Form: Definition

Heathen: “People of the Heath.” “Rural”. “We/Us”.

—“Heathen: It is most probable that the Gmc. word *haiþana- referred to a person living on the heath, i.e. on common land, i.e. a person of one’s own community. It would then be a neutral word used by heathen people in order to refer to each other.”–

Operational Name:

The term isn’t Pagan or Heathen vs. Abrahamist so much as it’s NATURALIST vs SUPERNATURALIST.

Heath or Land

land (n.) Old English lond, land, “ground, soil,” also “definite portion of the earth’s surface, home region of a person or a people, territory marked by political boundaries,” from Proto-Germanic *landja- (source also of Old Norse, Old Frisian Dutch, Gothic land, German Land), perhaps from PIE *lendh- (2) “land, open land, heath” (source also of Old Irish land, Middle Welsh llan “an open space,” Welsh llan “enclosure, church,” Breton lann “heath,” source of French lande; Old Church Slavonic ledina “waste land, heath,” Czech lada “fallow land”). But Boutkan finds no IE etymology and suspects a substratum word in Germanic, Etymological evidence and Gothic use indicates the original Germanic sense was “a definite portion of the earth’s surface owned by an individual or home of a nation.” The meaning was early extended to “solid surface of the earth,” a sense which once had belonged to the ancestor of Modern English earth (n.). Original senses of land in English now tend to go with country. To take the lay of the land is a nautical expression.

Heathen: “People of the Heath.” “Rural”. “We/Us”.

—“Heathen: It is most probable that the Gmc. word *haiþana- referred to a person living on the heath, i.e. on common land, i.e. a person of one’s own community. It would then be a neutral word used by heathen people in order to refer to each other.”–

Operational Name:

The term isn’t Pagan or Heathen vs. Abrahamist so much as it’s NATURALIST vs SUPERNATURALIST.

Heath or Land

land (n.) Old English lond, land, “ground, soil,” also “definite portion of the earth’s surface, home region of a person or a people, territory marked by political boundaries,” from Proto-Germanic *landja- (source also of Old Norse, Old Frisian Dutch, Gothic land, German Land), perhaps from PIE *lendh- (2) “land, open land, heath” (source also of Old Irish land, Middle Welsh llan “an open space,” Welsh llan “enclosure, church,” Breton lann “heath,” source of French lande; Old Church Slavonic ledina “waste land, heath,” Czech lada “fallow land”). But Boutkan finds no IE etymology and suspects a substratum word in Germanic, Etymological evidence and Gothic use indicates the original Germanic sense was “a definite portion of the earth’s surface owned by an individual or home of a nation.” The meaning was early extended to “solid surface of the earth,” a sense which once had belonged to the ancestor of Modern English earth (n.). Original senses of land in English now tend to go with country. To take the lay of the land is a nautical expression.