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2011-05-06 21:03, Deiniol Jones skrev:
Bund�i de tutei! I've just discovered a rather embarrassing lexical gap in Dravean: I have no word for "woman". Given that I *do* have words for such non- basic concepts as "sponge cake" (zenuasa), and "hostile" (samaicus), this particular oversight is somewhat worrying. However, I'm stuck on what to fill the gap with:<feama> /"fjama/, the regular reflex of FEMINA, doesn't really appeal to me. And I've already used<moglar>, the reflex of MULIER for an adjective meaning "female", and don't particularly want to duplicate it. In Romansh, the reflex of FEMINA has something of a pejorative ring to it, and so has largely been replaced by reflexes of DOMINA. The Dravean reflex is<duna>, which is already in use as an honorific meaning "Mrs." Now, there's nothing necessarily wrong with using the same word as the common noun meaning "woman": German does something similar after all, and as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Dravean came under a great deal of German influence. Not only that, there's strong pan-Romance support for this substitution: in Occitan the regular word for woman is<domna>, for example, as it is in Italian. However, I'm wondering if there are any other options? Your thoughts? Dan
Bu� sair!
Grepping "Frau" in the archive.org version of the old Meyer-L�bke,
excluding those of pejorative meaning, returns:
- W.Fr. _br�_ "junge Frau" < _br�ma~_ < Gmc. *br�tman
"bridegroom",
- rum. femeie < FAMILIA
- FEMINA
- FETA "Frau die geboren hat" "M�dchen" in Rum.
- Macedorum. oama "sehr alte frau" < HOMINE (!)
- NUPTA "junge frau"
- PARICULA > O.Sp. _pareja_ "legitime Frau"
- PULLICELLA > lucch. _spillonzora_ "junge h�bsche
Frau" (Can't help myself but imagine a
back-formation *PULLIC(I)A!)
"M�dchen" exists in M-L's meagre German-Romance index.
Again excluding the obviously unsuitable ones (people's
inventiveness in degrading women and children is
astonishing!):
- BACASSA, BAGASSA "M�dchen, Dienerin" Found in
France, Iberia, unknown origin. However an Arabic
expression for 'whore' may lurk here. Note Fr.
_bague_ "R�ckbildung aus Prov."
- /tSuk/ 'suck, nipple, milk' etc.
- wallis. _dol�~_ "Junge", _dole~to_ "M�dchen" <Jungfrau"
DOLERE.
- MAMMA
- MATA -- not found in the main dictionary! Any
ideas? Back-formation from MATURA or MATER?
- NANNA
- (PULLICELLA)
- VACARE > lecc. _akantia_ "heiratf�higes M�dchen"
UXORE is also attested in O.Fr., Prov., O.Venetian,
O.Sp. and may be suitable to derive 'woman' from it.
What about the following?
- MULIER 'feminine',
- UXORE 'woman',
- SPONSA/NUPTA/MARITA 'wife'.
Or FAMILIA > 'wife' > 'woman' under influence of FEMINA
while GENTE > 'family'. I'm actually considering
_m�gle_ 'woman', _meride_ < MARITA 'wife' in Rhodrese
since I'm unhappy with _f�me_ /'femI/ < FEMNA, for the
irrelevant reason that /'femi/ was slang for an
effeminate male when I was a boy. I already have
_nucelle_ 'young woman' < *NUPTICELLA.
Note also Prov. _na_ 'Mrs., Lady' < DOMINA. You may
have 'woman' < DOM(I)NA but 'Mrs.' from (DOM)N� or
SENIORA. FWIW SENIORA may itself > 'woman'!
Since your lang seems to have been under influence from
Germanic you might borrow _*w�b_ or _*br��iz_ outright.
Note that FRUTIS 'name of Venus' possibly is cognate
with _*br��iz_, BTW!
The possibility of HOMINE ~ FEMINA > *HOMINA is
interesting, especially as _*w�bmanniz_ may
may have gone into the mix too!
/bpj