The French word for a werewolf is loup-garou. Etymologically, this compound is pleonastic: garou means 'werewolf' and loup means 'wolf'. It's also hybrid: loup stems from Latin lupus whereas garou was borrowed from West Germanic *werwulf. Click the image for more.

Words You Wouldn't Think Were Etymologically Linked: Part 20

Retract and treaty both come from the Latin verb traho, meaning to drag.

Retract comes from the Latin retractus, meaning withdrawn, from retraho meaning to withdraw or restrain, from traho meaning to drag. Traho itself comes from the Proto-Italic *traɣō, probably ultimately from the PIE *dʰregʰ-.

Treaty comes from the Middle English trete, meaning contract, meeting or negotiation, etc. from the Anglo-Norman treté and Old French traité, from the Latin tractatus. Tractatus itself comes from the verb tracto, meaning to discuss, drag or manage, from the verb traho.

parkashtu "To hit with a hammer" parka "hammer" + -shtu, a verbal suffix indicating the use of a tool This is a relatively uninteresting word, but I thought it was funny because it sounds like the word percussion, but is totally unrelated to it. Parka comes from proto-tungusic (Manchu is a tungusic language) palụka, and -shtu comes from proto-samic (the sami languages are native to northern scandinavia) -stëtēk

"nefling" as gender-neutral "sibling-child"

There's been some discussion about a gender-neutral term for "niece or nephew" and I know there's been some settling on "nibling". And I really don't like that, as it is an obviously play on "nibble" which implies something tiny and inconsequential. Which maybe works if they're a baby, but is generally condescending.

Looking through the etymology of "nephew" and "niece", I think that "nefling" is probably the most sensible linguistic construction.

Nephew:

From Middle English nevew, neveu (“nephew, grandson”), from Old French neveu, from Latin nepos, nepōtem, from Proto-Italic *nepōts (also, from whence we get "nepotism") Displaced or absorbed the inherited English neve (“nephew, grandson, male cousin”), from Middle English neve, from Old English nefa, from Proto-West Germanic *nefō, from Proto-Germanic *nefôd

Niece:

From Middle English nece (“niece, granddaughter”), from Old French nece (“niece, granddaughter”) (Modern French nièce (“niece”)) from Late Latin neptia, representing Latin neptis (“granddaughter”), from Proto-Indo-European *néptih₂ (“granddaughter, niece”). Doublet of nift. (displaced form)

nift: From Middle English nyfte, nift, nifte, from Old English nift (“niece, granddaughter”), from Proto-Germanic *niftiz (“niece”), from Proto-Indo-European *néptih₂.

All the terms we have for niece and nephew, both in original OE and in French borrowings, derive from the PIE *nepōts (*néptih₂ itself comes from *nepōts + *-ih₂.

If you trace those four terms back to a common ancestor, we could have "nepper", "nepling" or even "nephling", but that's crossing etymological forms (something English would never (/s) do, I know). But honestly, I just don't like the sound of "nepper" (close to "nipper", a colloquial for "small child" and very similar to "nibbler").

But if you go from the Proto-Germanic *nefod and *niftiz, you can construct either "nifling" or "nefling". Since "niffling" is slang for "to pilfer" and a "niffler" is a term for "trifle", I'm strongly inclined to the latter. And because we're taking the Germanic linguistic root, we don't have to deal with a "-ph-" in there.

"Nefling" it is?

Meaning of the stems of the words for "rainbow" in the languages of Europe.

by u/nickanc 

'Rainbow' is typically a compound word in most European languages. Generally, speaking, a part of the word comes from words meaning bow, belt, ring, circle or arc in their respective languages or ancestor languages. The other one varies and is the main concern of this work.

Some incomplete notes on the meanings and the etymologies I gathered while making the map:

'sky god' + 'arc/bow':

Arabic from Quzah, a pre-islamic deity of weather

Maltese from Maltese alla 'god', from Allah, the islamic deity,

Karelian from Ukko, Finnic sky god

Lithuanian from Vaiva, goddess of Baltic mythology

Armenian is uncertain, supposed to derive ultimately from PIE *dyew- 'shine'

from PS *dǫga "bow". they all are not compounds, except maybe for Russian

'rain/flow'+'bow/arc':

Germanic ones but faroese from PG *regnaburô 'rainbow' obvious compound, *burô comes from PIE *bhewgh-

Faroese æla means shower (as in weather), formerly "flow quickly", from PG *ēlaz "eel"

Finnish from Proto-Finnic *satadak "fall, rain"

Irish and Scot Gaelic are compound words in their very language, there are many other interesting Irish words.

