easter not derived from ishtar several recent posts have identified the english word easter with the babylonian goddess ishtar easter is a pagan word all right but it has nothing to do with ishtar if easter and ishtar were related their history would show it but in old english easter was eostre cognate with english east and german ost the reconstructed proto germanic form is austron not until after did easter have a high front vowel like ishtar clearly the two words have quite separate origins there may be neo pagans who worship ishtar at easter but if so they are making either a mistake of etymology or a deliberate play on words michael covington ph d linguistics michael a covington associate research scientist artificial intelligence programs mcovingt ai uga edu the university of georgia phone athens georgia u s a amateur radio n tmi
