_das_ Weib

[Niedokonany]

Warum?

[Astraios]

Weil.

[Amsel]

Weiber sind Eigentum; Frauen sind Menschen?

(Some German will come along and correct me.)

[Gulliver]

Because linguistic gender is not the same as biological sex or social gender!

In German, he says in a very unscientific way, short words seem to be neuter more often than not. I guess one day it just made the leap by association.

Old English wīf 'woman', from Proto-Germanic *wīƀam (cf. West Frisian wiif, Dutch wijf, Low German Wief, German Weib), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷíh2bʰo- (compare Tocharian B kwipe 'shame; vulva').

Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded shame vulva?

[Niedokonany]

Because linguistic gender is not the same as biological sex or social gender!

It is not the same, but such mismatches in nouns denoting humans are exceptions rather than the rule even in Indo-European (otherwise, nobody would think of using labels like "masculine" and "feminine" for them) - and usually you can say something more about them: e.g. Mädchen and Fräulein are neuter unlike Frau, but they also pattern with other diminutives in -chen and -lein, Polish dziewczę is neuter, but it also patterns with other nouns with the -ę termination.

So you're suggesting it's originally been a bodypart term? That would be a valid explanation; do other Germanic languages with genders have the neuter gender here as well?

@Amsel: in "Wein, Weib und Gesang" klingt es etwas so :P

[Magb]

So you're suggesting it's originally been a bodypart term? That would be a valid explanation; do other Germanic languages with genders have the neuter gender here as well?

Icelandic víf is neuter.

[Jipí]

(Some German will come along and correct me.)

That was a grammatically correct sentence.

Weil.

That wasn't. It's "Darum."

[Astraios]

Weil.

That wasn't. It's "Darum."

Mefail. Thanks.

[Soap]

Some people believe that wife is originally a noun meaning something like "that which is hidden" and is cog with a Tocharian word meaning vagina (the same pattern you see in Urdu~Arabic with aurat.) But it's only a wild guess, really. Wife already meant "woman" in the earliest attested Germanic langs.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=wife

[Dewrad]

Well, it's because the patriarchal Indo-Europeans didn't see women as being animate (i.e. human), because they were bastards.

FWIW, in OE, it's also þæt wíf. It's a pan-Germanic thing.

[Aszev]

This really reminds me of when Eddy was ranting about the German word for 'girl' (Mädchen) being neuter.

[johanpeturdam]

So you're suggesting it's originally been a bodypart term? That would be a valid explanation; do other Germanic languages with genders have the neuter gender here as well?

Icelandic víf is neuter.

So is Faroese vív, but not Danish viv, which is utrum.

[Viktor77]

Well, it's because the patriarchal Indo-Europeans didn't see women as being animate (i.e. human), because they were bastards.

It's not really that bad that the noun for wife is neuter. At least they have a noun. In Romance languages your wife is just your Woman, while your Husband isn't your Man but your Husband. The Romance system seems even more sexist haha.

All of that was a joke.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

In Romance languages your wife is just your Woman, while your Husband isn't your Man but your Husband. The Romance system seems even more sexist haha. [/size]

And in Swedish it's the other way around.

[Viktor77]

In Romance languages your wife is just your Woman, while your Husband isn't your Man but your Husband. The Romance system seems even more sexist haha. [/size]

And in Swedish it's the other way around.

Oh? En man och hans fru?

[Jipí]

German doesn't have specific terms for either husband or wife.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

Oh? En man och hans fru?

Quite right.

[Chuma]

It's also funny to note that "wife" is, according to Etymonline, possibly cognate with both "vibrator" and "whip".

[Ser]

Some people believe that wife is originally a noun meaning something like "that which is hidden" and is cog with a Tocharian word meaning vagina (the same pattern you see in Urdu~Arabic with aurat.)

Can you elaborate on the last bit? (You might also want to romanize it as `awra(t)/ʿawra(t)/ʕawra(t), the ع does matter.)

[Khvaragh]

Some people believe that wife is originally a noun meaning something like "that which is hidden" and is cog with a Tocharian word meaning vagina (the same pattern you see in Urdu~Arabic with aurat.)

Can you elaborate on the last bit? (You might also want to romanize it as `awra(t)/ʿawra(t)/ʕawra(t), the ع does matter.)

There's some similarity, since عورة/?\awratun/ (theoretically) comes from عور/?\awira/ "to lose an eye, be blind, etc." Verbal derivatives have عوّر/?\awwara/ "to damage, mar, etc." /?\awratun/ literally means "defect, weakness," and even though it's a common term in many East Asian langs for "woman," (this is avoidance language; in Persian, they'll sometimes say منزلم /m{nzel{m/ literally, "my house," to mean "my wife;' I remember my Persian teacher, who was dissident in the Revolution, criticizing this custom).

But in the original Arabic, it's interchangeably used for men and women, and doesn't exclusively mean "genitals," but any place on the body which is to be concealed from public view; Islamic law books will often discuss the /?\awratun/ of men (usually the area between the chest and knees) and the /?\awratun/ of women, which varies according to scholar, school, and time period. I have never heard anyone in Egypt refer to a woman as /?\awratun/, this would be very rude. Usual words areستّ /sit:/ "woman" or مراتي /mara:ti:~mura:ti:/, literally "my woman,"but it always means "my wife." (i.e. the Egyptian film title "عفريت مراتي" meaning "my wife's demon") but the noun without the possessive suffix, مراة /mar?a~mara/ (reflex of classical امرأة /imra?a/ "woman") is considered very rude in Egypt, meaning loosely "bitch," but even though the words are related etymologically, /marati:/ is not thought of as meaning "my bitch," but as a separately lexicalized (and frozen) word. There's also جوزة /go:za/, from classical زوجة /zawjatun/, meaning "wife," but originally "female member of a pair/couple."
The Hebrew cognate of /?\awratun/ is probably in the verb עוּר /?\ur/ "to be naked,"
There's also /?\ariya/, meaning "to be naked," (Hebrew: ערה /?\a:ra:/ "to be naked," semantic/religious cognate of /?\awratun/ comes from this root, ערוה /?\Erwa:/, used as a technical term in the same way as in Islam in the Talmud in relation to צניעות "modesty") and /?\a:r/ "shame" from /?\a:ra/ and /?\ayyara/ "to wander, stray; and to blame." (the fa``ala form is probably a de-nominalization, as this is common in Arabic) I tend to believe that these roots are likely to be all related, especially since they vary only in the position of weak radicals; there's also Hebrew ערר /?\a:rar/ "to strip oneself," with a reduplicated /r/, suggesting a primitive bi-consonantal root of /?\/-/r/. Assyrian Akkadian has /u:ru/ "nakeness," so it may be that the primitive meaning was this. Of course, this is only my opinion.