'arc of the old lady' and 'circus bibit', 'arcus bibit'. In some ancient folklore tales, that appear in various IE families, various weather phenomena are especially linked with magical or religious figures that assume the form of old ladies. In Italian and Romanian folklore there are the 'giorni della vecchia'/'zilele babelor' that are the days 29th-31st of March, when the cold is expected to return. In Romania an old lady is Baba Dochia that brings forth the spring and various other Babele populate the Romanian folklore; in the Gallo-italic folklore of Italy there is a folklore fog spirit named Borda that is an old lady personifying the fog, Gaelic mythology has its weather old lady Cailleach, the Indian summer is called in German Altweibersommer lit. 'old women's summer'. The rainbow is no exception: Plautus in the Curculio hints at a folktale of an old lady that drinks "like" the rainbow does or maybe is the rainbow itself, hence also other etymologies for rainbow related to expressions like "circus bibit", "arcus bibit", "arcus imbibens" etc.that give etymologies in various languages. Venetian arcombé and Ladin ergabuan come from arcus imbibiens (source), whereas Romanian curcubeu likely from curvus bibit and Neapolitan arcovevere from arcus bibit. Note that expressions containing the rainbow and the old lady or the act of drinking exist in many languages in this map and their dialects, just they are not the common word for rainbow. For example, in Moldovan there is brîul babei that means 'rainbow' (source), Slovenia has the dialectal word pijâvka 'rainbow' from PS *piti 'to drink', while in Spain and Portugal dialectal expressions that are cognates of the Galician one are apparently common, in Czech there is an idiom pije jak duha that means 'drink like a rainbow', i.e. being a drunkard. Ultimately all what I found points to a 1952 article of Gerhard Rohlfs, Romanischer Volksglaube um die Vetula, which however I was not able to find. EDIT: The Hungarian word is linked to the image of drinking the rainbow too, see below.

'thunder'+'arc' or 'arc'+'thunder':

Estonian is apparently cognate with Livonian pit'kiz kor(?) 'rainbow', lit. 'thunder bow', according to this source, though this comment offers more insight on the origin of the word.

Italian arcobaleno where baleno means flash, thunder, apparently from balena, 'whale', due to a popular habit to make many phenomena zoomorphic or anthropomorphic (the map I posted for fog in northern Italy presents a similar case with she-wolves). Alternatively, there is an article supposedly connecting the words of the 4. with arcobaleno: they suggest that, at some stages of the languages and the sociocultural development, the old lady was an old lady of the sea, thus a whale and their witness would be Galician vella 'old lady' which - according to that article - is a word that could mean also whale. The article is aimed ultimately to strengthen the Paleolithic Continuity Theory, so probably there is little to no scientific consensus on it, though at least I hope their examples are not as disputed as their conclusions.

color: teal. from word meaning "rain":

Polish from(?) OCS тѫча 'rain' and cognate with Russian ту́ча 'rain cloud'

Northern Sami related with Northern Sami arvedálki 'rainy weather'

Basque: 'horn of the sky' or 'sky god's horn', from Basque Urtzi

'arc'+figure of Christian religious figure (Saint John, Saint Martin, Saint Mark, Noah, the Virgin). The choice of the figure seems related to the days of these saints (St. Martin is during the Indian summer, related to 4.), though I have not that much experience on the topic to ascertain that. Noah is clearly linked with rain.

color: green. literally 'arc'+'holy woods', from Proto-Celtic *nemētom, cognate to Latin nemus 'wood' from PIE *nem- 'give, take' source, apparently suggesting a sacred role for the rainbow in Celtic traditions.

Curiosity, not sure if or how it is related to 9. and the other words conveying a sacred meaning for rainbow: in southern Italy, the rainbow was superstitiously considered the cause of jaundice, as màlë du uàrchë is jaundice (source]

Planetary Magic: How to Invoke the Magnetic Power of Venus

The archetypal energy of the planet Venus is feminine, sensual and magnetic.

Venus energy is an invocation of the senses. She encourages us to indulge and luxuriate in our physical bodies. By aligning with her energy she helps us to see the riches already inherent in our lives and assists us in drawing our deepest desires to us.

