''*En'' or ''*Enji'' () is the reconstructed name of the

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...

god In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

in the Albanian pagan mythology, which continues to be used in the modern

Albanian language Albanian ( endonym: or ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is spoken by the Albanians in the Balkans and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europ ...

to refer to

Thursday Thursday is the day of the week between Wednesday and Friday. According to the ISO 8601 international standard, it is the fourth day of the week. In countries which adopt the "Sunday-first" convention, it is the fifth day of the week. Name ''Se ...

(''e enjte''). Another name of a fire god worshiped in Northern

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

until recent times is Verbt. The name ''hyj'', 'burn, glow', is also used uncapitalized to refer to the deities and the

stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

, and capitalized to refer to the

Supreme Being In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

. According to some scholars, the deity was worshiped by the

Illyrians The Illyrians ( grc, Ἰλλυριοί, ''Illyrioi''; la, Illyrii) were a group of Indo-European-speaking peoples who inhabited the western Balkan Peninsula in ancient times. They constituted one of the three main Paleo-Balkan populations, a ...

in antiquity and may have been the most prominent god of the pantheon in Roman times.

Etymology

In his work ''Speculum Confessionis'' (1621) Pjetër Budi recorded the Albanian term ''tegnietenee madhe'' for the observance of

Maundy Thursday Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday (also known as Great and Holy Thursday, Holy and Great Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Sheer Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, among other names) is the day during Holy Week that commemorates the Washing of the ...

(''S.C.'', 148, vv. 26, 89). In his Latin-Albanian dictionary (''Dictionarium latino-epiroticum'', 1635),

Frang Bardhi Frang Bardhi (Latin: ''Franciscus Blancus'', it, Francesco Bianchi, 1606–1643) was an Albanian Catholic bishop and writer. Bardhi is best known as an author of the early eras of Albanian literature. He served as Bishop of Sapë (1635–1644 ...

recorded ''dita ehegnete'' as the Albanian translation of

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 ...

''dies Iovis''. In 1820, the French scholar

François Pouqueville François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville (; 4 November 1770 – 20 December 1838) was a French diplomat, writer, explorer, physician and historian, member of the Institut de France. First as the Turkish Sultan's hostage, then as Napoleon Bo ...

recorded two old Albanian terms: ''e igniete'' and ''e en-gnitia''. Modern

dialectal The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...

variations include: aln, e êjte, e ẽjtë; als, e enjtë; aae, e ègn'te, e énjite, e ente, e engjte, e ínjte. The Albanian term '' enjte'' ('Thurday') is a ''te''-adjective descending from the

Proto-Albanian The Proto-Albanian language is the unattested language from which Albanian later developed. Albanian evolved from an ancient Paleo-Balkan language, traditionally thought to be Illyrian, or otherwise a totally unattested Balkan Indo-European ...

stem ''*agni-'', ultimately from *'' h₁n̥gʷnis'', the archaic

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- ...

word for '

' as an active force. The names of week days in Albanian are calques of

names. Since ''enjte'' seems to translate Latin ''lovis diem'' ('Day of Jove'), the god ''Enj-'' of the early Albanian pantheon may have been seen as the equivalent of

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

History

According to scholar Karl Treimer,

worshiped a

fire god This is a list of deities in fire worship. African mythology Yoruba mythology * Ogun, fire god and patron of blacksmiths, iron, warfare, metal tools * Ọya, goddess of fire, wind, transforms into buffalo, fertility * Shango, god of thunder and ...

named ''*Enji'', related to the

Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

fire god

Agni Agni (English: , sa, अग्नि, translit=Agni) is a Sanskrit word meaning fire and connotes the Vedic fire deity of Hinduism. He is also the guardian deity of the southeast direction and is typically found in southeast corners of Hindu ...

, and descending from the stem ''*H₁n̩g^wnis'', the

divinised

.; In the Illyrian pantheon the fire deity expanded his function considerably, therefore ousted the cosmic-heavenly deity, and was the most distinguished Illyrian god in Roman times, when the

weekday names In many languages, the names given to the seven days of the week are derived from the names of the classical planets in Hellenistic astronomy, which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced by the Sumerians and lat ...

were formed in the

. Indeed, the

''Jovis dies'' was equated to the Illyrian fire god Enj rather than to the Illyrian Sky father, thought to have been Zot, from

''*dźie̅u ̊ *a(t)t'' (a cognate of PIE ''*Dyḗus ph₂tḗr''), or Dei-pátrous. With the coming of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

, En was demoted to demonic status, although his name has been preserved in the

to refer to

(''enj-te''). Strong beliefs in the demon of fire have persisted among Albanians until today. The cult of the mystic fire and the fire ritual practices played an important role in the lives of the

pre-industrial Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forums of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. ''Pre-industrial'' refers to a time before ...

Albanian people.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:En Albanian mythology Illyrian gods Fire gods Paleo-Balkan mythology

Etymology

History

See also

References

Bibliography