Norse AEsir and Vedic Asura.
Madhav Deshpande
mmdesh at umich.edu
Thu Oct 26 17:15:13 UTC 1995
Clearly the word Asura is originally not a privative form of
Sura, but derived as asu+ra. Only in later times, the word Sura was
derived from the word Asura through reanalysis, when the word Asura
developed a largely negative meaning.
In any case, it was my impression that while the word Deva has
Indo-European cognates, the word Asura/Ahura (iranian) does not go beyond
the common Indo-Iranian period.
M. Deshpande
On Thu, 26 Oct 1995, Nicholas Ostler wrote:
> >Is the Norse word for god, AEsir, a cognate of the Vedic, Asura?
>
> I believe Aesir to be the plural of Asa (cf another race of Nordic gods:
> Van pl. Vanir). As such it would have nothing to do with Asura, certainly
> not if that word is really a privative form of Sura.
>
> Nicholas Ostler
>
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