Re: What is a woman ?

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 ?
Well, French _homme_ and Spanish _hombre_ are both derived from Latin
_homo_ (or rather the accusative _homine_) which meant simply "person",
so the use of "man" is analogous.  I'm guessing that in Russian _china_
means something like "person"?  SO, Russian seems to be similar in using
a compounded word for "woman".  It's just that, for whatever reason, the
Russian appears to ahve used a compound for both genders where English
only did for the feminine.

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