En réponse à John Cowan :
>It's Proto-Germanic at least: _wyf_ 'woman' in OE was also neuter.
>There are no decent cognates in the other IE languages AFAIK,
Dutch has "wijf", neuter too, and also derogative as the German equivalent.
> though
>there are a few guesses about possible formal equivalents with drastic
>semantic shifts.
I thought English "wife" had the same etymology... It would look logical to me.
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.