A Brief History of the Planet Venus

The word ‘Venus’ comes from the Proto-Italic *wenos, with its furthest roots in Proto-Indo-European *wen meaning ‘to wish, love’. Venus is the second planet from the Sun, often appearing in the sky as the morning and evening star. Scientists believe that Venus was formed from great swathes of swirling gas and dust around 4.5 billion years ago. The planet Venus may have once held seas in the past. But these primordial waters likely dried up as the planets temperature rose. In true languorous Venusian style, a full day on the planet Venus is longer than its entire year. One magical thing about Venus is her orbit shape. The pentagram or petals of Venus is the orbit that Venus makes when viewed from earth. Venus creates the petals of Venus every eight years.

Why Connect With the Planet Venus?

Venus is far from just the planet of love magic. Connecting to the planet Venus allows you to magnetically attract your deepest desire. In astrology, Venus rules the fixed sign of Taurus and the cardinal sign of Libra. In French, Friday is named for her vendredi ‘day of Venus’. The alchemical glyph of Venus is the circle on top of the cross . Which symbolises spirits descent into matter.

Venus is the source of the power of flavour. Of precious stones, pearls, and of rocks, lapis lazuli and almartach; and of plants, all plants with a good odour like saffron and arhenda, roses and all flowers with a good odour and smell and are pleasant to look at. Among colours, sky blue and gold tending a little to green. --The Picatrix (Circa 1000 CE)

Orphic Hymn to Venus

Heavenly, illustrious, laughter-loving queen, Sea-born, night-loving, of an awful mien; Crafty, from whom necessity first came, Producing, nightly, all-connecting dame: ‘Tis thine the world with harmony to join, For all things spring from thee, O power divine.

The triple Fates are ruled by thy decree, And all productions yield alike to thee: Whatever the heaven’s, encircling all contain, Earth fruit-producing, and the stormy main, thy sway confesses, and obeys thy nod.

Awful attendant of the brumal God: Goddess of marriage, charming to the sight, Mother of Loves, whom banqueting delights; Source of persuasion, secret, favouring queen, Illustrious born, apparent and unseen: Spousal, lupercal, and to men inclined, Prolific, most-desired, life-giving kind:

Great sceptre-bearer of the Gods, ‘tis thine, Mortals in necessary bands to join; And every tribe of savage monsters dire. In magic chains to bind, through mad desire.

Come, Cyprus-born, and to my prayer incline, Whether exalted in the heavens you shine, Or pleased in Syria’s temple to preside, Or over the Egyptian plains thy car to guide, Fashioned of gold; and near its sacred flood, Fertile and famed to fix thy blest abode; Or if rejoicing in the azure shores, Near where the sea with foaming billows roars, The circling choirs of mortals, thy delight, Or beauteous nymphs, with eyes cerulean bright, Pleased by the dusty banks renowned of old, To drive thy rapid, two-yoked car of gold;

Or if in Cyprus with thy mother fair, Where married females praise thee every year, And beauteous virgins in the chorus join, Adonis pure to sing and thee divine;

Come, all-attractive to my prayer inclined, For thee, I call, with holy, reverent mind.

Goddess Venus by Talon Abraxas

it would be very annoying if latin had a conservative orthography, preserving proto-italic, but, also good for linguistics, so who can say if it's good or bad

Tiny Curiosity: Etymology of Opera

Origin: The term “opera” comes from the Italian language, which in turn borrowed it from Latin.

Italian Roots: In Italian, “opera” means “work”, both in the sense of labor done and the result produced.

Latin Roots: The Latin word “opera” is derived from “opus”, which means “work” or “effort”.

Proto-Indo-European Roots: The Latin “opus” comes from the Proto-Italic “*opes-”, which in turn comes from the PIE root “*op-”, meaning "to work, produce in abundance".

Interesting Note: The term “soap opera” originated from radio dramas that were originally sponsored by soap manufacturers. These dramas were broadcast during the day, and their target audience was primarily housewives.

Related words from PIE root “*op-”: Opus, Operant, Operate, Cooperation.

This is part of my Tiny Curiosity series. I publish worldbuilding tidbits, trivia, etymology to this blog.

When Proto’s voice is in bold, that means he’s using a voice other than his own?

I'm so sorry for taking so long to respond, but yes/kinda! I alter his dialogues to be bold/italic based on how much his voice changes during it. You can interpret it as him using multiple voices or his own, but distorted in some bits.

