Page:Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders of the Indo-European Languages.djvu/39

isch, 'selfish', linkisch, 'awkward', hämisch, 'knavish', are examples. The suffix has not, however, in all cases acquired the additional ethical significance. In himmlisch, 'heavenly', städtisch, 'urban', kriegerisch, 'warlike', and many other adjectives it has retained its ancient meaning, which implied no notion either of contempt or esteem. Just as these last-mentioned words have remained entirely uninfluenced by the idea of contempt, so many of the substantives formed with -a- and -ie- contain nothing of the idea of feminine sex: such are Latin fuga, anima, Greek φνγή, χώρα, etc. The parallelism goes still further. If the Romans, when they personified lūna or abundantia, thought of them as feminine, and made them female deities because they associated them with words for female beings like dea, fēmina, lupa, the process is analogous to the treatment of kindisch, 'childish', weibisch, 'womanish'. These last did not yet have in Luther's time any touch of disparagement in their meaning, but denoted what is to-day expressed by kindlich, 'child-like', and weiblich, 'womanly'. They received the secondary touch of disparagement in consequence of the influence of adjectives like diebisch, närrisch, teuflisch, and the like. The further example is the history of the primitive suffix -bho-