Man, Mankind, or Humanity?

[Cipiteca396]

Technically speaking, the word "man" is gender-neutral. The only issue is that the gendered term, "werman," the male equivalent to "woman," was deleted from the English language. You can reach your own conclusions as to what this says about society.

I did not know that... Welp, time to do another ill-advised research expedition into the deepest darkest corners of academia.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/f4h0as

This was the first thing I found, lol.

 

[Jemini]

Technically speaking, the word "man" is gender-neutral. The only issue is that the gendered term, "werman," the male equivalent to "woman," was deleted from the English language. You can reach your own conclusions as to what this says about society.

I did not know that... Welp, time to do another ill-advised research expedition into the deepest darkest corners of academia.

"Werman" also happens to be the origin of the term "were-wolf." It literally means "male human-wolf."

That raises the question though. Would the female equivalent be a wo-wolf?

(Lycianthrope also has a very similar meaning. Lycian literally means "wolf" in the language it comes form, and "anthrope" means man-shaped.)

 

[Deeprotsorcerer]

"Werman" also happens to be the origin of the term "were-wolf." It literally means "male human-wolf."

That raises the question though. Would the female equivalent be a wo-wolf?

(Lycianthrope also has a very similar meaning. Lycian literally means "wolf" in the language it comes form, and "anthrope" means man-shaped.)

I find that while anthrope does mean man-shaped it's more readily understood that there isn't any male/female-coded connotations behind it valid or no. For instance "misanthropy" happens to be the catch-all to the kinda-related "misandry" and "misogyny"

Wo-wolf sounds adorable though, like a headpat in verbal form.

 

[Jemini]

This was the first thing I found, lol.

When you study old languages, you often find confusing things like this. There are dialect differences from different regions of the same country.

There are real examples found of "wifman," wepman," "woepmon," and "waepman," all of which ALSO referred to a male human in their respective dialects. The reason why "werman" in particular is the popular term put forward is because "wer" became the "were" in "werewolf." Therefore, it actually IS immortalized and still in the English language in some form, where as all the other ones you actually can still find examples of more easily (albeit with a bit of digging) do not have that particular edge.

Also, don't go trusting a reddit post to be giving you accurate information. It happens to be very well documented that "wer" = "man," and it was the origin of the "were" in "werewolf."

 

[Generic.Archdemon]

wo-wolf?

Would be wyfwolf no?

 

[Jemini]

Would be wyfwolf no?

Now that would just get confusing if you used "wifman," which is one of the more common and easier to find dialectic examples of refference to a male human.

I am not sure if "wyfman" means female human in any particular dialect, but I'm certain if it is then it's from a different region than the one where "wifman" was used, and it would be darn confusing if ever someone went from one of those regions to the other.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Also, don't go trusting a reddit post to be giving you accurate information.

Tbf, I'm not gonna trust a random SH forum post either. XD

 

[Jemini]

Tbf, I'm not gonna trust a random SH forum post either. XD

Fair, but just saying if you're gonna go digging into this then you gotta go quite a bit deeper than such a result.

EDIT: And also, I've given enough additional bread-crumbs to suplement any digging you want to do into the subject with the addition of the "werewolf" example.

Re-Edit: In fact, I think the "werewolf" example gives far heavier evidence to the historical existence of the term "werman" than the redit post did in dismissing it, and then the examples of the other dialectic examples of refference to male humans historically just serve as individual nails in the coffin for each and every dialectic difference and spelling variation. I think we can safely say, based on that, that if this person can't find the term "werman" in any dictionary then they aren't looking hard enough.

Granted, I haven't gone digging for it either, but I've got as much evidence of my claim as the people who theorized the existence of Neptune before astronomers found said planet backing my claim at this point.

 

[DarkeReises]

As far as references to our species go, which one do you think should be used more often in fiction and real world talk? Does gendered language with all its connotations rile you up at all? Do you sympathize with people who do have a problem with gendered language even if you aren't personally bothered? Or do you just not care?

Trash.

 

[Generic.Archdemon]

I am not sure if "wyfman" means female human in any

Hmm... I have not deep dive in to lingistics. I just took my cue from... The... the Macmilliand dictionary blog post...

