PHProfessora Akira
☯️ SôulNinetãiL☯️
Man derives from Proto-Germanic and it meant literally “person”, that is, it could refer to both man and woman. Woman, on the other hand, derives from Wif or wifman. What was used to refer to man with its sense of today is wer or werman. That this hits the right spot is confirmed by the survival of wer in werewolf (literally man-wolf).
Wifmen, in the course of language development, lost the “f” and became wimman until it reached us as woman. werman, didn’t just lose the “r”, like what happened with the “f” in wifmen. Following the Norman conquest, the whole “wer” was gone, and it became man, and it gradually narrowed down to refer to male men only.
“The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann[1] to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman.[2] In Old English,wīfmann meant “female human”, whereas wēr meant “male human”. Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of “human”, corresponding to Modern English “person” or “someone”; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to “male human”, and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr.[3] The medial labial consonants “f” and “m” in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form “woman”, while the initial element, which meant “female”, underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman (“wife”). It is a popular misconception that the term “woman” is etymologically connected with “womb”, which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning “stomach” (of male or female).”
excerpt from thelanguageNerds/Wikipedia
Wifmen, in the course of language development, lost the “f” and became wimman until it reached us as woman. werman, didn’t just lose the “r”, like what happened with the “f” in wifmen. Following the Norman conquest, the whole “wer” was gone, and it became man, and it gradually narrowed down to refer to male men only.
“The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann[1] to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman.[2] In Old English,wīfmann meant “female human”, whereas wēr meant “male human”. Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of “human”, corresponding to Modern English “person” or “someone”; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to “male human”, and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr.[3] The medial labial consonants “f” and “m” in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form “woman”, while the initial element, which meant “female”, underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman (“wife”). It is a popular misconception that the term “woman” is etymologically connected with “womb”, which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning “stomach” (of male or female).”
excerpt from thelanguageNerds/Wikipedia