D'jou know the word for “woman” used to be “man”? Naw!!! I kid you not! “Man” comes from the old Norse word meaning “moon” and “wisdom.” Of course we women *do* have “moon wisdom” -- we bleed at the moon cycles -- something I’m told men have always admired (Penis envy?! Pshaw! Women are in tune with the moon and bleed without dying. Now that’s Big!)
So what was Old Norse for “dude”? It was “wer.” You know, as in Wer-wolf (i.e. wolf-man)? And ‘wer’ came from Sanskrit, ‘vir.’ As in ‘virile’?
Who perped this stuff on us, anyway? It’s making me fume. Musta been Flies Guys dudes who sat on women and pumped the air out of ‘em. These crude dudes took every one of our words for people-with-vaginas and junked them. Then they made up new words all coming from words for people-with-penises:
Man --> Wo-Man
He --> S-He
Male --> Fe-Male
Man --> Hu-Man
Dude --> Dude-Ette
(To read more about these stinky dudes, type “Flies Guys” in the search-engine box below).
This is just not right.
Even the war-rotten, woman-raking ancient Romans let women keep their own names:
Roman (Latin) Words for Vagina-person, Penis-Person:
Male: Mas, masculus, masculinus
Female: Femina
He: Hic, is, ille
She: Ea, illa, haec
Man: Vir
Woman: Mulier
Human: Humanus
Person: Homo
Him: Eum,hunc,illum
Her: Ejus, illius, hujus
So. Dudettes and Dudes:
MY NEW WORDS FOR ALL OF US:
Male: Mas (plural maris)
Female: Femina (plural feminae) “Was that mouse a mas or a femina?”
Man: Vir (plural viri) (as in “Veer off to the left”).
Woman: Mulier (plural mulieris) “That vir proposed marriage to that mulier today.”
Him: Hunc (as in “what a hunk!”) “I married hunc today.”
Her: Ejus (as in “aegis”: guidance, support, protection and tutelage). “The bride got rice in ejus eyes.”
Person: Homhet (as in trying to please heteros and homos both). “That homhet has toast crumbs on hunc tie, and the other homhet has egg on ejus blouse collar.”
He: Hic (as in “hiccup”)
She: Haec (as in “take a hike!”). “Mom bought baby clothes for the twins: blue for hic and pink for haec.”
Mankind: Peoplekind. “When did peoplekind begin to walk upright?”
People: People
Human: Human (I guess we can stick with a couple of the old guys).
NOTE: Still haven’t come ta names for Dude and Dudette; all ideas welcome.
______
Mucho thnx to keeweeboy for the foto.
6 comments:
I think the Norse saw the moon as masculine and the sun as feminine.
This however is not to say that you are wrong in your research.
:-)
Antithesis: I found the following on the net about Norse moon deities:
"Nanna:
Wife of Balder and mother of Forseti. Moon goddess." From Ancienthistory.about.com
"Mani, a male moon god..." paganastronomy.net
"Moon:
Son of Mundilfari. Guides the moon on it's course." akasha.demon.co.uk/norse
"Nanna:
Moon goddess according to Bulfinch. Wife of Balder and mother of Forseti. She dies of heartache after Balder's death and is burned with him on his funeral boat -- along with his chopped up horse and an unfortunate dwarf who Thor kicked in at the last minute."
http://library.thinkquest.org/12865/mray/pnors.htm
Confusing, huh? I suspect the issue is that the term "Norse" is used erroneously to cover many different people living in many different time periods. I wonder if the moon god "Moon" might have come into Scandinavia with conquering tribes, and ousted Nanna?
Norse mythology isn't my area of expertise, however.
I agree when the term Norse is used it could mean most anything to many people. Maybe Teutonic is a better way to describe the pre-christian Germanic tribes of northern Europe?
I also understand that with most anything, on this wonderful planet of ours, you can attribute a masculine or femanine aspect to them, moon, sun, flowers and people. Everything contains both aspects and I think that is where the confusion comes in for some, people are determined to put things in nice neat boxes and they just don't work that way. I guess it's all in how you see the world around you.
Have a good weekend!
There are many gods and Goddesses that can be either solar or lunar. I consider Isis to be an active solar Goddess and Osiris to be a passive, lunar consort. Same with Morgaine and Arthur, Mary and Jesus, Aphrodite and Dionysus. Too many modern Pagans fall into sexist stereotypes in their pantheons. If you can't worship a butch Goddess and an effeminate god, you've missed the point.
In German, the word sun is feminine and the word moon is masculine.
Male moon gods are often "the man in the moon" which is a figure of a man in the craters NOT the face that many people see http://www.planetfusion.co.uk/~pignut/Man_in_moon.html The Moon god is sometimes portrayed as a violent rapist who rapes women monthly causing their periods.
Teutonic myths are quite a mix, I have a wonderful old book by Wagner that discusses the beliefs of all the different German tribes, and folklore to the present day. The best known "norse" legends are really Icelandic. That story about Baldurs funeral could have come straight from India, along with the story about Heimdal creating social castes. I suspect there may also be traces of pre-Indo European myth in the mix as well.
I get the impression of different waves of patriarchal invaders bringing their war god (and war goddess) myths from the Russian steppes, and between invasions people drifting slowly back towards goddess worship
There is a tendency to see all gods as sun gods. Baldur has some solar attributes, but the term "sun god" is nearly always a generalisation. Polytheism was often a political fudge to ally different religions. A monotheistic cult within a polytheistic religion may well try to "puff up" their chosen deity. Declaring their deity to be the sun, or a universal being incorporating all existence and all the other deities was a popular way to do this.
I never got to get a chance to take my linguistics class but why is elizabeth to liz in nouns the longer names are always the original name the shorter the nick name why is diffrent in pronouns. why would women not be the originating title in language.
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