Macmillan Dictionary Blog | Vocabulary | Adults | Onestopenglish

www.macmillandictionaryblog.com

Quote:

Ironically, from an etymological point of view, it is not the second morpheme of woman that should be construed as the sexist one. In Old English, man simply denoted a person, of either sex. The prefix wo in woman derives from Old English wyf [= a female human being; hence modern English wife]. Like its counterpart, the prefix wer [= a male human being], wyf was added to the stem man only when it was necessary to distinguish between the sexes. Over time however, the wer prefix was dropped when referring specifically to a male of the species, so that in effect, the word man became both hypernym man – a human being – and hyponym man – a male human being. The male of the species thus became the canonical form, or archetype, whilst the female, still tied to its wo prefix, a subordinate, derivative form.

I am really at the most basic level of this line of knowledge.

 

[Varstark]

Hmm... I have not deep dive in to lingistics. I just took my cue from... The... the Macmilliand dictionary blog post...

Macmillan Dictionary Blog | Vocabulary | Adults | Onestopenglish

www.macmillandictionaryblog.com

Quote:


I am really at the most basic level of this line of knowledge.

Etymology can give nice history lessons. IIRC, 'boy' meant 'male servant' while 'girl' came from the word for 'child'.

English really is the language of simps.

 

[LordJoyde]

I don't really give a crap, as I will use both when required.

Humanity has its uses in objective speak, but Mankind/Man fits a lot more into dramatic jargon. For instance:

"The sons of Man shall perish."

"Humanity shall perish."

Might just be my personal preference, but I like the first sentence more. So when describing, use all of 'Humanity', but when dramatizing, its all of Man/Mankind.

 

[SakeVision]

Pests

 

[Zirrboy]

All three contain the word man, so even from an anti gendered language standpoint there'd be little difference imo

 

[Cipiteca396]

All three contain the word man, so even from an anti gendered language standpoint there'd be little difference imo

I'm a little disconnected from how people normally do all this stuff, but I feel like the complaint about gendered language is when it's applied to people inappropriately, lol. Like if you call someone you know is a man a sissy, they get upset.

I'm sure people go to extremes that don't fit that, but applying a false gender to words like human or mandate just because they have the word man in them is too far. There's definitely a difference.

"Humanity shall perish."

The children of humanity works too. Or instead of 'Man', God works even better. The sons of Man is either redundant or - again, inaccurate.

'No Man may kill the Witch-King of Angmar!'

Okay, then how about a woman? How about a hobbit? Not men, you know? Neener neener.

 

[Generic.Archdemon]

Etymology can give nice history lessons.

It's all very interesting I used to go thru the Merriam Webster site's word history posts obsessively.

I wonder what changed... why did I stop....

Oh~ yeah... that's right...Wittgenstein...

Spoiler

===

I used to go thru the Merriam Webster site's word history posts obsessively.

Wow... So much nerd energy in a single line.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Homo sapiens

 

[Amok]

Agree with LordJoyde RE: dramatic weight of 'man.' I have no problem with using it as such, much like I would use the word 'actor' as an all-inclusive term. That said, these English terms are quite skewed toward the masculine side. I like German 'mensch'(person) and the term for humanity I grew up with, 'mensdom'. Whatever your gender, you are still a 'mens' then, easier term to implement than 'person' or 'persoon' imo.

Humanity loses much of its dramatic effect with the diminutive 'y' at the end, guess humankind can work, tho clunky. If you really wanna be scientific, just write 'bout the "Rise and fall of Homo Sapiens."

In a fantasy setting with many species this can actually work, with author using 'sapientkind' to refer to all them dwarves and orcs and three-eyed plant aliens. 'Sapients' even more concise, flows better.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Homo sapiens

Yeah, but you gotta shorten it so the characters can speak fluidly.
Particularly when it's hostile races like orcs talking about them.

In a fantasy setting with many species this can actually work, with author using 'sapientkind' to refer to all them dwarves and orcs and three-eyed plant aliens. 'Sapients' even more concise, flows better.

Although this makes homo sapiens broken too, lol. Why are the humans the only ones allowed to be called Sapient.

 

[Amok]

Although this makes homo sapiens broken too, lol. Why are they humans the only ones allowed to be called Sapient.

Yeah in such a setting I'll not use 'Homo Sapiens' at all, which in a way is justified if not Earth world: You would need a Roman history and a later taxonomical biological system to justify existence of term(also Homo Habillis etc being precursors to man, so depends on how humans began on yer world). That said, if you want to still use the term, be inventive: Humo Sapiens are humans, Drengir Sapiens dwarves, Fae Sapiens elves etc... Sure you can find more beautiful terms or ones concurrent with taxonomical jargon, not taking the time to craft 'em now tho.