Talk:Woen

@Morgengave (pinging you as creator) Currently we trace this as an inheritance from Middle Dutch, but it seems to me much more likely that it is a back-formation from woensdag induced by 18th and especially 19th century renewed interest in Germanic antiquities than that it survived as simplex somehow and was picked up again on that basis in the 19th century. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 10:13, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@Mnemosientje That sounds very much possible. I can't find a source saying either way. Feel welcome to add/adjust. Ultimately, it doesn't matter much -- in both cases it descended from the same word in Middle Dutch - be it from a simplex directly or from a compound that descended from Middle Dutch. Morgengave (talk) 11:37, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, the difference is that inheritance would imply a continued existence into early modern times at the very least of some memory of this pagan deity (independent of learned circles), which is unlikely to be the case. Interpreting it as a back-formation removed that claim. But yes, ultimately the etymon is the same. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 12:03, 5 April 2020 (UTC)