Det sted man er fra er alltid pent, det er fedrelandsfølelsen i det små, hjemmefølelsen.*

- Knut Hamsun

*The place you're from is always beautiful, it's the sense of country in a small way, the feeling of home.

Most of us have heard of Lapland, but we’re not supposed to call it that anymore. The correct term these days is Sápmi - i.e. the land inhabited by the Lapps (or, rather, the Sami - as they very much prefer to be known). And, fair enough: they’ve got every right to assert their own identity, especially after centuries of domination by their southern neighbours.

Some of those neighbours are now keen to make amends for past injustices. For instance, the Swedish government made a point of using its presidency of the EU Council of Ministers to celebrate Sami National Day.

I can only imagine that it was worded with the best intentions, but if you read any of the Scandinavian press and media, it’s clear that it hasn’t gone down well with everyone. The problematic claim is that the Sami are “the EU’s only indigenous people” (my italics).

For a start, what is meant here by ‘indigenous’? According to most dictionaries, it’s the property of being original to, or characteristic of, a particular part of the world. In which case, there are all sorts of European peoples who could claim to be indigenous to Europe. For instance, the geneticist Razib Khan points out that the ancestors of today’s majority-Swedish population have been in Scandinavia for at least as long as the ancestors of today’s Sami.

The Norwegians and Swedes originated from the Norse people. The Norse people in turn originated from the Proto-Germanic peoples who migrated to the area of northern Germany, Denmark, southern Scandinavia. The Proto-Germanic peoples in turn originated from the Proto-Indo-European people whose homeland lies in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the area around Ukraine and southern Russia.

Likewise, the Sami are not quite indigenous to the area either. The Sami originated from the Proto-Uralic people, whose homeland was around the Ural mountains (and was therefore close to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and resulted in interactions between their protolanguages, resulting in lexical borrowings). The Proto-Uralic peoples, just like the Proto-Indo-Europeans, slowly expanded and migrated, but in their case they expanded to the northwest and the northeast (with the notable exception of the Hungarians who ended up in Hungary). The Proto-Samic people, a subgroup of the Proto-Uralic peoples that gave rise to the modern Sami, were said to have displaced or merged with a much earlier indigenous Paleo-European group that was already in northern Scandinavia. This is evidenced by substrate words present in the Sami languages that derive neither from Proto-Uralic nor from Proto-Indo-European.

In any case, if Europeans are going to have a competition as to who was in Europe first, then it might be won by those with the most Neanderthal ancestry - because, as genomic testing has revealed, millions of us carry Neanderthal genes.

But perhaps the Swedish government is using indigenous to mean something more specific. According to Merriam-Webster the word relates to “the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonised by a now-dominant group”. This extra element of oppression by outsiders sharpens up the definition. However, while it applies to the Sami people and their history, it doesn’t do so uniquely. There are many ethnic groups in Europe that have been around for ages and which have been maltreated by foreign overlords. Just ask the Welsh, for instance, or the Basques.

It could be argued that the Sami are in a special category because of where they live (i.e. the most northerly reaches of Europe) and how they lived there (e.g. by reindeer herding). To have maintained a traditional culture for so long into the modern era surely sets them apart. But, again, this is debatable. While there’s no doubting the distinctiveness of the Sami, other Europeans can also lay claim to ancient traditions that have survived against the odds. To take a topical example, the Ukrainians are literally sacrificing their lives for a distinctive culture, language and history that Putin wants to erase.

Progressives ought to think twice before making an issue about who is and isn’t indigenous in Europe. While the label might play into the victim/oppressor narratives of the woke Left, it can also be exploited by the far-Right.

At a time when populism is a constant threat, telling people that they’re not indigenous to a place where they and their ancestors have lived for “time immemorial” is less than helpful. I’m sure that the Swedish government meant well, but it’s pulling on a dangerous thread.  

When language is allowed to become dissociated from meaning or the map from the territory, then fractional strife and chaos awaits. Orwell understood it perfectly from his observations of Stalinists: control language and you control expression; control expression, you control dialogue, and eventually the political narrative.

Saying probly instead of probably is sometimes frowned upon, but the word probably itself was shortened from probablely (with two L's!) by the same process. This process is called haplology. One of two consecutive similar syllables is deleted: -le-ly -ba-bly The image shows some examples from various languages.

