Editing Sirona (goddess) (section)

==Sirona's name==
The name of the goddess was written in various ways: ''Sirona'', ''Đirona'', ''Ꟈirona'', ''Thirona'',<ref>62-63 of Jufer, N.; Luginbühl, T. (2001) ''Répertoire des dieux gaulois''. Paris, Editions Errance. {{ISBN|2-87772-200-7}}</ref> indicating some difficulty in capturing the initial sound in the Latin alphabet. The symbol Đ is used here to represent the ''[[Gaulish language#Orthography|tau gallicum]]'', an additional letter used in [[Gaulish language|Gaulish]] representing the cluster ''ts'' which was interchangeable with ''st''- in word-initial position<ref>Eska, J. F.  (1998). Tau Gallicum. ''Studia Celtica'' 32 pp. 115-127</ref><ref>Mees, B. (2002). On Gaulish tau. ''Studia Celtica'' 36, pp. 21-26.</ref> and it is not a form of the letter "D".
The [[Root (linguistics)|root]] is a long vowel [[Gaulish language|Gaulish]] variant of [[proto-Celtic]] ''*ster-'' (''*h<sub>2</sub>ster'') meaning ‘star’.<ref>Markey, T.L. (2001). 'Ingvaeonic' *''sterir'' 'star' and astral priests. ''NOWELE'' 39 pp. 85-113.</ref> The same root is found in [[Irish language|Old Irish]] as ''ser'', [[Welsh Language|Welsh]] ''seren'', [[Cornish language|Middle Cornish]] ''sterenn'' and [[Breton language|Breton]] ''steren(n)''.<ref>Delamarre, X. (2003 :282). ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise'' (2nd ed.). Paris: Editions Errance. {{ISBN|2-87772-237-6}}</ref>
The name ''Đirona'' consists of a long-vowel, ''o''-grade stem ''tsīro-'' derived from the root ''*ster-'' and a ''-no-'' suffix forming [[adjective]]s indicating [[Appurtenance|"a belonging"]] in many Indo-European languages.<ref>Page 57 of ''The Oxford introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European world'' by J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams. Oxford University Press (2006)</ref> Alternatively it may be an augmentative -on- suffix found in many Celtic divine names and epithets. To this is suffixed the Gaulish feminine singular ''-a'', the usual feminine variant of o-stem adjectives and nouns.<ref>Hamp, E.P. (1994). Incidence of Gaulish divine names in -on-. ''Studia Celtica Japonica'' NS 4, pp. 71-72.</ref> So *''Tsīrona'' would seem to have meant ‘stellar’ or ‘astral’.