The

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

word ''god'' comes from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

', which itself is derived from the

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...

'. Its cognates in other

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...

include ' (both

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

), ' (

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

), ' (

Old Saxon Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...

Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...

, and

Old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aroun ...

), and ' (

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

Etymology

The

meaning of ' and its etymology is uncertain. It is generally agreed that it derives from a

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

neuter passive perfect participle '. This form within (late) Proto-Indo-European itself was possibly ambiguous, and thought to derive from a root ''*'' "to pour, libate" (the idea survives in the Dutch word, 'Giet', meaning, to pour) (

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

', see '), or from a root ''*'' (''*'') "to call, to invoke" (Sanskrit '). Sanskrit ''hutá'' = "having been sacrificed", from the verb root ''hu'' = "sacrifice", but a slight shift in translation gives the meaning "one to whom sacrifices are made." Depending on which possibility is preferred, the pre-Christian meaning of the Germanic term may either have been (in the "pouring" case) "

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid, or grains such as rice, as an offering to a deity or spirit, or in memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures today. Various substa ...

" or "that which is libated upon,

idol Idol or Idols may refer to: Religion and philosophy * Cult image, a neutral term for a man-made object that is worshipped or venerated for the deity, spirit or demon that it embodies or represents * Murti, a point of focus for devotion or medit ...

" — or, as Watkins opines in the light of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

"poured earth" meaning "

tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...

", "the Germanic form may have referred in the first instance to the spirit immanent in a burial mound" — or (in the "invoke" case) "invocation, prayer" (compare the meanings of Sanskrit '') or "that which is invoked".

Gaut

A significant number of scholars have connected this root with the names of three related

Germanic tribes The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...

: the

Geat The Geats ( ; ang, gēatas ; non, gautar ; sv, götar ), sometimes called ''Goths'', were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the late Middle Ages. They are one of th ...

s, the

Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe ...

and the

Gutar The Gutes (old west norse ''Gotar'', old gutnish ''Gutar'') were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting the island of Gotland. The ethnonym is related to that of the ''Goths'' (''Gutans''), and both names were originally Proto-Germanic *''Gutaniz'' ...

. These names may be derived from an eponymous chieftain

Gaut is an early Germanic name, from a Proto-Germanic ''gautaz'', which represents a mythical ancestor or national god in the origin myth of the Geats. Etymology ''Gautaz'' may be connected to the name of the Swedish river Göta älv at the city ...

, who was subsequently deified. He also sometimes appears in early Medieval

saga is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square (video game company), Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, ...

s as a name of

Odin Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, v ...

or one of his descendants, a former king of the Geats ('), an ancestor of the

('), of the Goths (') and of the royal line of

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

(''Geats'') and as a previous hero of the Goths (').

Wōdanaz

Some variant forms of the name

such as the Lombardic ' may point in the direction that the Lombardic form actually comes from

Wōdanaz Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory ...

or Wōđinaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of a god of

Germanic paganism Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...

, known as Odin in

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...

, Wōden in

, Wodan or Wotan in

and Godan in the Lombardic language. Godan was shortened to God over time and was adopted/retained by the Germanic peoples of the British isles as the name of their deity, in lieu of the Latin word

Deus ''Deus'' (, ) is the Latin word for "god" or "deity". Latin ''deus'' and ''dīvus'' ("divine") are in turn descended from Proto-Indo-European *'' deiwos'', "celestial" or "shining", from the same root as '' *Dyēus'', the reconstructed chief g ...

used by the Latin speaking Christian church, after conversion to Christianity. During the complex

christianization Christianization ( or Christianisation) is to make Christian; to imbue with Christian principles; to become Christian. It can apply to the conversion of an individual, a practice, a place or a whole society. It began in the Roman Empire, conti ...

of the Germanic tribes of Europe, there were many linguistic influences upon the Christian

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

. One example post downfall of the western Roman Empire are the missionaries from Rome led by

Augustine of Canterbury Augustine of Canterbury (early 6th century – probably 26 May 604) was a monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.Delaney '' ...

. Augustine's mission to the

Saxons The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

in southern Britain was conducted at a time when the city of Rome was a part of a Lombardic kingdom. The translated Bibles which they brought on their mission were greatly influenced by the Germanic tribes they were in contact with, chief among them being the

Lombards The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 and ...

and

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

. The translation for the word ''deus'' of the Latin Bible was influenced by the then current usage by the tribes for their highest deity, namely ''Wodan'' by

Angles The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ' ...

, Saxons, and Franks of north-central and western Europe, and ''Godan'' by the Lombards of south-central Europe around Rome. There are many instances where the name Godan and Wodan are contracted to God and Wod. One instance is the

wild hunt The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif (Motif E501 in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature) that occurs in the folklore of various northern European cultures. Wild Hunts typically involve a chase led by a mythological figure escorted by ...

(a.k.a. Wodan's wild hunt) where Wod is used. The earliest uses of the word God in Germanic writing is often cited to be in the

Gothic Bible The Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible is the Christian Bible in the Gothic language spoken by the Eastern Germanic (Goths, Gothic) tribes in the early Middle Ages. The translation was allegedly made by the Arianism, Arian bishop and missionary U ...

or Wulfila Bible, which is the Christian Bible as translated by

Ulfilas Ulfilas (–383), also spelled Ulphilas and Orphila, all Latinized forms of the unattested Gothic form *𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌰 Wulfila, literally "Little Wolf", was a Goth of Cappadocian Greek descent who served as a bishop and missionary ...

into the

Gothic language Gothic is an extinct East Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the ''Codex Argenteus'', a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizeable text cor ...

spoken by the Eastern Germanic, or Gothic, tribes. The oldest parts of the Gothic Bible, contained in the

Codex Argenteus The Codex Argenteus (Latin for "Silver Book/Codex") is a 6th-century illuminated manuscript, originally containing part of the 4th-century translation of the Christian Bible into the Gothic language. Traditionally ascribed to the Arian bis ...

