Man (word)

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The term man (from Proto-Germanic *mannaz or *manwaz "man, person") and words derived from it can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their sex or age. The word developed into Old English man, mann meaning primarily "adult male human" but secondarily capable of designating a person of unspecified gender, "someone, one" or humanity at large (see also German Mann, Old Norse maðr, Gothic manna "man"). More restricted English terms for an adult male were wer (cognate: Latin vir; survives as the first element in "werewolf") and guma (cognate: Latin homo; survives as the second element in "bridegroom").

However, Man is traditional usage referring to the species, to humanity as a whole. The equation of the male with the species is commonly occurring in other languages, particularly in traditional registers, but not uniformly even within language groups. For example, the German equivalent of "Man" is "Mensch" which is male grammatically (itself a possible expression of the tradition as this is an exception to normal morphology which would have Mensch neuter) but refers to a general person not a male one. The usage persists in all registers of English although it has an archaic tone. Modern Standard Chinese has 男人 (man) and 女人 (woman) both diglyphs with 人 but 人 is analogous to the German Mensch, not English Man and the gender designations of individuals are both prefixed.

*Mannaz or *Manwaz is also the Proto-Germanic reconstructed name of the m-rune ᛗ.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Mannus 3 Mannaz rune 4 Modern usage 5 See also 6 References

Etymology

It is derived from a Proto-Indo-European root *man- (see Sanskrit/Avestan manu-, Slavic muž "man, male").^[1] In Hindu mythology, Manu is a title accorded the progenitor of humankind. The Slavic forms (Russian muzh "man, male" etc.) are derived from a suffixed stem *mon-gyo-. *Manus in Indo-European mythology was the first man, see Mannus, Manu (Hinduism)

In Old English the words wer and wīf (and wīfmann) were used to refer to "a man" and "a woman" respectively, while mann had the primary meaning of "adult male human" but could also be used for gender neutral purposes (as is the case with modern German man, corresponding to the pronoun in the English utterance "one does what one must").

Some etymologies treat the root as an independent one, as does the American Heritage Dictionary. Of the etymologies that do make connections with other Indo-European roots, man "the thinker" is the most traditional — that is, the word is connected with the root *men- "to think" (cognate to mind). This etymology presumes that man is the one who thinks, which fits the definition of man given by René Descartes as a "rational animal", indebted to Aristotle's ζῷον λόγoν ἔχον, which is also the basis for Homo sapiens (see Human self-reflection). This etymology, however, is not generally accepted.

A second etymology postulates the reduction of the ancestor of "human" to the ancestor of "man". Human is from *dhghem-, "earth", thus implying *(dh)ghom-on- would be an "earthdweller". The latter word, when reduced to just its final syllable, would be merely *m-on-. This is the view of Eric Partridge, Origins, under man. Such a derivation might be credible if only the Germanic form was known, but the attested Indo-Iranian manu virtually excludes the possibility. Moreover, *(dh)ghom-on- is known to have survived in Old English not as mann but as guma, the ancestor of the second element of the Modern English word bridegroom.^[2]

In the twentieth century, the generic meaning of "man" declined (but survives in compounds "mankind", "everyman", "no-man", etc.), and is now mostly seen as archaic, with the word used almost exclusively to mean "adult male". The same thing has happened to the Latin word homo: in most of the Romance languages, homme, uomo, om, hombre, homem have come to refer mainly to males, with residual generic meaning.

The inflected forms of Old English mann are^[3]

	sg.	pl.
nom.	mann	menn
gen.	mannes	manna
dat.	menn	mannum
acc.	mann	menn

The inflected forms of Old High German word for man (without i-mutation) are^[4]

	sg.	pl.
nom.	man	man
gen.	mannes	mannô
dat.	manne, also man	mannum, mannun, mannom, mannen
acc.	manann, also man	man

The inflected forms of the Old Norse word for man, maðr, are:^[5]

	sg.	pl.
nom.	maðr	menn
acc.	mann	menn
dat.	manni	mönnum
gen.	manns	manna

Mannus

Mannus is the Latinized form of the Germanic term as given by Tacitus. According to Tacitus, Mannus is the son of the earth-born Tuisto and the ancestor and founder of the three Germanic tribes:

• the Ingvaeones (living at the coastal line of the North Sea);
• the Irminones (living in the interior part around the Elbe);
• the Istvaeones (living at the borders of the river Rhine).

