Re: What is a woman ?

"Homme" and "femme" look similar in French, but in
fact they derive from different stems (homo and
femina). Looks like the language made them similar.

In Esperanto (hope I remember well !), one says "la
viro" vs "la virino", but that is not exactly the same
kind of derivation as in English (viro meaning "male",
while "man" is generic for male + female).

--- Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:
> On Friday, January 23, 2004, at 05:28 PM, Philippe
> Caquant wrote:
> > Thank you everybody !
> > It is very strange to me that in English, the
> female
> > seems to be a marked form of the general term for
> > "man". There usually seems to be 2 different or
> > symetrical words, like "Mann" und "Frau" in
> German,
> > "homme" et "femme" in French, "hombre" y "mujer"
> in
> > Spanish, "muj'china" and "jen'china" in Russian.
> Are
> > there other natlangs using the English system ?
>
> Hebrew uses "ish" and "isha", but they only *look*
> similar.  They're
> not actually derived from eachother, i think.
>
>
> -Stephen (Steg)
>   "it's technical - different language creates
> different reality."
>       ~ z

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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