WHERE DOES THE WORD EASTER COME FROM


Where does the word EASTER come from?  And the word OSTERN?  They both have the same origin.  The name comes from a pre-Christian goddess for spring and fertility. In Celtic she was called Eostre and in Germanic Ostara.  It was a tradition to arrange a  big feast for her and for the arrival of spring.  

The early Christians in those areas made a good “spin” of her name and made it the name of a Christian celebration.  In exactly the same way as we Vikings made a spin around the pre-Christian name Jul / Yuletide and linked it to a Christian event.


In most other countries Easter is called something very differently. They origin of the name is the Hebrew PESACH.  This was and is the Jewish celebrations of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.   Well before that the name was used for a very old Israelitic celebration of the arrival of spring and of fertility of the cattle.


So, the name for Easter in many countries have the same origin:


Greek: pascha; Danish: påske; Swedish: påsk;  Norwegian: påske; Finnish:  pääsiäinen; Russian: paskhalnyy; Dutch:  pasen; French:  pâques; Italian: pasqua; Spanish: pascua.


If you want to learn how to pronounce these names, just download and use the app Google Translate. It gives you all the spellings and the pronunciations.

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