From: robertson@delphi.intel.com
Date: Wed 06 Aug 1997 - 19:20:44 EEST
Stephen asks:
>I was not aware that the word "were" originally meant "man" -- if so,
>then I withdraw the suggestion about hsunchen. Maybe -- I guess it would
>depend on whether _Greg_ meant "were" as "man" or "were" as "the first
>part of werewolf".
>Can anyone tell me the linguistic origin of this word, or any modern day
>words (besides werewolf, etc.) which we can relate it to? Although not an
>exact science, linguistics is one of the best tools for studying
>Glorantha, IMO.
It comes from an Indo-European root. The Wer- comes from Germanic
languages, but it is related to Vir- as in Virile (latin) and Sanskrit
Vira. Werewolf literally means man-wolf, but I have never found a genuine
old-Saxon story about werewolves (and I've been looking for Pendragon), so
I can't say what, exactly, the word meant 'way back when; whether the
person turned fully into a wolf, or a Wolfman (part wolf, part man)
creature.
Roderick
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