#//Names with roots in the Latin words for Dawn and Dusk

[neopronouns]

more referential terms for my neogender umbrellas!

before i start, i want to say that 'younger' and 'older' in these definitions are intentionally vague! just as a twenty-something may call themselves a boy/girl, a parent may call their minor child a young man/woman, an adult may refer to their friends as 'the boys/girls', etc., these terms are not strictly intended to refer to minors and legal adults.

aurethesia:

the general term, coined in the original aurethesia post, is reth, and the plural is rethi. reth is simply a shortening of aurethesia.

the word for a younger reth is roa, which is derived from the word 'aurora'. the plural is roae.

the word for an older reth is eoan, a word meaning 'of the dawn', which was derived from the name of the greek goddess of the dawn, eos (her roman counterpart is aurora). the plural is eoans.

tenethesia:

the general term, coined in the original tenethesia post, is teth, and the plural is tethi. teth is simply a shortening of tenethesia.

the word for a younger teth is tae, which is derived from latin 'tenebrae', meaning 'darkness'. the plural is taen.

the word for an older teth is stro, which is derived from 'astro', which itself is derived from 'aster', which astraeus, the name of the greek god of dusk, is also derived from. plural is stroes.

once i realized that aurora, roman goddess of the dawn, had a greek counterpart, eos, who had a husband who was the god of the dusk, i decided to use eos and astraeus as inspiration for the older aurethesia and tenethesia terms. i feel like they fit together nicely!

comuniterm:

the general term, coined in the original comuniterm post, is niol, and the plural is niolae. it comes from 'neolabel' and 'liom'.

the word for a younger niol is rai, which comes from 'resident' and 'mogai'. the plural is raien.

the word for an older niol is hom, which comes from 'inhabitant' and 'liom'/'mogai'). the plural is homs.

i used 'resident' and 'inhabitant' as inspiration for rai and hom since there's not really an english word that specifically means 'member of a community', but terms for those who live in an area are close enough in my mind!

wevaranet:

the general term, coined in the original wevaranet post, is rane, and the plural is ranae. it comes from 'araneae', the order of spiders.

the word for a younger rane is ret, which comes from 'spideret', a young spider. 'et' also gives similarity to 'marionette'. the plural is rets.

the word for an older rane is pule, from 'manipule', the old french root of the word 'manipulate'. the plural is pulae.

sylvaencan:

the general term, coined in the original sylvaencan post, is sylv, and the plural is sylven. it comes from latin 'silva'/'sylva', meaning 'forest'.

the word for a younger sylv is aun, from middle english 'enchaunten', meaning 'enchant'. the plural is aunae.

the word for an older sylv is nem, from latin 'nemus', meaning 'grove'. the plural is nemi.

@radiomogai

[inspofromancientworld]

Gods of Antiquity: Dawn Deities

By Jessie Eastland - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64756573

Dawn is visible proof that time continued and the night is over and the safety of light has returned to the land. With the return of the sun, dawn was one of the most important deities early in our development but as cities became more common, dawn deities tended to get syncretized with solar deities.

By Anonymous Greek Black-Figure Vase Painter - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greek_-Hydria_with_the_Fight_of_Achilles_and_Memnon-_Walters_482230.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56729300

Dawn, *H₂éwsōs or *Haéusōs, is one of seven or eight gods that has been reconstructed from Proto-Indo-European. She is thought to have had an important role in our ancestor's spiritual practice, as evidenced by the importance of the dawn goddesses that trace their history to her, such as Uṣas in the Rigveda and Saulė, a Baltic solar deity. Her name comes from a root that means 'to shine', 'glow red', or 'a flame'. She is the daughter of the sky god *Diwós. She is eternally young, being reborn every morning, and is the bringer of light to the world, dancing across the world from her home in the east, or driving a wagon (at first) across the sky.

