Re: [tied] Etymology of Greek God Dionysus

On 2006-07-17 00:46, amshuman_k wrote:

> Hi list,
> I recognize the "Dio" portion of the word Dionysus. Is the second
> part "nysus" related to "nysa"? Does "nysa" have congates in other IE
> branches? Does it go back to PIE?

<Nû:sa> was the name of several hills sacred to <Dió(:)nu:sos> (and of
their mythical prototype), so the god's name can be interpreted as
*diwjos nu:sos 'divine N.' or *diwos nu:sos 'Zeus's N.', with the
<nu:sos> part presumably related to the toponym, but I haven't seen a
convincing explanation of either, let alone a solid IE etymology.

Piotr