Mannaz rune

Name	Proto-Germanic	Old English	Old Norse
	*Mannaz	Man	Maðr
	"man, human"
Shape	Elder Futhark	Futhorc	Younger Futhark
Unicode	ᛗ U+16D7		ᛘ U+16D8	ᛙ U+16D9
Transliteration	m
Transcription	m
IPA	[m]
Position in rune-row	20		14

*Mannaz or *Manwaz is also the Proto-Germanic the reconstructed name of the m-rune ᛗ. Younger Futhark ᛘ is maðr ("man"). It took up the shape of the algiz rune ᛉ, replacing Old Futhark ᛗ mannaz.

The rune is recorded in all three Rune Poems, in the Norwegian and Icelandic poems as maðr, and in the Anglo-Saxon poem as man. As its sound value and form in the Elder Futhark indicate, it is derived from the Greek letter Mu (μ).

Rune Poem:[6]	English Translation:
Old Norwegian ᛉ Maðr er moldar auki; mikil er græip á hauki.	Man is an augmentation of the dust; great is the claw of the hawk.
Old Icelandic ᛉ Maðr er manns gaman ok moldar auki ok skipa skreytir. homo mildingr.	Man is delight of man and augmentation of the earth and adorner of ships.
Anglo-Saxon ᛗ Man byþ on myrgþe his magan leof: sceal þeah anra gehwylc oðrum swican, forðum drihten wyle dome sine þæt earme flæsc eorþan betæcan.	The joyous man is dear to his kinsmen; yet every man is doomed to fail his fellow, since the Lord by his decree will commit the vile carrion to the earth.

Modern usage

In the 20th century, the generic meaning of man has declined still further (but survives in compounds mankind, everyman, no-man's land, etc.). Exactly the same thing has happened to the Latin word homo: in the Romance languages, homme, uomo, om, hombre, homem etc. have all come to refer mainly to males, with residual generic meaning.

The word "man" is still used in its generic meaning in literary English. In The Lord of the Rings, the capitalized form Man (plural: Men) is used to refer to the race of humans (as distinguished from other races found in the Tolkien canon, such as Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs). When spelled in lowercase, man and men refer to adult males of any race (likewise, "woman/women" refer to adult females of any race). The ambiguity of the term plays a key role in The Return of the King in the confrontation between Éowyn and the Witch-king of Angmar. In the confrontation, the latter boasts that it has been prophesied that "no living man may hinder me", and is thereupon slain by Éowyn, a female human.^[7]

The verb to man (i.e. "to furnish [a fortress or a ship] with a company of men" dates to early Middle English.

The word has historically been used very generally as a suffix in combinations like "fireman", "policeman" and "mailman". Because those jobs were historically jobs done by men only, these terms were not felt any longer to be gender-neutral (as they originally would have been), and artificial terms coined to be emphatically gender-neutral were coined in the pursuit of political correctness, such as "firefighter", "police officer" and "mail carrier".

In US American slang, man! also came to be used as an interjection, not necessarily addressing the listener but simply added for emphasis, much like boy!. Also in American English, the expression The Man referring to "the oppressive powers that be" originated in the Southern States in the 19th century, and became widespread in the urban underworld from the 1950s.

See also

• Were
• First man
• Last man
• Manu (Hinduism)
• Gender neutrality in English

References

Runes	See also: Epigraphy · Runestones · Rune Poems · Runology · Runic magic
Elder Futhark:	ᚠ	ᚢ	ᚦ	ᚨ	ᚱ	ᚲ	ᚷ	ᚹ	ᚺ	ᚾ	ᛁ	ᛃ		ᛇ	ᛈ	ᛉ	ᛊ	ᛏ	ᛒ	ᛖ	ᛗ	ᛚ	ᛜ	ᛞ	ᛟ
Old English Futhorc:	ᚠ	ᚢ	ᚦ	ᚩ o	ᚱ	ᚳ c	ᚷ ȝ	ᚹ	ᚻ	ᚾ	ᛁ	ᛄ		ᛇ eo	ᛈ	ᛉ x	ᛋ	ᛏ	ᛒ	ᛖ	ᛗ	ᛚ	ᛝ	ᛞ	ᛟ œ		ᚪ a	ᚫ æ	ᚣ y	ᛠ ea
Younger Futhark:	ᚠ	ᚢ	ᚦ	ᚬ ą	ᚱ	ᚴ			ᚼ	ᚾ	ᛁ		ᛅ a				ᛋ	ᛏ	ᛒ		ᛘ	ᛚ				ᛦ ʀ
Transliteration:	f	u	þ	a	r	k	g	w	h	n	i	j		ï	p	z	s	t	b	e	m	l	ŋ	d	o