Diana, and in Greek it appears, not as 'theós', but as Zeus. But just to make matters a little more complicated, there were Greek dialects where Zeus was called Deus (boiotian and "lak." = lakedaimonian?). And we've got the 'dios-kouroi', the twin brothers Castor and Pollux.

To round things off, I looked up a third pair of old false friends. 'God' and 'good' look very similar in many Germanic languages; as I suspected, they had nothing to do with each other. 'God', Proto-Germanic '*go:dho-', did not become an important word until it was picked up by Christianity (and changed from neutrum to masculinum). The main gods of the pre-christian pantheon were called '*ansu-z' (in modern Swedish we call them 'asar'); '*go:dho-' doesn't correspond to our conception of 'god', its meaning was closer to the Latin 'numen' says the OED.

Hakan
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Piotr -

I've got a better idea. Do some research yourself and report the results on Cybalist, and we'll press the wrinkles out. You'll find it more satisfying that way, without just being told :)