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Lisa Lim

“Happy Easter!” is a wish that will be articulated by many this Sunday, certainly by those observing the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus – with both Western (Gregorian) and Orthodox Easter being celebrated on the same day this year.
What is interesting is that among the European languages, the word “Easter” is only found in English and German, while in other Germanic languages and most European languages, the word for the festival is derived from the corresponding word for “Passover”.
Passover is the Jewish festival commemorating the liberation of the Israelites in ancient Egypt after the Tenth Plague – when the Angel of Death killed all the firstborns in Egypt including the Pharoah’s, but passed over the homes of Israelites whose door posts had, on God’s command, been smeared with lamb’s blood.
The linguistic environment of the early Christian era encompassed a few significant languages.
These included Aramaic, a northwest Semitic language which was a long-standing literary and liturgical language and the lingua franca of the ancient Near East by the time of Jesus; and Hebrew, the dominant language of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament and the language of the Jews.

Other significant languages were Greek, the language of the Septuagint – a pre-Christian translation of the Hebrew Bible, the original language of the New Testament and the lingua franca of Levant at the time; and Latin, the language of the Roman Empire and soon an important language of the Christian Church.
For early Christians then, the “Easter” celebration was also known as Greek Πάσχα Pascha, a transliteration of Aramaic פסחא, which is cognate to Hebrew פֶּסַח Pesach. In a manner of speaking, the Jewish Pesach was transformed by early Christians, religiously and linguistically, into the Christian Pascha.
As the Christian faith spread, so too did the term. Russian Paskha comes from Greek via Old Church Slavonic.
Meanwhile, Latin Pascha was the origin of the form in nearly all Romance languages (Spanish Pascua, Italian and Catalan Pasqua, Portuguese Páscoa, French Pâques, Romanian Paşti) and in all modern Celtic languages – Brittonic languages Welsh Pasg, Cornish and Breton Pask, and Goidelic languages Irish Cáisc, Gaelic Càisg, Manx Caisht (the initial /p/ sound was replaced with /k/ because the word was borrowed before these languages had redeveloped /p/).

Some languages derived their term directly from Hebrew Pesach: Dutch Pasen, Danish and Norwegian Påske, Swedish Påsk, Icelandic Páskar, Faroese Páskir.
The word Pasch was used – meaning both the Passover and also Easter – in Old and Middle English, until it fell out of usage in favour of Easter. In contemporary English there are vestiges in the word paschal, used in reference to Passover or to Easter, as in paschal candle, paschal lamb, and pasch egg or pace egg.
Back to the English term Easter, which curiously does not hold origins associated with the Christian festival. Inherited from Germanic, and cognate with German Ostern, it has the same Germanic base to mean “east”.
One well-known account comes from the view expounded in the eighth-century Medieval Latin treatise De Temporum Ratione (The Reckoning of Time), by the Northumbrian monk, scholar and author Venerable Bede: that the word “Easter” harks back to England’s pre-Christian goddess Ēostre who was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, and associated with spring and fertility.
Her name – also found in the Anglo-Saxon month Eosturmonath in Old English (corresponding to April) – originates in Proto-Germanic *austrōn meaning “dawn”, from *aust- “east, towards the sunrise”, from the Proto-Indo-European root *aus- meaning “to shine”.

Even after the Christian meaning of the celebration started being affirmed, English Christians continued using the name. Bede’s account of a pagan goddess has not, however, been confirmed by any other source.
Further east and much later, the Chinese term for Easter is 復活節 (fuhk wuht jit in Cantonese, fù huó jié in Mandarin), which translates to “resurrection festival”.
Believer, atheist or agnostic, may the season bring us light and life!


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‘Easter’ is found in English and German but in most other European languages the word for the festival comes from old words for ‘Passover’


‘Easter’ is found in English and German but in most other European languages the word for the festival comes from old words for ‘Passover’.


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Where the word ‘Easter’ comes from and how only 2 European languages use it

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}‘Easter’ is found in English and German but in most other European languages the word for the festival comes from old words for ‘Passover’

‘Easter’ is found in English and German but in most other European languages the word for the festival comes from old words for ‘Passover’