this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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[–] CallumWells@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

Interestingly enough, in old English you had "werman" and "wifman" for man and woman respectively, in which case referring to all with "mankind" makes perfect sense. So the originator for mankind seems more likely to be from that than the explanation that it's a shortening of "humankind" to me.