Happy Easter to all!
In many parts of the world, these days are
days of celebration – most of them, with a heavy religious meaning. In
Christian culture, it is a holiday that celebrates
the resurrection of Christ from the dead; it is also the time for the Jewish
festival of Passover, that commemorates the
story of the Exodus as described in the Hebrew Bible especially in the
Book of Exodus, in which the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.
The original Hebrew word for Passover,
“Pessach”, is the root of the name of these celebrations in most European
countries: Pâques in France, Pasqua in Italian, Pascua in Spanish, Pasen in
Dutch, Påske in Danish or Paskha Russian – as we can learn in this article from
the Language Portal of Canada.
This, however, raises the question: why is
the word “Easter” so different? And if we keep on reading the article mentioned
above, we can eventually find out that the answer is that “Easter” doesn’t
refer so much to the religious meaning of these days, but rather to the arrival
of the Spring season:
The most popular theory is reflected in the
entry for Easter in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary: the Old English word eastre
came "apparently from Eostre, a goddess associated with spring."
Spring is a wonderful season to broaden
one’s horizons and see the world, and to do so you can count on one of the best
translation and interpretation agencies out there: inWhatLanguage. Our services
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Trust us with your translation and
transcription needs, take that big load off your shoulders and indulge yourself
with a well-deserved Spring break – we will take care of the rest.
And just in case you decide to travel
abroad during Easter, here is a little useful lesson: a video where you will
learn how to say “Happy Easter” in ten languages!
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