, are estimated to be from the fourth century. During the fourth century, the

were converted to Christianity, largely through the efforts of Bishop Ulfilas, who translated the Bible into the Gothic language in

Nicopolis ad Istrum Nicopolis ad Istrum ( el, Νικόπολις ἡ πρὸς Ἴστρον) or Nicopolis ad Iatrum was a Roman and Early Byzantine town. Its ruins are located at the village of Nikyup, 20 km north of Veliko Tarnovo in northern Bulgaria. The t ...

in today's northern Bulgaria. The words ''guda'' and ''guþ'' were used for God in the Gothic Bible.

Influence of Christianity

''God'' entered English when the language still had a system of

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

. The word and its cognates were initially neuter but underwent transition when their speakers converted to Christianity, "as a means of distinguishing the personal God of the Christians from the impersonal divine powers acknowledged by pagans." However, traces of the neuter endured. While these words became syntactically masculine, so that

determiner A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner m ...

s and

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...

s connected to them took masculine endings, they sometimes remained morphologically neuter, which could be seen in their inflections: In the phrase, ''guþ meins'', "my God," from the Gothic Bible, for example, ''guþ'' inflects as if it were still a neuter because it lacks a final ''-s'', but the possessive adjective ''meins'' takes the final ''-s'' that it would with other masculine nouns. ''God'' and its cognates likely had a general, predominantly plural or collective sense prior to conversion to Christianity. After conversion, the word was commonly used in the singular to refer to the Christian deity, and also took on characteristics of a name.

Translations

The word ''god'' was used to represent

''theos'' and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

deus ''Deus'' (, ) is the Latin word for "god" or "deity". Latin ''deus'' and ''dīvus'' ("divine") are in turn descended from Proto-Indo-European *'' deiwos'', "celestial" or "shining", from the same root as '' *Dyēus'', the reconstructed chief g ...

'' in

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

translations, first in the Gothic translation of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

by Ulfilas. For the etymology of ', see ''* ''. Greek " θεός " (') means god in English. It is often connected with Greek "θέω" (''theō''), "run", and "θεωρέω" (''theoreō''), "to look at, to see, to observe", Latin ' "holidays", ' "temple", and also Armenian ' "gods". Alternative suggestions (e.g. by De Saussure) connect ' "smoke, spirit", attested in Baltic and Germanic words for "

spook Spook is a synonym for ghost. Spook or spooks may also refer to: People * Spook (nickname), shared by several notable people * Per Spook (born 1939), Norwegian fashion designer * a ghostwriter * a racial slur referring to a black person * an unde ...

" and ultimately cognate with Latin ' "smoke." The earliest attested form of the word is the

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the ''terminus ad quem'' for the ...

''te-o'' (plural ''te-o-i''), written in

Linear B Linear B was a syllabic script used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. It is descended from ...

syllabic script.

Capitalization

The development of

English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and p ...

was dominated by

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

texts. Capitalized, "

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

" was first used to refer to the

Abrahamic God The concept of God in Abrahamic religions is centred on monotheism. The three major monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, alongside the Baháʼí Faith, Samaritanism, Druze, and Rastafari, are all regarded as Abrahamic reli ...

and may now signify any monotheistic conception of God, including the translations of the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Khuda Khuda or Khoda ( fa, خدا) is the Persian word for "Lord" or "God". Originally, it was used in reference to Ahura Mazda (the name of the God in Zoroastrianism). Iranian languages, Turkic languages, and many Indo-Aryan languages employ the word. ...

'', Indic ''

Ishvara ''Ishvara'' () is a concept in Hinduism, with a wide range of meanings that depend on the era and the school of Hinduism.Monier Monier Williams, Sanskrit-English dictionarySearch for Izvara University of Cologne, Germany In ancient texts of H ...

'' and the

Maasai Maasai may refer to: * Maasai people *Maasai language * Maasai mythology * MAASAI (band) See also * Masai (disambiguation) * Massai Massai (also known as: Masai, Massey, Massi, Mah–sii, Massa, Wasse, Wassil or by the nickname "Big Foot" Mas ...

'. In the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

, capitalization is used for names by which a god is known, including 'God'. Consequently, its capitalized form is not used for multiple gods or when referring to the generic idea of a

deity A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...

.Dictionary.com
"God /gɒd/ noun: 1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe. 2. the Supreme Being considered with reference to a particular attribute. 3. (lowercase) one of several deities, esp. a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs. 4. (often lowercase) a supreme being according to some particular conception: the God of mercy. 5. Christian Science. the Supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle. 6. (lowercase) an image of a deity; an idol. 7. (lowercase) any deified person or object. 8. (often lowercase) Gods, Theater. 8a. the upper balcony in a theater. 8b. the spectators in this part of the balcony." Pronouns referring to a god are also often capitalized by adherents to a religion as an indication of reverence, and are traditionally in the

masculine gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

("He", "Him", "His" etc) unless specifically referring to a goddess.

References

External links

Use of guþ n the Gothic Bible.

Use of guda n the Gothic Bible.

{{Names of God English words Etymologies