Talk:"Isis" of the Suebi

Identity of "Isis"
Scholarship around this "Isis" seems to divide into three camps, where "Isis" is: This is a note for future additions. bloodofox: (talk) 22:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Freyja, due to ship symbolism by way of her brother and father, Freyr and Njörðr, and connection to Nerthus
 * 2) Nehalennia, due to ship iconography found on numerous votive altars depicting the goddess
 * 3) Zisa, due to apparent phonetic resemblance
 * 4) Isis, assuming Tacitus to be correct, despite Tacitus's admitted uncertainty and his employment of interpretatio romana

Here is another possibility I'll offer:

The name of the Egyptian goddess in both Latin and Greek had "Isidi" in the dative case ("to Isis"). We know from the Merseburg charm that old German had a word "Idisi" for a group of female deities. A Latin or Greek speaker who came upon a group of Germans praying/sacrificing to "Idisi" (perhaps at the equivalent of the Norse Dísablót) could very easily have misheard them as saying "Isidi" and understood it as "to Isis". Walshie79 (talk) 14:13, 19 August 2017 (UTC)