zmj says, "In Old English, cwene 'quean, impudent woman, hussy' was replaced by another word for 'woman', wifmann, literally 'wife-man', whence our woman..."

I wonder whether a word for 'woman' would replace one for 'hussy', the two seeming to me to be different concepts. But putting that aside and focusing only on the former word:

I wonder if you're right in reading wifmann as 'wife-man' (on which view one might think the Old English were so non-PC as to think a woman's chief role is to be the wife of a man!) Granted, when looking at wifmann from our modern perspective, wif suggests 'wife' and mann suggests 'man=male adult'. But as I understand it, in those olden days wif simply meant 'female adult person' and mann meant 'human being' (as in our term mankind). Thus wifmann would be 'female adult human being', the same meaning as our modern form woman.

Can you help me detangle this?

I meant that the word that came to mean 'hussy', cwene, which in an earlier version of Old English (unrecorded) had meant 'woman', was replaced by wifmann. Wif itself meant something like female, cf. German Weib 'female'. So, yeah, I guess your reading of it is right.

There were a few words for man in Old English: mann and guma (cf. Latin homo 'human'; and also in brýdguma 'bride man') vs vir 'man; male person' (cf. Old English wer 'man').

It's important to note that man has for ages meant 'humankind', not just the male sex. Thjose radical feminists who tried to avaid the use of 'man' were completely wrongheaded when they tried to use words like 'womyn'.

Thjose radical feminists who tried to avaid the use of 'man' were completely wrongheaded when they tried to use words like 'womyn'.

Most folks who attempt to control language end up looking foolish. The Old English word mann in its meaning 'human' was replaced in the Middle English period by human, a Latin (via Old French) loanword. Old English wer and guma, the former meaning 'male person' and the latter a synonym for mann, dropped out of the vocabulary, except in some compounds, werewolf and bridegroom. In German, Mann came likewise to mean 'male person', and, as gomo dropped from the vocabulary, Mensch was coined to replace it (from mann-isko-, literally mannish). English husband is another compound from Old English húsbóndi 'house' + 'householder; dweller'. There was a feminine version of husband, but it became a homonym in Middle English and fell out of use.

[Fixed typo.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
It's important to note that man has for ages meant 'humankind', not just the male sex.

It's interesting. In Old Persian "mart" also meant "humankind" but now "mard" just means "the male sex"

By the way, in Persian, "mard" (man) is related to "marg" (death) and "zan" (woman) to "zendegi" (life). I think it's so because women give birth to other humans. Do you know something like this in another language?

Welcome, Alijsh! Interesting concept. I don't know, but maybe some of my compatriots do?

The word mard is similar to mortal in English (from Latin via French) which is from Latin mors, mortis 'death'. (Freedom fighters are known as peshmerga in Kurdish.) Old Persian martiya shows up in English manticore (via Greek μαντιχωρας (mantikhōras), martiyakhvara 'man-eater'); cf. Sanskrit amṛta- 'immortal', Greek αμβροτος (ambrotos), whence English ambrosia. Farsi zen 'woman' is cognate with Russian žena, Greek gunē, Old English cwene 'woman'.

Fascinating, Alijsh.

Looking for mard words that might be linked to both 'man' and 'death', I thought MuRDer and the god MARs. I can't pin down any etymological connection with 'man', but it could well be that the etymologies I find don't go back far enough. You'd probably have to go back to PIE.

Chopped liver; pâté; mantle of invisibility?