E 0560          MAN

The word "man" is of Germanic origin .

H 0141            ם ע

Concept of root : people, folk

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ם ע

‛am

people, folk

Related English words

Man  

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ם ע

‛am

people, folk

‛a m

Latin

mundus

mundus

world, people

m n d

English

Man

mèn

man, mankind

m n

Danish

mand

mand

man, human

m n d

 

 

Proto-Semitic *‛AM --- *M Ă N- Indo-European

 

 

The letter "M" as a basis for roots that indicate people is very important. And we find this "M" also in many languages as the basic sound for the concept of "mother". We do not at all believe that this is based on so-called babytalk. Babies would never talk if they would not learn so from adults. Probably they would have a hard time to shape words later after having grown up. In our chapter "The Mother, where it all came from" we go more into details about the basic function of the "M" in many fundamental words. Our pages (Hebrew 0001_aa19) and (Hebrew 0001_aa20) touch this phenomenon.

 

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic supposedly had the same root " * ע ם " found in Hebrew and many other Semitic tongues. It is seen in Phoenician, Moabitic, Aramaic, Syriac, Ugaritic, Arabic and OS Arabic.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew and Germanic or Latin more often differ in the fact that , given a fundamental consonant, Hebrew easily will apply the necessary vowel (often A) in front of a single consonant, while Germanic and Latin will put the vowel after that consonant.

 

Note:
  • English has this word "man" in common with all other Germanic languages, with small differences only. But the others use the word for "adult male human", having another word, like German "Mensch", to indicate "human being". Modern English lacks this word, but Old-English still had "mennisc" for "human".

     

    The word "Mensch" has penetrated more recently into English via Yiddish. Now fast disappearing , Yiddish is the language of the Jews of Eastern Europe. It is basically German, with a contribution in vocabulary from Hebrew and some Slavic words. Under the Roman Empire , during the first century, the Jews, after the destruction of the Temple king Salomo had built, were chased out of Israel by the Romans under Titus in 70 e.v. and went into their second great diaspora. The first diaspora took place in the year 586 a.e.v., when the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Second Temple . Besides joining their brethren in North Africa, Persia, Near East and Arabia, they also migrated to the northern borders of the Empire and encountered the Germans. Integrating with those, they learned and assimilated Western German dialects.

 

Note:
  • English and Latin. English has made little use of derivations of Latin "mundus" . The word "mundane" comes indirectly from Latin "mundanus = world-, worldly, citizen of the world".

 

Note:
  • Latin "mundus" coincides with another identical word, not connected to it and dealing with the concepts of washing, cleaning, hygiene and women’s make-up. The identicity of these words has led to uncertainties. No good explanation for a common origin has been found. Interesting remains that English "cosmos" and "cosmetics", with their meanings so similar to the two Latin "mundus"-terms, also find their origin in two similar Greek words. But in this case the meaning of the verb "kosmeo" that led to "cosmetics", was different: " to govern, command, put in order, adorn" . And then the noun "kosmos" stood for "(good) order, world, universe, firmament, cosmos, humanity", probably with the certainty that all this was "well-ordered".

     

    Our "mundus" of this entry , with the vowel ( in this case U), placed behind the nasal consonant M, builds on the original meaning of "people" as in Hebrew. "Mundus" is first of all "Mankind" . When the Romans said "mundus vult decipi", they meant that the people want to be deceived. It has been tried to link "mundus" to the verb "moveo = to move", via a gerundium "movendus", because the heavens or firmament, that represent one of the meanings of "mundus" move around the earth.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic. With very few exceptions, older and newer Germanic languages have "M A N" . The consonant "N" usually is doubled if a suffix is used as a second syllable, but sometimes it is doubled also in a single syllable , as in German , Norwegian and Old English. The hypothesis for Proto-Germanic must be "*M A N-".

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. A big help can be found in :

     

    Old Indian, that for "man" uses an identical root "M A N" in "mánu-, mánuts-, mánutsa-".

     

    Slavic has a hypothesis of "*mozyj", that is in harmony with Russian "mūzj", but it is difficult to establish these as cognates of "man" or "mund-us". There might be for the mentioned hypothesis for Slavic a predecessor "*mūndz-".

     

    Indo-European may have used "*M Ă N-".The Latin "U" in "mundus" may have been developed under the influence of Etruscan, that supposedly had a word "*munth = world", again identical to one also meaning "adornment".

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 01/10/2012 at 11.04.31