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Hi everybody,
actually the derivatives of the Latin word "femina" tend to have e negative connotation in most moderne neo-italic languages (except French).
Terms deriving from the Latin "domina" or "mulier" seem instead to be instead in many of the cases with the generic meaning of "woman".
Examples are:
Honorific:
Port. dona;
Spa. Dueña
Cat./Occ. dòna, Madona
Fre. dame, Madame
It. donna, Donna, Madonna
Rom. doamnă
plus
Eng. Dame
Generic
Por. mulher ("woman" and/or "wife")
Spa. mujer ("woman" and/or "wife")
Cat./Occ. dona, femna ("woman"), muller, mulher ("wife")
Fre. femme ("woman" and/or "wife")
Ita. donna, (moglie ="wife"), (femmina refers normally to animals, as does the term "pregnant")
Rom. muiere ("woman" and/or "wife"), (femeie is derogative)
Note that the adjective "feminine" tends generally to be neutral in meaning.
If we speak of a Romance language included in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I would suggest to prefer a similarity with Italian and Romanian, two Neo-italic languages spoken in areas belonging to such Empire.
Derivatives from "domina", as an honorific and "mulier" as "woman" and/or "wife" could co-exist nicely in Dravean.
On the other hand "Uxor" may have survived in Dravean...8-)
As separate comments,
a) the term "bagascia" exists also in Italian, with the already mentioned meaning.
b) the term "pullicella" survives in:
Ita. pulzella
Fr. pucelle,
Spa. poncella
Por. pocela
RtRom. piursela
Cat./Occ. poncella, piussèla (it tends to be an archaism meaning "virgin"), but it present a more generic significate in Catalon, Occitan and Rheto-romanic, where it has also a masculine.
Saluti a tutti,
Bruno
--- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, BPJ <bpj@...> wrote:
>
> 2011-05-06 21:03, Deiniol Jones skrev:
> > Bundài 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 it, and so has largely been replaced by reflexes of DOMINA.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
>
> Buò sair!
>
> Grepping "Frau" in the archive.org version of the old Meyer-Lübke,
> excluding those of pejorative meaning, returns:
>
> - W.Fr. _brü_ "junge Frau" < _brüma~_ < Gmc. *brûtman
> "bridegroom",
> - rum. femeie < FAMILIA
> - FEMINA
> - FETA "Frau die geboren hat" "Mädchen" in Rum.
> - Macedorum. oama "sehr alte frau" < HOMINE (!)
> - NUPTA "junge frau"
> - PARICULA > O.Sp. _pareja_ "legitime Frau"
> - PULLICELLA > lucch. _spillonzora_ "junge hübsche
> Frau" (Can't help myself but imagine a
> back-formation *PULLIC(I)A!)
>
> "Mädchen" 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 "Mädchen, Dienerin" Found in
> France, Iberia, unknown origin. However an Arabic
> expression for 'whore' may lurk here. Note Fr.
> _bague_ "Rückbildung aus Prov."
> - /tSuk/ 'suck, nipple, milk' etc.
> - wallis. _dolé~_ "Junge", _dole~to_ "Mädchen" <Jungfrau"
> DOLERE.
> - MAMMA
> - MATA -- not found in the main dictionary! Any
> ideas? Back-formation from MATURA or MATER?
> - NANNA
> - (PULLICELLA)
> - VACARE > lecc. _akantia_ "heiratfähiges Mädchen"
>
> 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
> _mógle_ 'woman', _meride_ < MARITA 'wife' in Rhodrese
> since I'm unhappy with _féme_ /'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)NÁ or
> SENIORA. FWIW SENIORA may itself > 'woman'!
>
> Since your lang seems to have been under influence from
> Germanic you might borrow _*wîb_ or _*brûþiz_ outright.
> Note that FRUTIS 'name of Venus' possibly is cognate
> with _*brûþiz_, BTW!
>
> The possibility of HOMINE ~ FEMINA > *HOMINA is
> interesting, especially as _*wîbmanniz_ may
> may have gone into the mix too!
>
> /bpj
>