Talk:woman

Alternate definitions

"Woman" was also a term used for a female servant, particularly pre-1700s; specific examples can be found in the works of Shakespeare and other writers of that period. Should this usage be added as well? -- Editor at Large • talk 13:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Equinox ◑ 12:13, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Other translations

Tlapanec: aˀ³go³, per Jorge A. Suarez, The Mesoamerican Indian Languages (1983). But Tlapanec is not a single language... - -sche (discuss) 04:14, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Subanun (Siocon): glibun, per the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary. - -sche (discuss) 08:49, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Zibusi: zuɔ²¹ma²¹ and Laizisi zu²¹ma²¹, per Castro et al, A sociolinguistic survey of Kua-nsi and related Yi varieties in Heqing county, Yunnan province, China. - -sche (discuss) 03:25, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Per the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary, Ende end. - -sche (discuss) 19:53, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

[script needed] "Woman" is céi /cey/ [čei] (plural: ciyée) in Kohistani Shina (plk), per Ruth Laila Schmidt, Razwal Kohistani, A Grammar of the Shina Language of Indus Kohistan. - -sche (discuss) 20:54, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

[script needed]

In Tshangla, mewaktsa (མེཝཀཙ?) (variant: meaktsa), per Erik E. Andvik, A Grammar of Tshangla. - -sche (discuss) 03:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@-sche I've added Teochew "ze1 nion5" ("ze1nion5"). I'm pretty sure there should be hanzi characters for it. Did you verify this term already? It's more standard to put spaces for transliterations of Chinese topolects with tone numbers. BTW, we don't have language codes for Teochew and Taishanese. The former should be nested under Min Nan, the latter - under Cantonese. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:05, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

No, I haven't verified that one. I've been going through and checking all the translations in "water", but in this entry I've only been checking the ones I add or create entries for. Teochew was added back in 2007, by an IP who also added Teochew to many other entries at that time. I don't know whether it's correct or not. PS sorry if I edit-conflicted you when I added that Venda term in (what I hadn't noticed was) the middle of your edits. - -sche (discuss) 05:29, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Not sure, which edit conflict you're referring to but never mind. @Wyang, sorry, Frank, not sure if it's the right time to ask but do you know if Teochew "ze1 nion5" has hanzi forms?--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:48, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

The commonly used form is 姿娘, very poetic. It is related to Min Dong 諸娘／诸娘, and both are derived from 珠娘. Wyang (talk) 09:00, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Čestmír Loukotka, ‎Johannes Wilbert (editor), Classification of South American Indian Languages (1968, Los Angeles: Latin American Studies Center, University of California), page(s) 116 lists Takwatip kuñá (which might be spelled kunha or kunya in other sources) and Dawahib kunya; these are varieties of or closely related to Kagwahiva, but it's not clear which Ethnologue codes they correspond to, if any. (The encoding of the language is a little bit of a mess.) "Dawahib" a.k.a. "Bocas Pretas" is apparently a variant of "Cawahib" ("Kawahib", "Kawaib", "Cabahyba", "Cauahib", "Cauaiua", "Kawahib", "Kawahyb", "Kawahiwa"). - -sche (discuss) 20:47, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Avatime ɔ́-dzɛ̄ "woman" (plural bádzɛ̄wà), ō-dzē "wife", per Russel Schuh, Aspects of Avatime phonology (1995). - -sche (discuss) 17:20, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Mmen [wūʒɔ́ɲ] per Lena Björkestedt, A Phonological Sketch of the Mmen Language (2010). - -sche (discuss) 18:36, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Mundari, per Toshiki Osada, Madhu Purti, Nishaant Choksi, and Nathan Badenoch, A Course in Mundari: kuṛi /kuɽi/, so कुड़ि. - -sche (discuss) 04:22, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Sharon Rose, Chaha (Gurage) Morphology: singular: mɨʃt (=ምሸተ?); suppletive plural: ɨʃta (=እሸታ?). - -sche (discuss) 04:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Gender

There is a large use of the terms men and women as gender identities that do not depend on the biological sex, so this definition may be presented too. 31.154.8.98 00:22, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

