Page:Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders of the Indo-European Languages.djvu/29

the Germans, on the contrary, die Minne, die Liebe was a goddess, since the appellative was feminine. To the same cause are due the different conceptions of the sun and moon, as male or female, among the different peoples; it is always according to the nature of the appellative. In the pro-ethnic period the state of affairs must have been similar. Therefore, there is nothing to hinder the assumption that pro-ethnic *dyēus, the dyāuš of the ancient Hindoos, the Ζεύς of the Greeks, the Jūpiter (Juppiter) of the Romans, became a male deity, and not a female, because the name, originally meaning 'heaven' and 'bright day', was a masculine appellative. In every case where the mythological name is at the same time retained in its original appellative signification, we have a similar right to assume that only the grammatical gender was present at first, and that this decided the choice of sex for the personified conception. Even to-day, in the art of the Germans and other peoples who still have the grammatical gender, this gender receives recognition. I know of numerous pictures and statues which represent die elektricität as a person, and all personify the force as a female. Yet occasionally the grammatical gender is overlooked. At an art exhibition in one of the larger German cities