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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 ''man'', 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'' in traditional usage refers to the species, to humanity, or "mankind", as a whole. The usage persists in all registers of English although it has an old-fashioned tone. Equating the term for the male with the whole species is common in many languages, for example in French (''l'Homme''). On the other hand, some languages have a general word for 'human individual' which can apply to people of either gender. German has the general word ''Mensch'' (although the grammatical gender is masculine), next to ''Mann'' for (adult) male person. Modern Standard Chinese has 人 (/rén/), analogous to the German Mensch, not English ''Man''; the words 男人 (man) and 女人 (woman) are both diglyphs with the gender designations of individuals prefixed before 人. '' *Mannaz'' or '' *Manwaz'' is also the Proto-Germanic reconstructed name of the ''m''-rune . ==Etymology== It is derived from a Proto-Indo-European root '' *man-'' (see Sanskrit/Avestan ''manu-'', Slavic ''mǫž'' "man, male").〔''American Heritage Dictionary'', Appendix I: Indo-European Roots. (man-1 ). Accessed 2007-07-22.〕 The Slavic forms (Russian ''muzh'' "man, male" etc.) are derived from a suffixed stem '' *man-gyo-''. In Hindu mythology, ''Manu'' is the name of the traditional progenitor of humankind who survives a deluge and gives mankind laws. The hypothetically reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form '' *Manus'' may also have played a role in Proto-Indo-European religion based on this, if there is any connection with the figure of ''Mannus'' — reported by the Roman historian Tacitus in ca. AD 70 to be the name of a traditional ancestor of Germans and son of Tuisto; modern sources other than Tacitus have reinterpreted this as "first man".〔Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, p. 12, Alexander Laban Hinton, University of California Press, 2002〕 In Old English the words ' and ' (and ') were used to refer to "a man" and "a woman" respectively, while ' had the primary meaning of "adult male human" but could also be used for gender neutral purposes (as is the case with modern German ''ドイツ語: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 *' "to think" (cognate to ''mind''). This etymology relies on humans describing themselves as "those who think" (see Human self-reflection). This etymology, however, is not generally accepted. A second potential etymology connects with Latin ''manus'' ("hand"), which has the same form as Sanskrit ''manus''.〔George Hempl, "Etymologies", The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1901), pp. 426-431, The Johns Hopkins University Press ()〕 Another speculative etymology postulates the reduction of the ancestor of "human" to the ancestor of "man". Human is from *', "earth", thus implying *' 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, *' is known to have survived in Old English not as ' but as ', the ancestor of the second element of the Modern English word ''bridegroom''.〔Online Etymology Dictionary s.v. (bridegroom ). Retrieved 2011-12-01.〕 In the late twentieth century, the generic meaning of "man" declined (but is also continued in compounds "mankind", "everyman", "no-man", etc.).〔"man, n.1 (and int.)." OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2015. Web. 13 November 2015.〕 The same thing has happened to the Latin word ''ラテン語:homo'': in most of the Romance languages, ''フランス語:homme'', ', ', ', ' have come to refer mainly to males, with a residual generic meaning. The inflected forms of Old English ' are〔Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English, 6th ed p. 29.〕 The inflected forms of Old High German word for ''man'' (without i-mutation) are〔Karl August Hahn, Althochdeutsche Grammatik, p. 37.〕 The inflected forms of the Old Norse word for man, ''maðr'', are:〔(Old Norse Lesson Seven by Óskar Guðlaugsson and Haukur Þorgeirsson )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Man (word)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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