Gothic word for "girl"...?

[ingemarn2000]

Hi,

There is a similar word in ON and also modern Nordic for an umarried woman, originally also a virgin, who is called a 'mö', if young she is a 'ungmö'.

Ingemar



> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Edmund" <edmundfairfax@> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Justine,
> > 
> > The Gothic word for girl is 'mawi' (fem. ja-stem). There is also one instance of the diminutive 'mawilo' (fem. n-stem) 'little girl'. The latter is kin to Old English 'meowle' ('little girl'). According to Lehmann's etymological dictionary, 'mawi' appears to descend from an earlier unattested *'magwi', a derivative of 'magus' ('boy'), with the loss of the 'g'. You may find it interesting to know that the onomastic prefix 'Mac' in such Scottish names as MacDonald, MacDougal, which means 'son of', is cognate with the Gothic word.


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