Re: "Wife" (was: Homosexuality etc.)

Quoting John Cowan <cowan@...>:

> Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
> > Swedish used to have _viv_, also neuter. To my knowledge, it was
> never
> > derogative, but it's obsolete in any case - your average Swede
> wouldn't know
> > what it means.
>
> Yeah, North Germanic decided to go with the widespread IE root kwen-,
> which
> surfaces as "queen" in English and I forget what in Skt, but it means
> "goddess".  This probably got somewhat pejorated too, down from
> "noblewoman"
> or the like to just "woman".  In Gothic it meant "wife", oddly enough.
This appear to be common for words refering to women; another case is _fru_
which used to mean "lady" (=wife of a high-ranking nobleman - not just any
woman of noble blood), but now is "wife". German _Frau_, of course, means
simply "woman". The feminists probably has something to say about this ...

                                                   Andreas

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