Talk:Deus

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Is the word deus also a cognate of the Sanskrit word deva, which also means god? It seems likely to me. Jon Harald Søby 01:38, 25 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Deus(in Laconian Greek), Deus(in Boeotian Greek) = Zeus Böri (talk) 11:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

I think it is worth to mention that Deus has the same spelling in Portuguese.

--187.55.20.43 (talk) 20:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

The Latin Deus produced Deity in English. - Brad Watson, Miami 71.196.11.183 (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Deus became Dei because like God, its 3 letters represent the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the Holy Trinity. - Brad Watson, Miami 71.196.11.183 (talk) 23:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

User:Inqvisitor Wow! Incredible display of knowledge of ancient multi-lingual influences on one another. I got curious about the Greek. Which one comes first in ancient (Koine) Greek, Zeus or Theos. Are there mutual linguistic influences between the two concepts? Thanks a lot, warshy ^(¥¥) 19:00, 1 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Well it can be confusing as Greek Theos and Latin Deus essentially mean the same thing and have been used to refer to the Judeo-Christian God for millennia, including translations of the Bible and other religious texts from Greek to Latin or vice versa. But going into further depth about "theos" in this article would be misleading since the words are not in fact related etymologically. Not sure which came first; both have prehistoric roots. By Classical/Koine periods, "theos" was used to mean generic "god", while "Zeus" was the proper name of the king of the Greek Olympian gods (like Latin deus meant generic "god" and Jupiter was king of the gods).

But "Zeus", like Roman name "Jupiter", came from Proto-Indo-European root *Dyḗws*Pahtḗr from *dyeu meaning "sky", hence literally "Sky Father", a Proto-Indo-European deity with descendants found in Greek and Italic/Latin as well as Germanic and Indo-Aryan/Hindu. (From *dyeu, "sky, daylight" we get English word "day" and Latin word "dies" meaning day) Like Latin Diespiter/Iuppiter/Jupiter, Proto-Hellenic/pre-archaic Greeks would have called him Zeus Patēr ("Sky Father"), but at some point the pater was dropped and "Zeus" just become his name (except as an added epithet, i.e. "Father Zeus", like Roman "Jupiter" was formed).

The pronunciation of "Zeus" with initial letter Zeta would have been pronounced with initial sound of "Dz" or "Zd", not later plain "Z" until the Koine Hellenistic period. And Northwestern European Classicists being heavily biased toward Athens gave us English "Zeus" from Attic Ζεύς when his name was actually spelled with an initial Delta Δεύς "Deus" just like Latin in many other Greek dialects, particularly Doric dialects as in Sparta.

"Theos" from Proto-Hellenic *tʰehós is seen also in Linear B Mycenaean Greek 𐀳𐀃 (teo) from Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh meaning "to do, put" (English "do" actually comes from the same root), it literally means "doer, placer" hence became a generic name for a god. Ancient Greek letter theta in θεός was not originally pronounced like English "th", but into the Classical period, was an aspirated breathy "t" (/tʰ/). From same root came e.g. "thesmós" meaning "law" or "rule" placed down. So despite now sounding alike and having the same meaning, Latin "deus" and Greek "theos" come from two totally different roots.

Basically Z(d)eus Patēr as Sky Father became the name of a specific Indo-European deity, while t(h)eos as a "doer, placer" became a generic name for A god. In Proto-Indo-European, *dʰéhs just came to mean "god" hence Greek theos (among other PIE descendants lke Armenian դիս (dis)/դիաւք(diawkʿ), while Zeus, Deus, Jupiter, Dyáuṣpitṛ́ originally came from a root meaning "sky father" or "celestial father", the specific PIE "heavenly father" god. Inqvisitor (talk) 23:22, 9 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a lot User:Inqvisitor for the detailed lesson. I will study all the details as much as I can, but you have already enlightened me a real great deal so far, and I am grateful to you for it. I will have to catch up a bit on the PIE stuff, which I never studied. But the close proximity between Δεύς and Deus is still pretty striking to me. I will keep studying the issue and re-reading you entire lesson above,

but I appreciate you taking the time to enlighten me as you have done so far. Thanks a lot, warshy ^(¥¥) 20:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Dei. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. — JFG ^talk 20:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

𝑫𝒆𝒖𝒔 103.94.181.45 (talk) 15:00, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

The redirect Dei has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 April 20 § Dei until a consensus is reached. Mast303 (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply