r/AskEurope • u/Nirast25 Romania • 2d ago
Culture Does your language have different words for god and God?
Something that I've been curious about for a while, what languages have a different word for 'god' (as in a random deity in a polytheistic pantheon) and 'God' (the Abrahamic one).
For instance, Romanian has "zeu" for god, and "Dumnezeu" for God. Any other language that has something like this?
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u/Tanja_Christine Austria 2d ago edited 2d ago
What does Dumnzeu mean? Dumn is lord, isn't it? From dominus (Latin for lord)? And zeu is obviously from deus god. So you combined Domine Deus into one word? The Lordgod? But it means God the Lord, right? Something like that?
In German we have that too. There is the compound Herrgott which means Lordgod or God the Lord, but it is not used a lot. Most people say Gott which can be used both for the Creator and the gods of the Pagans.
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u/Nirast25 Romania 2d ago
You got the Latin roots spot on, but I think the way the word was formed is a bit different. If you're addressing or talking about someone in a position of power, in the olden days, it would've been "Domnia ta" (Your lordship (singular)), "Domnia lui" (His lordship), etc. We're still using using those when talking about like monarchs, at least in some settings.
Now, those forms of have eventually evolved into their own words. So "Domnia ta" becomes "Dumneata", which is called a polite pronoun, and it's just "You (singular)" used when addressing someone you want to show respect to. Though the plural version, "Dumneavoastră", is usually used when talking to a single person (I think French does the same with "Vous").
Anyway, I assume "Dumnezeu" evolved in a similar manner. And to answer the question 'Is there a plural version?', yes, "Dumnezei", but it's only used if you're cussing at someone, and it's preceded by our word for "fuck" and followed by our word for "your mother". Yes, it's very blasphemous.
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u/Tanja_Christine Austria 2d ago
What came to Romania first? The Romans or Christianity? Pretty much at the same time, right?
My best guess would be that it probably comes from people saying what they heard at Mass in a rally sloppy way. In the Tridentine rite Latin Mass (which is faaaar older than 16th century even though the name suggests it was only ratified at the Council of Trent) you hear Domine Deus quite a lot. Try saying that real sloppily and with a thick accent and you may end up with Dumnzeu.
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u/Nirast25 Romania 2d ago
According to our doctrine, St. Andrew is the one who converted the country to Christianity. He died in 50/60 AD, according to Wiki, so it'd be sooner than that.
The Romans started conquering the Dacian region in 106 AD after Decebal's death, so about 50 years after that. That said, they interacted with the region even in the late (early?) BC years.
Of course, that's assuming the whole region got converted by one guy. I have no idea exactly how and when the religion spread here.
Edit: Also, apparently Andrew was a fisherman. And Romania kinda looks like a fish. Lol.
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u/Tanja_Christine Austria 2d ago
St. Andrew was St. Peter's brother. Both were fishermen. Jesus said to them He would make them into fishers of men. Your ancestors got fished by St Andrew. Was he martyred in Romania? I just know he died on that X shaped cross. Which is called St Andrew's cross in many languages.
The Apostles were not the only ones converting people obviously, but they sorta went all in different directions to spread the Gospel. It is really cool to look at maps of where they went.
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u/42not34 Romania 2d ago
It's also St Andrew's cross in Romanian (crucea sfântului Andrei), we use it to mark a railroad crossing.
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u/Tanja_Christine Austria 2d ago
We have that too. And the Germans have it. And the Italians. Idk who all has it.
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u/BringBackSoule Romania 1d ago
Edit: Also, apparently Andrew was a fisherman. And Romania kinda looks like a fish. Lol.
lmao
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u/rudolf_waldheim Hungary 2d ago
I bet Romanians think they were in Transylvania as Christians already B.C.
Traianus just came home again.
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u/abhora_ratio Romania 2d ago edited 2d ago
Neah.. we moved over that a long time ago. We are now discussing about the Egyptian pyramids being built by our ancestors and also about some energy tunnels between the Carpathian Mountains and the Sphinx (or the pyramids, not sure) 😂 this will take us a long time 😂😂
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u/Key-Ad8521 Belgium 2d ago
As a French speaker I don't quite see a parallel with French. Perhaps you're talking about "monsieur" which is a deformation of "mon seigneur", meaning "my lord"?
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u/Nirast25 Romania 2d ago
I remember when learning French back in primary school that our teacher said French uses "vous" when talking to a single person as a sign of respect. Maybe I'm misremembering, maybe we were thought wrong, maybe it's fallen out of favor, no clue.
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u/schwarzmalerin Austria 2d ago
The article makes the difference.
The abrahamitic biblical christian whatever you want to call it God is just Gott like saying a first name and calling it George:
Ein Feuer ging an und Gott sprach zu ihm und ...
All other gods are "der Gott", like "the god" as in "the car" (there are many cars):
Dann erschien Zeus. Der Gott sprach dann zu mir ....
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u/lucapal1 Italy 2d ago
No,we use the same word in Italian...Dio for the Christian God, and dio (plural dei) for gods in general.
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u/gfrBrs Italy 2d ago
Technically Italian does have Domineddio; but if it ever was widespread it surely isn't now, except as an interjection
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u/zen_arcade Italy 2d ago
If you went back to early XX century (and earlier, I guess), spoken regional Italian used to be chock full of hilarious malapropisms from church Latin misheard by commoners.
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u/0urobrs Netherlands 2d ago
In Dutch you similarly have 'god and 'God', but the latter could also be called 'de (lieve) Heer' (our dear Lord).
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u/Key-Ad8521 Belgium 2d ago
Obligatory mention of the Dutch word for ladybug, (onze-)lieveheersbeestje, literally "little beast of (our) dear Lord"
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u/Pe45nira3 Hungary 2d ago edited 2d ago
Nope, both are denoted with the word "isten". (Allegedly from an Asian wanderwort from which also comes the Turkic "tengri" for the god of Tengrism and the Modern Turkish "tanri" for any kind of god, not just Allah, and the Chinese word "tien" for "Heaven".)
From the 1930s to the 1960s, one of Atatürk's reforms in Turkey which was implemented was that the müezzins sang the call to prayer in Turkish, and used the word "tanri" instead of "Allah" to be potentially compatible with any kind of Monotheism even Tengrism or Zoroastrianism, but later the more religious governments reversed this to Allah and using Arabic.
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u/Elvenblood7E7 1d ago
Also the form istenség - deity - is sometimes used for deities in polytheistic religions.
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u/sp0sterig 2d ago
In Russian and Ukrainian languages there is a word 'Бог/бог' for God/god, and 'божество' for deity. Same root though.
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u/Ep1cOfG1lgamesh Türkiye 2d ago
Technically no, practically yes.
Tanrı can mean both of the uses, but usually is used for god. Allah on the other hand, is more often used for God (even by Christians). The arabic equivalent of "Tanrı" for the lowercase-g god is "ilah" but "tanrı" is more often used for this purpose.
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u/A_r_t_u_r Portugal 2d ago
Christians in Turkey use the word "Allah" to refer to the christian God? That was unexpected.
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u/Pe45nira3 Hungary 2d ago
Arab Christians also use it in the Middle East.
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u/Anathemautomaton 2d ago
Well yeah, it's literally just the Arabic word for god.
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u/AppleDane Denmark 2d ago edited 2d ago
THE God, specifically. "Al" is the definite article, and pops up in a lot of words of Arabic origin, like "Algebra" ("The putting together") and place names, like Algeria ("The Islands".)
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u/ilxfrt Austria 2d ago
Most Jews in Arabic countries also use Allah when referring to God while speaking Arabic, just like they use God in English or Dios in Spanish. It’s the same god after all.
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u/A_r_t_u_r Portugal 2d ago
Now that I think of it, it makes sense. But at first it was surprising because I imagined a traditional christian mass on a Sunday, in a traditional christian church, and in this setting the priest is invoking "Allah"... I had a strong feeling of dissonance.
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u/PauloPatricio Portugal 2d ago edited 2d ago
In a way we also do it when we say “oxalá”.
Edit: “oxalá” from “inshallah”, and with the same meaning – “If God wills”.
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u/informalunderformal 2d ago
Yeah and its a bit strange cause the Yoruba Allfather is "Oxalá" in portuguese, so Oxalá can be both God or "if God wills".
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u/NaturalOstrich7762 2d ago
Gagauz people say Allah too. They are turkish speaking orthodox Christians in Moldova. There used to be Turkish speaking Christians in Anatolia and I believe they used to say Allah too. (They went to Greece a century ago, so they speak Greek too and forgot Turkish)
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u/Automatic_Education3 Poland 2d ago
Generally you'd differentiate it by writing in either upper or lower case (Bóg, bóg). Upper case is for a god in a monotheistic religion, lower for polytheistic.
But you can also use the diminutive of bóg - bożek to mean a lesser god, and półbóg for a demigod.
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u/schwarzmalerin Austria 2d ago
No, but grammar is different. Capital G God "Gott" is used like a proper name, lower case gods are nouns, der Gott, die Götter.
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u/sternenklar90 Germany 2d ago
Yes, the difference is less visible as we capitalise all nouns in German.
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal 2d ago
Deus (god) and o Senhor (the Lord). The former can be used to refer to another god or gods (deuses), whereas when meaning the Christian god no article is used, similar to how it is in English. Senhor can also just mean "mister", "gentleman" or a "lord", but you can tell when someone means god based on context.
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u/marquecz Czechia 2d ago
We've got the word Hospodin that we use whenever Biblical God is refered to as "Lord". The term was borrowed from Old Church Slavonic and it's cognate with the word "gospodin" and its derivates used in some other Slavic languages where it simply means "mister" but we don't use in any other context in Czech.
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u/Nirast25 Romania 2d ago
gospodin
Huh, I just learned we also have that word in Romanian. It means "lord" or "master", but it's out of use, hence why I haven't heard it.
"Gospodină", on the other hand, is very much in use, and refers to a woman responsible for the house. And it's not a word I would think of as "lordy".
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u/CiderDrinker2 Scotland 2d ago
I assumed it would be a well-known word, because of the Hospodars who were the rulers of the Wallachian and Moldavian principalities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospodar
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u/Draig_werdd in 2d ago
I am interested in history and for sure paid attention in history classes buy I first encountered the word Hospodar reading things in English, it's never mentioned in Romanian. That's because the title was used only when using Church Slavonic, in Romanian the title "Domn" was always used instead (same word as the first part of Dumnezeu). It's even mentioned on the page you shared (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospodar#Non-Slavic_usage)
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u/MajesticTwelve Poland 2d ago edited 2d ago
"Gospodarz/Gospodyni" means "host/hostess" in Polish, for Lord in bible we use "Pan" ("mister").
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u/Ymirs-Bones 2d ago
Turkish has Allah as The God coming from Arabic and tanrı as a god, coming from old central asian Turkic word Tengri. Tanrı also can be used as The God as well
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u/Karabars Transylvanian 2d ago
Dumne-zeu sounds like basically saying "Mr.God" or "Lord God".
In Hungarian, isten and Isten. The same word. But we can also say Úristen (Lord God). Főisten (Main God). Egyisten (One God).
I doubt there are true cases of different words. More like having names or complex words/wordpairs getting standardized.
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u/ChesterAArthur21 Germany 2d ago
In German, Gott means both (all nouns start with a capital letter). However, Herrgott (basically Dumnezeu, Dominus Deus) specifies the Christian one. The word is outdated, though.
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u/Sophroniskos Switzerland 2d ago
"Gottheit" is the general term, "Gott" is more specific and usually means the christian god
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u/ChesterAArthur21 Germany 2d ago
Gott is just as common. No one says "Poseidon ist die Gottheit des Meeres" but "Poseidon ist der Gott des Meeres". Or "Thor ist der Gott des Donners". Gottheit is a synonym for a Gott in general or can be used as a gender neutral term.
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u/CantHostCantTravel 2d ago
English actually does have different words, depending on context. “Deity” is a synonym for a god in general, while the Abrahamic god that Christians and Jews worship is just called “God”.
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u/_marcoos Poland 2d ago edited 2d ago
Polish:
- a god = bóg
- (the) God = Bóg
Same word, same grammar, different capitalization. This includes "Allah" in Islamic contexts.
- deity = bóstwo
- Lord = Pan
The exact same word "Pan" is also used for "Sir" or "Mister" in non-religious contexts.
Also, "the LORD God" thing is a fixed phrase: "Pan Bóg", even though Polish translations of Exodus 20:1-2 have it with a comma inside:
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Jam jest Pan, Bóg twój, którym cię wywiódł z ziemi egipskiej, z domu niewoli.
(literally, "I am Lord, your God, who brought you out of the Egyptian land")
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u/taiyaki98 Slovakia 2d ago
It's basically the same as English, 'boh' for a random deity, although there's the word 'bôžik' as well, and Biblical 'Boh'.
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u/GrynaiTaip Lithuania 2d ago
In Lithuanian it's dievas and Dievas, or more commonly dievai (plural of god) because we have a lot of those in our pagan religion.
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u/TheRedLionPassant England 2d ago
Old English used to use os for a pagan god, cognate to as. It's what it found in the names like Osric and Oswald.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ Wales 1d ago edited 1d ago
In Hebrew - as you might know from the Bible - there are many different names for god and God. The same god or not, that's debated although both Christians and Jews agree there is one god.
El אל - the shepherd, used for God but also other gods in general
Elah אלה - another form, potentially feminine (debated). Same etymological origin as Allah
Elohim אלהים - this is the masculine plural(!), but used with verbs in singular case
Ehyeh אֶהְיֶה - this is the answer God gives when Moses asks for his name. It's not a name however, it can be translated like "I am who I am" or "I might be whomever"
Adonai אֲדֹנָי - "My Lords", interestingly also in plural
Yahweh יהוה - this comes from the acronym "YHWH". Meaning similar to Ehyeh or alternatively "he/she" if read backwards
Hashem השם - literally "the Name", because it's not allowed to say the actual name
Aravat - "Father of Creation"
Eyn Sof אין סוף - without end, infinite, eternal
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u/Nirast25 Romania 1d ago
this is the masculine plural(!), but used with verbs in singular case
"My Lords", interestingly also in pluralInteresting. Something to do with the trinity aspect of God?
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u/_x_oOo_x_ Wales 1d ago
Maybe, that's one interpretation. Although I think the concept of trinity came later. Another interpretation is that it's not a regular plural (gods) but a "majestic plural". And yet another explanation is that it's simply plural because it refers to the entire parthenon of Gods from the polytheistic times. Indeed El's etymology is "ox head" א + "staff" ל, similar to how Egyptian Gods held a staff like shepherd, a "leader of the herd". And in those times there were many Gods
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u/Nirast25 Romania 1d ago
majestic plural
Ah, I see. I've explained this in another comment, but we have these things called "polite pronouns", which you use when talking to/about people you respect. Eventually, the second person singular got replaced by the second person plural even when talking to a single person.
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u/die_kuestenwache Germany 2d ago
No, but we do it similarly to how we distinguish between boyfriend/girlfriend and friend. God gets the definite article or none at all, while gods get the indefinite article or a description. So you can be "ein Gott" a god, "der Gott des Feuers" the god of fire or just "Gott" God. We also use Jesus, Allah and JHWH which I am told are the same thing as God but also kind of not... Then of course you can use the various nicknames like "der Schöpfer" or "der Herr"
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u/Ishana92 Croatia 2d ago
In everyday use the only difference is in capitalization (bog vs Bog). If you are inclined you can use specific term for abrahamic god like Jahve or svevisnji (I guess the closest term is something like Almighty). Another term for any god is božanstvo (deity).
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u/dolfin4 Greece 2d ago edited 2d ago
Just a single word in Greek.
Abrahamic God (mainly Christian/Jewish) is Θεός / Theós, capitalised
If we're talking about, say, the old Greek religion, it's just lower-case. θεός (theós) is grammatically masculine, for a male god. θεά (theá) is grammatically feminine, for a goddess. But there's also θεότητα (theotita) for "deity", but not used as much.
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u/NaturalOstrich7762 2d ago
What if you talk about the gods in Hinduism, Buddhism,ancient Egyptian mythology etc.?
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u/Visual_Sign3484 France 2d ago
In France we have "un dieu/une déesse" (male/female) for 1 god out of alot, but then we have "Dieu" which is THE god of a monotheist religion
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u/Vannnnah Germany 1d ago edited 1d ago
German doesn't differentiate by how "god" is written, but predominantly by Christian context, so we have another word for "not our Christian god".
So "god" (Gott) is just "god". But contextually a non-Christian god might get labeled as "Gottheit" which means non Christian heathen god and indicates that the person who says this doesn't view this other god as a real god or does not recognize that god as their god, meaning they believe in another god or aren't religious at all. Or the context is non-religious, like in a history book.
So a priest or very religious person might not say "der griechische Gott Zeus" (the Greek god Zeus) but "die griechische Gottheit Zeus" (the Greek not-really-god-but-a-god Zeus) while normal people often don't care and use "Gott" for everything.
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u/DifferentIsPossble 2d ago
I don't see why it would?
The Christian God just uses the general noun but capitalized in every language I've ever learned
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u/Nirast25 Romania 2d ago
Figured highly religious countries would want to have a specific name for God, as a form of reverence if nothing else.
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u/DifferentIsPossble 2d ago
Fair!
Jehovah's Witnesses call him Jehovah, by name. (Christians tend to believe that his given name is some variation of YHWH.) Muslims call him Allah, which translates to 'the god' but they tend to say it in Arabic regardless of what language they're speaking. Jews tend to refuse to type it out: G-d, etc. Mostly in English but I've seen it done in other languages too!
But most 'generic' Christians generally just use the word for "deity" - "god," and capitalize it to "God" and also use terms like 'the Lord' (often spelled in small caps), etc.
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u/Christoffre Sweden 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, but they look quite similar.
god – good (Attested as gōþer since 11th century. Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰedʰ.)
gud – god (Attested as Guþ since 11th century. Ultimate from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰutós.)
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u/SalSomer Norway 2d ago
A god is en gud and God is Gud. However, if you wanna refer to the Abrahamic god you could also use Vårherre, which means Our Lord (with the words weirdly compounded in a way you normally wouldn’t in Norwegian).
Funny thing about that, vår can mean both our and spring. And since the word is compounded that way, as a kid, I always thought the word meant Spring Lord and I thought it referred to a specific god for the spring season.