Daily French Etymology: Part 37

Livre (book, pound)

Livre, with the meaning of book, comes from the Latin liber of the same meaning. Liber itself came from the Old Latin loeber, from the Proto-Italic *louðeros, meaning free or child. *Louðeros ultimately was derived from the PIE *h₁lewdʰ-, meaning people.

Livre, with the meaning of pound, came from the Latin libra, meaning a set of scales. Libra may have come from the Proto-Italic *līθra, meaning pound.

* Indicates a reconstructed word

(Same guy)

To be quite fair, to my knowledge the genetic makeup of majority of Europe didn't really change since Neolithic period, and migrations mostly affected the ruling class. So like, not only most Italians have some degree of heritage of Roman subjects, they also probably were there before the migrations of Proto-Indo-Europeans.

It's the whole other thing that Italian culture is pretty obviously not the same as Roman one, obviously. Fuck, even Roman culture changed enough to be very different in different periods of time. And the fact that questionable greatness of Rome has absolutely nothing to do with blood.

(While we are at it, can I also rant that the whole popular discussion about "Rome was great" vs "Rome was horrible" ignores the fact that Rome was an Empire that at its height encompassed the whole Mediterranean civilisation? There is a mix of survivor bias and consequences of inequality, but like, what's called the achievements of Romans wasn't made just by citizens of the city itself, sometimes not even aided by it in a slightest even in terms of resource extraction on behalf of the elite. You already mentioned that some emperors were North Africans, but also plenty of other "Roman" historical figures, like Plotinus, just happened to live in the empire. Attributing their achievements to ultimately their overlords is stupid, dismissing them because of who were their overlords is even more stupid. And why shouldn't we count the fact that the great architectural and cultural achievements were made by people who taxed half of the known world? Of course they would be great, everyone would be great with so much money. The whole narrative of "Romans became weak and decadent and that's why everything went to shit" ignores the fact that Mediterranean civilisation somehow existed for centuries mostly unaware of Rome and would continue to exist without the empire if the fall of it was the only thing that actually happened (in fact it did, Byzantine Empire was the direct continuation of Rome, and while my knowledge of Dark Ages of Europe is pretty limited, I heard that in the majority of it there was no dramatic change immediately, just slow change in the same direction as a couple of centuries before that). The narrative of "things were bad because of Romans" also doesn't take into account the fact that while yes imposition of Roman customs happened the inequality or slavery or warmongering happend all around Mediterranean, like, they were all like that.

Sorry for incomprehensible bullshit, would like to hear any kind of opinion because I enjoy discussing history with someone who has sane political worldview.)

P.S.: I hope it doesn't come of as if I am condescending about this, I was just in the mood for nerdery. In fact, I hope that you know all of this because otherwise I would get anything out of it

I mean of course italians descend from the original inhabitants of the italic peninsula but also the fragmentation that followed the fall of the western roman empire - linguistically, culturally, politically etc - until the birth of the big Nationalism of the XIX century (of which the italian national identity was a late one) means that you cannot draw a direct line from romans and italians

fun linguistics fact: the english words midriff and corpse derive from the same proto-indo-european word *krepos, with midriff coming straight down through the germanic branch and corpse coming down the italic branch into french as ‘cors’ and then borrowed into english

A bit of history on cetero/skolio

On skolio's real definition

First of all I'll begin by saying that the idea that skolio ever included binary trans and GNC people is not true. It was invented by exorsexist trolls.

I was there when the discussions on having labels for those whose genders are dissimilar to male and female to use were been held online and I didn't ever see anyone (that wasn't an exorsexist troll) claiming skolio/cetero should include trans and GNC people in general. It doesn't, it never did.

Gyne vs. Andro vs. Skolio/cetero

The idea behind the coining of this three labels was to have an orientation system that those who have genders completele separate from male and female could use to classify our attraction (or affinity, although this term didn't exist at the time) without having to be forced into the gay-straight binary. The definitions were the follows:

Andro: Attraction/affinity to men and similar or derived genders.

Meaning that "andro" didn't just include binary men, but also demiboys, bxys, and even proxvirs and achillean genders. Anyone who was connected in some way (directly, by proximity, through attraction, etc) to men/boys/guys was included in "andro"

Gyne: Attraction/affinity to women and similar and derived genders.

Just like "andro", "gyne" included attraction/affinity to women/girls, binary and nonbinary, genders similar and/or proximal genders, like juxera, and sapphic genders.

