An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Mann
Mann, masculine, ‘man, husband,’ from Middle High German man(nn), Old High German man(nn), masculine, ‘person, man.’ The general meaning ‘person’ still appears in Modern High German jemand, niemand, as well as in the pronoun discussed under man. In Anglo-Saxon, man, mǫn (n equivalent to nn), might be used equally of a male or female, although the former sense preponderated; Anglo-Saxon man, ‘person, man, woman,’ English man, Old Icelandic maðr, Gothic manna, ‘person, man.’ The word followed the declension of the two stems mann- and mannan- (thus in Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Old High German, and Middle High German); from the latter the modern plural Mannen has been obtained. Gothic and Teutonic mann- for manw- is based on an older manu- (like Kinn on kennu-, genu-; see also dünn). This Aryan mánu-, ‘person,’ appears also in Indian, but it was used also as Manu, ‘the father of mankind.’ To this corresponds the Teutonic Mannus in Tacitus, ‘the progenitor of the West Teutons’; compare further Sanscrit manus, masculine, and manuša, ‘person,’ perhaps also Old Slovenian mążĭ, ‘man.’ The Indian manu- is usually connected with the root man, ‘to think’ (compare mahnen); in that case the original sense is ‘thinking being.’ This cannot, however, be definitely regarded as the primitively source of the word. It is scarcely probable that the primitively Aryans considered ‘thinking’ to be the essential characteristic of a man. We should rather assume from the earliest Aryan literature, the Old Indian Vedas, that the primitively Aryan felt he was closely allied to the brutes, since the Vedic Indian actually calls himself paçu, ‘beast.’ The literal meaning of Aryan manu-, ‘person,’ can hardly be ascertained now. See Mensch.