This is covered by definition 1, IMO: "an adult female human", where "female" can refer to either sex or gender (senses 1 and 2 of "female"). - -sche (discuss) 00:53, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I feel this would be worth revisiting considering that the specific phrase “adult human female” has become politicized to explicitly try and exclude transwomen. Snaperkids (talk) 17:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Nah it's accurate and fine. Equinox ◑ 19:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

The application of the term "woman", unqualified, to transgendered women is not universal, and the distinction needs to be made, regardless of anyone's views. A dictionary has to reflect actual usage, not approved usage. Koro Neil (talk) 02:45, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Etymology of singular and plural

What is the reason for the vowel alternation between /ʊ/ and /ɪ/? Since the first syllable in both cases derives from "wife", it can't be an original umlaut. I'd suspect that /ʊ/ arose as a mere variant between the two labial consonants and that later on the variation was grammaticalised on the model of actual umlaut plurals. But that's just a guess. Please add information about this if you can. — This unsigned comment was added by 84.188.186.184 (talk) at 19:17, 11 March 2018 (UTC).

I've added an explanation. Dobson notes that the plural was also sometimes pronounced /ʊ/, but /ɪ/ won out. - -sche (discuss) 15:23, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Non-humans

See this February 2020 Tea Room discussion regarding application of woman and man (and girl and boy and some other terms) to elves, aliens, etc. - -sche (discuss) 18:13, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

"a woman teacher", etc

It occurs to me that woman can be used as a modifier in a way that man rarely or never is. Also in the plural, as with women voters, etc. Since in this sense it is a synonym for female, should we list it separately also as an adjective? I get the impression that this use is often pejorative, but surely the League of Women Voters is not pejorative. —Soap— 20:14, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, you don't see news articles about an accident involving a "man driver". However, it's hardly adjectival: you can't really say "very women", "how woman is she?", "the driver was woman". Equinox ◑ 01:21, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, compare e.g. "Louisiana voters", "a Louisiana schoolteacher". It might be useful to document/explain in a usage note, but I agree it's a noun. - -sche (discuss) 08:07, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay thanks, I'll let it be, —Soap— 11:23, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Plural Pronunciation in Varieties of English

The etymology section states that "Although the plural was sometimes also altered to /ʊ/ and wommen, beginning in the 14th century and continuing into early modern times, the original pronunciation ultimately won out." This is probably true for RP. However, the pronunciation section at women has it that this pronunciation has not won out at least in General New Zealand English. I am an American, and my own pronunciation of the plural has /ʊ/, although I do not know how non-standard this is. In any case, one or the other article should be changed and maybe it would be helpful to add some information on varieties which have /ɪ/ and those which have /ʊ/, or other vowels, and the extent to which alternate non-standard pronunciations exist. — This unsigned comment was added by Dijekjapen (talk • contribs) at 04:35, 31 May 2020 (UTC).

Verb inflections: also womanning, womanned?

Perhaps by analogy with man -> manned. I saw womanning thus spelled in the Daily Telegraph this week, in the sense of providing with female staff. Equinox ◑ 22:44, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Equinox: I have added these forms. J3133 (talk) 03:45, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

This made me wonder how common the autogenerated forms with one n were (because sometimes autogenerated forms are wrong), so I checked Ngrams, which finds womaning only 1.5-2x as common as womanning, and womaned and womanned almost equally common. - -sche (discuss) 15:06, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a really interesting verb because (generally) it somehow feels that we should double the consonant if it's stressed, and not if it's unstressed (penned but opened). OTOH my lovely rule doesn't really work at all (lol, travelled UK spelling) so. Anyway, thanks. The real reason this verb is interesting is that it probably wants to mirror the traditional "manned". Which is perhaps a unique thing. Equinox ◑ 02:14, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Acid test: if someone becomes a verb: how many ns? Equinox ◑ 02:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, looking at person#Verb, personning is 1/6 as common as personing, and personned peaked at 1/2 as common, in Google Books. Perhaps that's common enough that we should add the two-n forms to that entry... - -sche (discuss) 23:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: Added. J3133 (talk) 02:53, 4 March 2024 (UTC)