By I, Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3941437

Lucifer is the Latin translation of the Hebrew word hêlēl (הֵילֵל), meaning 'Shining One' with the Latin meaning 'morning star', which is the planet Venus when it's in the early morning sky, or 'light bringer'. In Roman folklore, the planet Venus as it appeared in the morning sky was said to be the 'fabled son of Aurora [the dawn goddess] and Cephalus [the son of Hermes], and father of Ceyx [one half of a couple that incurred Zeus' wrath by using his and Hera's names with each other]'. His mother is linguistically related to *Haéusōs and to other dawn goddesses. There was a myth that Lucifer vied with Venus in beauty and that's the 'reason it is called the star of Venus.' The motif of the planet Venus (as the morning star) being cast down goes back to Babylonian mythology, where the morning star tried to ascend to the highest throne of the star-gods and was cast down, only to appear in the dawn and dusk skies. In chapter 14 of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah condemns the king of Babylon Hêlêl ben Šāḥar (הֵילֵל בֶּן-שָׁחַר), meaning the planet Venus in the form of the morning star, and is the only time this הֵילֵל Hêlêl is used in the Tanakh. The Latin version of the name continued through into Christianity, divorced from the Babylonian king that was originally the subject of the verses.

By Yale University Art Gallery - https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/34498, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81334074

In the Book of Revelations, verse 22:16 refers to Jesus as 'the bright and morning star'. This was done with the background of both the morning star being the son of the eternal dawning of Aurora or Eos, or possibly back to *Haéusōs. In the Greek, the word anatoli ἀνατολή was used to denote the dawn or morning star, though it now translates to 'east', which is common with words that come from *Haéusōs, whether literally or figuratively.

[serpentstole]

hello there!! (totally cool if u dont want to answer this) but i saw ur post of spiritual/religious red flags and i wanted to ask about the "lucifer is actually roman god" thing and why that would be a red flag? thanks!

Hello! I don't mind answering it.

So first of all, that list was a real spectrum with no clear indicator of severity, which I tried to disclose at the beginning. Some of the things on it are deeply harmful or subtly bigoted, while others are just kind of misinformed. Lucifer as a Roman god tends to fall into the latter, in my opinion.

I don't know your frame of knowledge coming into this, so I'm sorry if I over explain anything.

In Greek and Roman myth, there are a lot of anthropomorphic personifications that exist alongside the gods. Two of them are Phosphorus and Hesperus, the personifications of the morning star and evening star, or Venus as seen at dawn and dusk. That Latin corresponding word/name for Phosphorus is Lucifer, while Hesperus gets Vesper. So in the strictest sense of the word, there is a figure in Roman mythology (though in my opinion not a god per se) that is named Lucifer.

Where this gets messy for me is when people try to say that Lucifer as he is understood in Christian folklore is a Roman god. The only thing that links these two figures is a misunderstanding of an old translation, which I've brought up before here when discussing the actual lack of Biblical presence that Lucifer has by name.

As with many of the ideas on that list, there tends to be a best case scenario and a worst case scenario, and plenty of middling takes in between.

To me, when I hear someone say "Lucifer is a Roman god" in conversations about the Lucifer who's discussed in (most) Luciferianism, or the Lucifer as he's portrayed in Paradise Lost, or any other variation there of, the best I can hope for is that they're misinformed and incurious. It's the kind of take that falls apart with even a little research, so if it's being regurgitated as trivia, it seems more likely to me than not that they didn't actually bother to do any reading of their own.

What I tend to worry about, however, is that the individual in question might be trying to distance Lucifer (as he's commonly understood) from his cultural origins. While the blend and evolution of religious ideas is incredibly intricate and complex, there tends to be a blunt force version that's employed whenever people want to distance Christian or Jewish figures from their religions. I would say the "Lilith is Babylonian actually" crowd is being far more offensive with it, as they tend to debate actual Jewish people with their entire chests despite numerous citations that prove otherwise which they choose to willfully misinterpret. Likewise, it starts getting a bit Weird to me when people will try to claim that the spirits in the Ars Goetia are Old Gods™ just because some of them (and not all, mind you) have names that are taken from or inspired by existing deities. For example, the name Astaroth is thought to maybe be inspired by Astarte (despite belonging to a wildly different entity of a different gender) and Balam shares a name with a Biblical magician.

There is a fascinating web that can be studied picked at. I would love nothing more than to be a professional esoteric historian who's paid to spend all his time trying to suss out how much of ancient Canaanite mythology influenced later religious ideas and stories, or how Mithraism may have influence early Christianity. But when people are simplifying and exaggerating those connections to try and separate the figures that appeal to them from their cultural and religious roots... I have to wonder why. And I'm always hard pressed to think of a defensible reason.

Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!