Alright fine. I shouldn't have said anything about a prefix. Who is HU? What does it mean to be HU-man?
human (adj.)
mid-15c., humain, humaigne, "human," from Old French humain, umain (adj.) "of or belonging to man" (12c.), from Latin humanus "of man, human," also "humane, philanthropic, kind, gentle, polite; learned, refined, civilized." This is in part from PIE *(dh)ghomon-, literally "earthling, earthly being," as opposed to the gods (from root *dhghem- "earth"), but there is no settled explanation of the sound changes involved. Compare Hebrew adam "man," from adamah "ground." Cognate with Old Lithuanian žmuo (accusative žmuni) "man, male person."
As far as I could find the 2nd answer on that is the correct one (rather than the first one), i.e., "hu" doesn't mean anything by itself because the full word is "human" and the etymology isn't that of a compound word "hu" plus "man" it's from one word (as I posted).
(post is archived)