Disclaimer: Contrary to what some believe, "gyne" and "vagina" aren't etymologically related. "Gyne" is Greek and means woman and ultimately comes from the PIE *gʷḗn, also meaning women, the same origin than the English word "queen".

"vagina", meanwhile, comes from the latin "vāgīna", which comes from the proto-italic "*wāgīnā", derived from the PIE "*wag-", all of them meaning "sheath, cover, scabbard". It's related to the word "Vanilla"

Cetero/skolio: Attraction/affinity towards those genders that aren't similar to man and woman. It included neutrois, agender, ambonec, androgyne, aliagender, because those were the terms available at the time.

It didn't include all people outside the binary, nor did it include gender diverse people in general. It was specifically about feeling attraction/affinity towards those outside the fem-masc or fiaspec-miaspec dichotomies. What we now would call "extrine people"

"Skolio" was chosen precisely because it meant bent as a way to express an orientation that's inherently outside the norm due to the nature of the genders that are the object of attraction/affinity.

But many didn't like it, precisely because of that, or because they thought it could be ableist to use the same word used in a physical condition (scoliosis), so it was changed to "cetero", meaning other.

Cetero is not NLN

The idea that only nonbinary or otherwise binaryn't people can be cetero doesn't come from the cetero community. It comes from exorsexists. I've been using the label since it was coined and I haven't met a fellow cetero person that truly believes it's only for nonbinary people.

Cetero is mspec

In no way cetero implies that nonbinary is a monolithic gender. Since it was coined the idea was for it to include all the genders and qualities that were excluded from the man-woman and fem-masc dichotomies.

There are specific mestric monoattractions/monoaffinities, like for example neu- (attraction niaspec people).

Roman gods are not Greek gods: General intro

I keep repeating it again and again: for years and years we have been told that “Roman gods are just the Greek gods with another name”, but it is a lie. The concept that the Roman pantheon is just a copy-paste of the Greek one is… Well, it is true, I can’t deny it. The Roman gods were copies (not to say rip-offs) of the Greek gods. We can say truthfully “Jupiter is the Roman equivalent of Zeus” or “the figure of Ceres is based on the one of Demeter, from Greek mythology”. 

However, this concept is also false by many ways – or rather, it is the exaggeration and simplification of an actual cultural fact, which in turn leads to a massive misconception of what Roman deities were. You can’t say “Juno is the same goddess as Hera” or treat Aphrodite as if she was identical to Venus. As a result, if someone with knowledge of Greek mythology starts studying the Roman pantheon, they will immediately feel comfortable due to spotting a lot of common ground and things they know already, but the more time they will spend in the world of Ancient Rome, the more they will feel like aliens in a foreign land due to the many specific differences, unusual divergences and bizarre local traits of the Roman gods.

Anyway, I have been talking about this over and over again – and I finally decided to make a series of post about it! To truly talk about the differences and specificities of the Roman religion/pantheon/mythology compared to the Greek one. To do so I think I will go by the Olympian gods, which are the most famous of the Greek gods, looking at their Roman self to see how they differ from the Greeks.

BUT BEFORE ALL! A general introduction. A general introduction to specify some context points about Roman history, religion and culture – points that are actually quite important to understand why Roman gods are like they are.

POINT 1: Roman gods are copies of Greek gods.

That’s a fact: as the Romans built their civilization, culture and religion, they looked over at their neighbor, the mighty Ancient Greece (that soon would become just a part of the vast Roman Empire), thought their gods were really neat, and decided to “adopt” them. As a result, they took back the main and most important Greek Gods, and gave them Roman names and temples. Zeus became Jupiter, Poseidon became Neptune, Hephaistos became Vulcan… The legends, symbolism, attributes and relationships of the Greek gods were brought over in the Roman religion, and this is why nowadays everybody says “The Roman gods are Greek gods by another name”.  HOWEVER…

POINT 2: Roman gods were transformed into the Greek gods

Roman gods were not “invented” to copy the Greek gods as many would believe. The Roman gods existed long before the Romans decided to Hellenize their religions. They were the Italic deities, formed and born out of the many previous communities and civilizations that lived and existed in Italy before the rise of Rome: we are talking about the Etruscans, the Sabines, the Albans, all the Latin people. And this early Latin religion had its own gods, often very unique, which formed the proto-pantheon of Rome, its religion in its early days.

