Page:Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders of the Indo-European Languages.djvu/36

26 aciēs, 'sharpness', materiēs, 'matter', 'building material'. The view can be well defended that our suffixes started with this original function, and acquired afterwards, though still of course in the period of the Indo-European community, the power to denote living beings of the female sex. Allow me to establish this position as briefly as possible. It is a peculiarity of the languages of the Indo-European family, modern as well as ancient, that names with abstract signification are often employed for concrete concepts. Terms expressing a quality come to be used to denote the individual person or thing which possesses that quality; further, terms of collective signification are employed to designate individuals. A good example is found in those words which mean youth and youthfulness. In several languages, words such as these have come to be used as implying a single youthful person. The English word youth is a case. Beauty in English, and the corresponding die schönheit in German, are both used to designate beautiful people, though chiefly, of course, those who belong, to the "fair sex." The German employs the abstracts bedienung, 'servic', aufwartung, 'attendance', for individuals who serve and attend. The German frauenzimmer in the older New High