[techtalk] Etymology (was Re: Layman's Guides to Computer Security)

[psyche]

On Sun, 13 May 2001, Kai MacTane wrote:

> 
> In Old High German, there were two major types of "men": "wo-men" and 
> "wer-men". "Wo-men" were female and "wer-men" male. The "wer" in "wer-man" 
> is cognate with the Latin "vir", which also means "man" (in our current 
> sense of "adult male human").
> 
> Somewhere along the way, English "man" got adapted to mean males only, and 
> wer-man dropped from use. Personally, I like the old way: the root word 
> means humans in general, and then you add a modifier to make it 
> specifically one gender or the other.
> 
>                                                  --Kai MacTane

Really interesting; I didn't know that.  Thinking about it, I realized the
word 'werewolf' probably came from the same word, so looked it up in the
dictionary, and also saw the word 'weregild'.  'Weregild' means payment
for the murder of a person to avoid a blood feud, and of course 'werewolf'
would mean 'man-wolf' (in our current usage of man=male *or* generic human
being).  From looking at the above examples, it appears that 'wer' and
'were' were *also* used as synonyms for for 'human being' at one time,
like our current usage of 'man'.  'Wer' definetly comes from the same
roots as the word 'virile', of course meaning specifically male.  

>From something I read before 'weregild' was also paid for the murder of
women, too (was that called 'wogild' at some time, I wonder? was
there a word 'mangild' to refer to payment of murder of humans in
general?) and I'm sure there must have been a female werewolf or two
somewhere in folklore.  'Werewolf' didn't specifically mean 'male wolf'
but 'human wolf' or 'male human-wolf'. So 'wer' at some point along the
way was *also* used as a synonym for 'human being', when it actually meant
'male human being', the same way we use 'man' today, before the word
itself fell out of disuse.  I wonder at what point in history that
happened, or was 'wer' actually always used the same way in Germanic
languages?  I'm interested in your thoughts on this.  Heh, I love
language...:)   

psyche (the friendly wowolf)