Re: CHAT: Homo Sapiens (was: fiery spirits)

Staving Benct Philip Jonsson:

>In Old English _man/mon_, while grammatically
>masculine, meant 'människa',  or possibly
>'person'.
>         As we all know there was even the word _wifman_
>'female human being', and there was also the phrase
>_wifhades mon_ (do.).
>         A male human being was refferred to as _wer_ or
>_guma_ or _ceorl_.
>
>Reviving 'goom' seems like a fun but doomed idea.
I had the impression that "ceorl" meant "member of the free peasant class".
However, its descendant "churl" has definitely come to mean "oik".

Pete