When the “Hellenization” of the pantheon happened (in fact the very use of the word “pantheon” is anachronistic since it was a Greek concept the Romans brought over), what the Romans did was that they looked in their local religion to see which gods corresponded to the Greek deities, and then reshaped their own gods to look more like the Greeks. As a result, yes, the Romans didn’t “copy-paste” the Greek gods, because it would imply that there was nothing before them – rather, the Romans did a full makeover of the original Latin gods so that they would look and act more like the Greek gods. 

However, the copying process was far from perfect: the Romans kept around many of their important gods they could not find equivalents of (such as Janus), had to completely invent new spots in their religion for gods they did not find equivalents of in their own cults (such as Apollo), the newly formed Greco-Roman gods still kept primitive Latin and Italic particularities that led to a divergence from their Greek model ; and finally, the Hellenization of the Roman gods led to massive shifts in divine relationships and positions, that also led to conflicts in characterization (such as Saturn, who was an important and benevolent deity, and that the Romans had to equate to a non-religious villainous figure, the one of Kronos).

POINT 3: Romans were farmers and soldiers

The pre-Roman civilization(s) was an agricultural one. It was a community of farmers of various kinds, living in the countryside and the wilds, and who relied heavily on plants, crops, the cycles of nature… And this led to a lot of the early Latin deities being nature or agricultural deities. Then the early Roman civilization gained geographical and political power through wars and conquests, and another big social group was introduced: the military. So, the Romans gained gods more focused on weapons, soldiers, armies, victory and defeat. And these were the original Roman gods, the core Roman religion: agricultural gods and war gods. Even after the Hellenization, even as the Roman gods became copies of the Greek gods, they kept this intense focus on either nature/agriculture, either the military and everything that came with it – such as politics. But with the advance of the Roman Empire, a third element could be included: urbanism. The Greek civilization was spread across numerous islands and state-cities, and it relied on a shared language, a shared religion, shared customs. The Roman civilization? It was all about Rome. It was about living in Rome, having the customs of Rome, being born in Rome. It was all focused around this one city versus the rest of the world, this one city that became the center of the world – and as a result, the Roman gods also reflected this aspect of the civilization by becoming very urban and city-focused, more than the Greeks. God of the farmer, god of the soldier, god of the city. This is why the Roman gods are more naturalistic, militaristic and urban than the Greek gods.

But this all leads to another massive difference in religions that I will talk about in my next point (which is in fact just a continuation of this one)

POINT 4: Roman religion is rituals. Just rituals. Tons of rituals.

Roman religion is a ritualistic religion. The “farmer and soldier” mindset on which the Roman religion was based led to a very… let’s say pragmatic, down-to-earth religion, all centered about rituals. In fact, this ritualistic nature is precisely the reason why Roman religion thrived in the Antique world until the arrival of Christianity. Given it was ritualistic in nature, all you needed to do to be “part” of the religion was to simply practice a set of rituals for the gods. Offerings, sacrifices, festivals, temple-building… 

The Roman religion didn’t rely on something like a dogma or a belief. It was all about the acts, the rituals, about a regular worship – but not about a specific faith. This is why, as the Empire grew, new gods from foreign lands kept being added to the pantheon; and this is why the Roman religion kept syncretizing itself with other cultures, and why the Roman empire could allow the conquered nations to keep their religion as long as they practiced the Roman cults alongside it and recognized them as just as valid.

Because Roman religion was all about practicing rituals, and as long as you practice the rituals, the gods are pleased, and as long as you practice the rituals, even if you do not believe in them, you are part of the religion, of the community and of society that go alongside it. Roman religion was very social (again, the “urban god” part). This is why it was so lax and inclusive when confronted to gods and worships different from its own. And when Christianity arrived… They were confronted with an entirely different model. A dogmatic religion, a religion based on belief and faith – a religion that, as such, could not work in the same syncretism-and-expansion project ; a religion that excluded all other religions as “false” and “incompatible” with their own worship. Christianty wasn’t just about honoring a god by rituals but about believing in a god in such a way you couldn’t admit anything that would contradict your beliefs… Cue to the Roman persecutions of the Christians.

