One derivation (a folk-etymology, perhaps) suggested for the Greek [Greek: _anthropos_] connects it with [Greek: _anthos_], making _man_ to be "that which springs up like a flower." We ourselves speak of the "flower of chivalry," the "bloom of youth," "budding youth"; the poets call a little child a "flower," a "bud," a "blossom,"--Herrick even terms an infant "a virgin flosculet." Plants, beasts, men, cities, civilizations, grow and _flourish_; the selfsame words are applied to them all.
The same idea comes out strongly in the words relating to birth and childhood in the languages of many primitive peoples. With the Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala the term _boz_ has the following meanings: "to issue forth; (of flowers) to open, to blow; (of a butterfly) to come forth from the cocoon; (of chicks) to come forth from the egg; (of grains of maize) to burst; (of men) to be born"; in Nahuatl (Aztec), _itzmolini_ signifies "to sprout, to grow, to be born"; in Delaware, an Algonkian Indian dialect, _mehittuk_, "tree," _mehittgus_, "twig," _mehittachpin_, "to be born," seem related, while _gischigin_ means "to ripen, to mature, to be born."
In many tongues the words for "young" reveal the same flow of thought. In Maya, an Indian language of Yucatan, _yax_ signifies "green, fresh, young"; in Nahuatl, _yancuic_, "green, fresh, new," and _yancuic pilla_, "a new-born babe"; in Chippeway, _oshki,_ "new, fresh, young," whence _oshkigin_, "young shoot," _oshkinawe_, "lad, youth," _oshkinig_, "newly born," _oshkinaiaa_, "a new or young object," _oshkiaiaans_, "a young animal or bird," oshkiabinodji_, "babe, infant, new-born child"; in Karankawa, an Indian language of Texas, _kwa'-an_, "child, young," signifies literally "growing," from _ka'-awan_, "to grow" (said of animals and plants).
Our English words _lad_ and _lass_, which came to the language from Celtic sources, find their cognate in the Gothic _jugga-lauths_, "young lad, young man," where _jugga_ means "young," and _lauths_ is related to the verb _liudan_, "to grow, to spring up," from which root we have also the German _Leute_ and the obsolete English _leet_, for "people" were originally "the grown, the sprung up."
_Maid (maiden)_, Anglo-Saxon _moegd_, Modern High German _Magd_, Gothic _magaths_ (and here belongs also old English _may_) is an old Teutonic word for "virgin, young girl." The Gothic _magaths_ is a derivative from _magus_, "son, boy, servant," cognate with Old Irish _mac_, "boy, son, youth," _mog_ (mug), "slave," Old Norse _mqgr_, "son," Anglo-Saxon _mago_, "son, youth, servant, man," the radical of all these terms being _mag_, "to have power, to increase, to grow,"--the Gothic _magus_ was properly "a growing (boy)," a "maid" is "a growing (girl)." The same idea underlies the month-name _May_, for, to the Romans, this was "the month of growth,"--flowery, bounteous May,--and dedicated to _Maia_, "the increaser," but curiously, as Ovid tells us, the common people considered it unlucky to marry in May, for then the rites of Bona Dea, the goddess of chastity, and the feasts of the dead, were celebrated.
