Talk:human

Latin humanus as noun

Has Latin humanus really a noun meaning? Is it a medieval usage? Andres 14:02, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

According to [1] apparently not, though it could be medieval (I don't have medieval Latin sources offhand to check with) —Muke Tever — This unsigned comment was added at 18:41, 24 June 2004 (UTC).

According to your source, humani in Lucretius' natura humanis omnia sunt paria could count as meaning 'men, mortals'. Andres 23:07, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Homo (sapiens)

Are these words related to human? Homo means wis or something in Greek. Smiddle / TC@ 18:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Both homō and hūmānus come from *dʰéǵʰōm. (I'm sorry it took an entire decade for you to get an answer.) AutisticCatnip (talk) 11:19, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Second definition

1. Having the nature or attributes of a human being

Would this cover things like "his story was very human"? That is emotional, causing empathy (etc.) I know I haven't expressed that too well. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Why in English other beings "having the nature or attributes of a human being" (like Vulcans, Romulans, Trill) are not styled "human"; and instead "human" equates to "Earthling"?--Manfariel (talk) 14:34, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The IPA pronunciation for human is described as /ˈçjuː.mən̩/. Unfortunately, the ç does not appear on the IPA page. — This unsigned comment was added by 129.27.152.200 (talk) at 13:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC).

It is an IPA symbol, but nobody has bothered to include it in that particular page. It is a voiceless palatal fricative, like the German 'ch' in ich or the Japanese 'h' in hito. It is the palatalized version of /x/ (loch, machen, ach). —Stephen ^(Talk) 14:19, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there a citation for this pronunciation? I personally find the /ç/ quite surprising (I haven't ever heard of that consonant being a feature of GA or RP), so I believe it would be worthwhile to provide a source. AutisticCatnip (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

It isn't /ç/, but [ç], meaning that this is not a phoneme in English but an allophone of /h/ before /j/. And since it's not a phoneme, it's not usually included in IPA transcriptions of English. But there's nothing unusual about it; [ç] is the normal pronunciation in most English accents and that has been understood for a long time. — This unsigned comment was added by 84.188.186.160 (talk) at 16:12, 9 March 2018 (UTC).

However, some speakers say [çuːmən], losing the [j]. In that case, [ç] should actually be considered a phoneme in its own right. — This unsigned comment was added by 84.188.186.160 (talk) at 16:16, 9 March 2018 (UTC).

only human

be only human is an idiom, right? --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Etymology

References to humans as opposed to human beings became predominant in AmE about 1978 and in BrE about 1985. --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:35, 5 September 2021 (UTC)