Anyway, I got carried away here. The important thing is: Roman religion is a ritualistic religion. And the consequence is that the Roman gods were, for a very long time (and still were, until the end), ritualistic gods. The reason the Hellenization of the Roman gods worked so well was because the early Romans did not have any… “mythology”. They did not have any myths. Look at the legends forming Roman religion: 90% of them or so are Greek in origin. The purely Roman legends are a minority, and mostly tied to actual historical facts. Early Romans did not think of the gods as creatures with personalities or humanity, and even less as beings able to have adventures or be the characters of stories! For them the gods were abstractions and personifications, entirely centered around rituals and offerings and specific festivals – forces of nature and manifestations of a ritualistic power. But the Greeks were storytellers, and when the Romans saw this extensive, carefully-crafted universe of legends and tales, with each god having specific relationships and personality, they gobbled it up and imported it all to fill their own void when it came to myths.

Even then, it is something you will notice if you look at the Roman gods – even after their Hellenization, they still stayed extremely ritualistic. Take the epithets of the gods. In Ancient Greece, these epithets usually depicted the essence, appearance or power of the gods, and were used in a quite poetic way. In Ancient Rome, the epithets of the gods almost always describe the different aspects and functions of the gods in religion, each nickname or title being about one of the jobs of the god or what a deity does. No “gray-eyed”, “white-armed” or “fast of feet” in Rome, oh no, we are talking of things like “Purifier”, “Protector”, “Judging”, “Ruling”. Similarly, a god in Ancient Rome is defined first and foremost by the rituals, festivals and religion around it – the myths and legends are just fancy ornaments and pretty stories. Which leads to a lot of minor or secondary Roman gods having no tales or personalities of their own, and being solely defined by a specific rite or festival. Ritual first, myth later.

[  As an addition, if you want some temporal indications, the Hellenization of the Roman pantheon is said to have “finished” somewhere between the third and second century BC, the third century being the most talked about due to it being the century of Enius’ record of the “twelve great gods”, obviously based off the twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. But the Hellenization was actually said to have started at quite an early time, due to the Greeks interacting frequently and having some religious influence over the main civilization that preceded the Romans: the Etruscans, whose religion served as a “foundation” and “basis” for the future Roman religion. This light-Hellenization of the Etruscans is thought by certain to be a “proto-Roman Hellenization”, an indirect and minor Hellenization of the early Roman religion that paved the way for the “true Hellenization” of the Roman gods later on. We are here talking mostly about the Greek colonies founded during the 8th century BCE in Sicily and meridional Italy (the 8th century being the same century at the end of which Rome was founded): the colonies of the Euboeans on both sides of the strait of Messina; the founding of Syracuse and Taranto by the Dorians; or Sybaris, Metapontum and Crotone by the Achaeans. Apparently this colonized part of Italy was even called “Great-Greece” by the Ancient Greeks, the same way we have Britain VS Great-Britain).]

EDIT:

I was asked about the sources I used for my “Roman gods are not Greek gods” series, and so I will add them below. In this time of massive misinformation, actual sources are always dearly needed. Note that I literaly just pulled them off my shelves to write quickly those posts - these posts are NOT deep-down, scholarly, expert dives on the Roman religion. I am just a person who enjoys talking and reading about this and wants to share basic knowledge.

So, beyond looking at Wikipedia articles (because Wikipedia does have a lot of useful info, when properly sourced) and at Theoi.com articles (they are mostly about Greek texts but they do have a lot of Roman extracts, sometimes exclusively Roman ones), I mostly use for these posts three French books of mine. While each has been a reference in their time, each one is incomplete or flawed in a way and so I need to use them simulatenously, plus a side fact-check, to get things right.

Source 1: “Mythologie générale” by Félix Guirand - it has an entire section about the religion and mythology of Ancient Rome. Advantage: Very complete and very scholarly. Disadvantage: It is old, and thus aged badly in some ways (some points later discovered to be false for example).

Source 2: Dictionnaire de la mythologie grecque et romaine, by Joël Schmidt. Advantage: As scholarly as the previous one, but more recent. Disadvantage: It is a short dictionnary meaning it keeps every article as concise as possible and doesn’t offer much, even though it goes straight to the point.

Source 3: Edition Atlas ‘ La Mythologie (book-form of the Atlas collection “Mythologie”). Advantage: It has two full and extensive parts for both Greek and Roman mythologies, with different articles for each deity (one for Hermes, one for Mercury ; one for Hera, one for Juno), meaning they take their time exploring each deity on its own. Disadvantage: It is meant to be for a non-scholarly audience, so it has a bit of vulgarization to it ; plus the book-form lacks many of the articles in the originally published collection, and while I do have some of those extra-articles, others are missing.