Proto-Indo-European Roots

Proto-Indo-European Roots

Root/Stem:	*wro-

Meanings:	a man, a husband, a human

Cognates:	Greek *hers* (a hero), *aristos* (the best) are thought sometimes to have derived from the same stem, as Indo-European *w disappeares in Greek. The first word is more probable.
	Latin vr (a man, a husband), *virtus* (virtue), Umbrian *viru, veiru* (acc.pl.; men) French *viril, virtu, Portuguese varao* (a man) - ?
	Common Celtic viro-, vero- (a man) > Gaulish *uiro-* (a man), Old Irish *fer, Irish and Scottish Gaelic fear, Manx Gaelic fer, Old Welsh gur, Welsh gwr, Cornish gur, Breton gour*
	Common Germanic vero- (a man, a warrior) > Gothic wair, Old High German, Old English, Old Swedish and Old Frankish wer, Old Norse verr* English *world* (from wer-ald "man's age, lifetime"), German Werwolf* ("man-wolf"), *Welt* (world), Dutch *wereld* (world), Frisian *wrld*
	Avestan *vra-* (a man, a slave, a human being) - the word was contrasted with "cattle"
	Sanskrit *vra* (a man), Gujarati *wer* (a man, a husband) Sanskrit *veera* (a hero), Bengali, Hindi *veera*
	Albanian *burri* (a husband) - we are not sure this comes from the same stem
	Common Baltic vro- (a man) > Lithuanian vyras, Latvian virs, virietis, Old Prussian wjrs, Sudovian vras*
	Slavic - not found

Notes:	In Proto-Indo-European there were several words for "a man", but they all seemed quite different to its speakers because the exact meanings differed: this very word meant "a human", contrasted with animals, non-speaking creatures. This is easily seen in Avestan, but the semantic meaning was lost in most other languages. The antonym for this term was *pek'u- "cattle". The word was an o-stem masculine noun, which was preserved practically in all Indo-European branches.